He wouldn't stop. He kept wobbling on his heels, like a jelly in a suit, warbling away in his pompous, overripe voice. He was telling me how unemployment benefits must be cut entirely. Just find another job, he said. How else are we to incentivise, he said. You see my friend, he said.

Yes, I see. I see a card-carrying Tory like every other ( Read more... )

So then she changed tack. 'Even if you don't want the money, won't you get frustrated seeing other people who aren't as good as you get more? It's about recognition, what you deserve.' Because my value depends on other people, apparently. And the objective measure of that value must be money ( Read more... )

She said she found me strange: 'I've never met a young lawyer who isn't motivated by money.' But isn't making money your motivation stranger still? Money is a means, not an end. What happens to the Kantian conception of the individual as an end, if the individual's ends are only means ( Read more... )

I think I forgot LJ existed. Well, no - have just been so busy juggling the internship and catching up with friends and, er, 'studying'. And now seven days till final year begins! Seven days, and I'm going to make seven posts I've been brooding about in some form or another over the past few months.

Seven days and I shall be purged. I shall be

Top universities insist on A* at A-level

WARNING: Rant.

Dear almost inevitably very adult crowd of people always commenting and making policy on education -

No, the exams aren't that much easier, the marking isn't that much slacker, the kids definitely aren't that much smarter. Everything else has improved. Bye-bye hours of slogging in a library ( Read more... )

Flight tickets confirmed. Three weekends. Slight change in the middle date. So now:

14/15 Aug

28/29 Aug

18/19 Sep

Be there or be, er, not there.

 Doritos are NOT a food group.

There's probably something unethical about sitting in Blackwell's cafe and surfing Amazon.co.uk. But as it turns out I'm going to buy the books from Blackwell anyway, so no harm done eh?

And there are so many of them! Books, I mean. The Norrington room alone, in the basement of this shop alone, has more than 16000 titles on more than 3 miles of ( Read more... )

 Oh, Aretha Franklin. <3

WARNING: Rant on a student 'adaptation' of  The Odyssey. I walked out half way. It was just THAT. BAD.

1. Greek goddesses are GODDESSES, NOT DISNEY NYMPHS. Why is the need to pirouette as well as wave one's arms in a pseudo-balletic manner so endemic among female student performers??? SOD OFF. Athena is a WARRIOR GODDESS. And Eileithia??? CHILDBIRTH ( Read more... )