Enginering and Physics
When I was in Delhi a few weeks ago and took a cycle rickshaw to my friend Smita's place, it was about as close to a religious experience as I have ever come. Delhi rickshaws are sturdier. They are big enough to accomodate three people. Their seats are generally horizontal ones. Calcutta rickshaws follow none of these ( Read more... )

Every year, I'm sure, a few third year students of EngLit at DU decide to do a paper on Leonard Cohen while they're studying the Poetry of the Americas section of the Contemporary Literature course. They then realise it will be difficult to find crit, and impossible to not sound stupid, so they abandon this idea.

I have had myself a Blake and Cohen ( Read more... )

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“Oh, I am monstrous flattered, sir!” Cleone spread out her fan and held it before her face.
“Not flattered, Mistress Cleone; justly appreciated.”
“La!” said Madam Charteris. “How can you say such things, Mr Bancroft? I declare you will make my daughter vain!”
“Vanity, madam, mates not with such beauty as that of your daughter,” he retaliated. To the ( Read more... )

Whenever anyone uses the word canard, I think of ducks.

I just realised Kaka's ex girlfriend was born in 1990.

Come on. no real people were born after 1989, were they?

I grow old. :(

One of the best things about living with applegnat (the best being of course her superlative ginger tea) is that one can wander into her room at all hours of the night and have amusing football related conversation with her.

Consider this, from 4 am a few days ago:

applegnat: Did you see. Real Madrid lost.
thedilettante: Ooh. Who to?
applegnat: ( Read more... )

...I am speechless
because you have fallen beside me
because your eyelashes
are the spines of tiny fragile animals.

I dread the time
when your mouth
begins to call me hunter.

When you call me close 
to tell me
your body is not beautiful
I want to summon
the eyes and hidden mouths
of stone and light and water
to testify against you.

I want them
to surrender before ( Read more... )

A week or so ago 
( Read more... )

In class today Robin Robertson talked about being an editor and a poet, and Maggie Ferguson talked about the Orkney Islands and George MacKay Brown. He was alright, but it was her I was listening to because I’ve wanted to visit the Orkneys for years (I even have one of those strange obscure history books from the Penguin classics series on the ( Read more... )