Routine Days and A Mention in the Telegraph

Its been a couple of routine days for me. Tuesday was spent on essay writing in the morning, faffing about in the afternoon before a tutorial at 3pm. I did get to eat in St Hilda's hall at the invitation of Anjli for dinner, an added bonus being that it was carvery night which meant meat and potatoes - something I am definitely not disagreeable to! After dinner, I headed off to the Turf Tavern, my favourite pub in Oxford, which I had not visited since the start of term, since it was still doing some renovation work in the first week of term. I had meant to do the pub quiz there, which happens every Tuesday, but I missed the entire first round. Luckily, I bumped into some Trinity people - Jon Ayling, Ben (who does history) and Alex Pinder, and we had one of those usual wonderfully stimulating discussions that involved things like what is conciousness and correspondingly what that meant in terms of its implications on animal rights and animal testing.

Wednesday was another pretty lazy day. I spent quite a part of it reading for pleasure - a very guilty pleasure indeed in the context of Oxford. I am currently reading Number9Dream by David Mitchell, who's Cloud Atlas I had greatly enjoyed. He writes with a brilliantly efferversent style, which people either find superbly exciting or highly annoying, and his tendency to create a highly non-linear story, with lots of narrative dead ends, and his blending of reality and fiction can cause palpitations in traditionalists. In fact, one reviewer caused quite a bit of controversy when he declared Cloud Atlas "unreadable" and refused to give an opinion on it. Still, I find Mitchell to be a hugely creative and talented author, though I agree that it doesn't work all the time, and he does suffer from a kind of creative exposion in certain situations - where you are just overwhelmed by the force and quantity of ideas being thrown at you.

Last evening also saw me attending Presdential drinks at the invitation of Mr Beloff, primarily because one of the Jardine Matheson people had been invited to high table. It was then that he mentioned that I had been mentioned by Anne Robinson in a recent issue of the Daily Telegraph with reference to my exploits on the Trinity Quiz team. I must say that it was quite flattering and somewhat embarassing, but I am very pleased to say that least. The link is here for those interested in seeing the article.