The Strokes are playing at ULU
Never in my (suprisingly uneventful) life did I see a queue that long and orderly (British), it must have been half a Kilometre. Verder, still geen bericht, goed bericht: I am working on my papers & trying to find time to dedicate to the construction of my Sinterklaas present and poem. I am going to skip things in order to achieve both, that's the end of the semeser for you.

Thankgiving reports
And before I forget, yesterday was my second and last thanksgiving dinner of the weekend, this time with a real turkey (as opposed to two bloddy big chickens on Friday), the food was good (my flatmate had made all this american stuff: pumpkin pie, a.o., and some corny maize stuff (forgive the pun), while her friends had made the turkey). But I must admit I felt my stomach was still full of acids this morning, remnants of its violent battle to do away with all that fat. Last friday's food was equally good, imho, although it was nicer to be with people I actually knew (from my programme), yesterday's group didn't know each other and hadn't all that much to tell.

Grr, it seems there's snow all over England, Wales and Scotland (click for nice pics), but not here! Although, I did notice that the little pools in the park were frozen over this morning.
On the other hand, maybe it wouldn't such a great idea if there were snow here: Hundreds stuck on snow-hit moor The stories I have heard of what would happen in London when there's snow are spectacular. I hope I'll be able to return from South London after dinner tonight!

Notes on the Weather and further Koetjes en Kalfjes
Unlike Exeter, where apparently Vadertje Winter took over, and unlike the Netherlands, where apparently the Autumn Storm Gods are on the rampage, you may be suprised to learn that one blik out of my window here gives an exceedingly pretty, quiet and sunny garden/grave-yard view (nothing morbid: I look out over a park that still bears the traces of its former (mid-19th C.) function as, indeed, the grave yard of St. Andrew's). Life in this city just sort of continues, yesterday I had a presentation that took a lot of my energy because I got way to excited about it (the Sahlins-Obeyesekere debate for those in the know). I'll write later on that, no time now (lest I go wild again).

Today, by the way, as anyone living around USAns will know, is Thanksgiving Day, and what better way to give thanks than to Stuff a Turkey? Everyone in my programme has been invited by the one American girl (nick-named "our Social Secretary") to come for a Thanksgiving Dinner she's prepared tonight, so that's what I'll do. It's going to be a nice and relaxed start of the weekend.

The thing is that my bike has a flat tire and I have class at 10:00 so I need to walk and won't have much time for this up-date anymore. Hence: tot hier en niet verder!

Political Systems of Highland Burma, by Edmund Leach.

Edmund Leach, whom I am forced to read for one of my courses, has just become my hero. This because of what he wrote at the start of yet another chapter (VIII, entitled "The Evidence from Kachin History") that I was about to go through tonight. I just wanted to record this quote for myself.

"I suppose that the main difficulty that every anthropologist has to face is what to do with the facts. When I read a book by one of my anthropological colleagues, I am, I must confess frequently bored by the facts. I see no prospect of visiting either Polynesia or the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast and I cannot arouse in myself any real interest in the cultural peculiarities of either the Tikopia or the Tallensi. I read the works of Professors Firth and Fortes not from an interest in the facts but so as to learn something about the principles behind the facts. I take it for granted that the vast majority of those who read this book will be in a similar position with regard to the Kachins. How then should I dispose of the facts, the detailed evidence?

To a very considerable extent the present chapter is simply a documentation of a thesis which I have already propounded."

Excellent! In one paragraph and one sentence Leach has convinced me that I can skip this chapter! And that I'll do. What's worse: I'll close the book for tonight.

What's next?
That's the biggest conversation topic among the UCL M.Sc.'s these days: what the hell are we going to do next? Although so far the main result of this has been to scare each other even more about that place called "The Real World". It seems to be a rather shitty place to be in .. I fear that for my own sanity I will set it aside for now and focus on my Thesis topic and my two papers due in December (that's in four weeks!! Fuuccckk....)

London = Not Shit after all
OK, so London is not quite as shit as I may have been thinking it was really. Autumn sun shine and uplifting conversations with you fellow students about possible futures (see above) push your mind both up and down. Yesterday morning I picked up my book and almost immediately threw it away again. "I need oxygen! I need the cold on my face to wake me up!" And without a mind, I just 'up and walked away' (that's from a Bad Religion song for the uncultured ones among you). I didn't even bring a notebook or a camera and both were dearly missed, because I went in a direction I hadn't been to very often yet.

So, yesterday I made a discovery. What I found I don't think the common tourist will ever encounter on his own, but there is a system of alleyways, backpassages and walks that lead to the most marvellous places. Basically curiosity about what it was I was seeing there in the distance dragged me on from the one site to the other until all of a sudden I was at St. Paul's Cathedral wondering how the hell I had gotten there. Amongst others I had passed through and along: Dickensian high rise flats, several beautiful mediaeval church yards, the Gate of the Priory of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem (built in 1504) leading to the still operating Priory (now a charity operating an ambulance and an Ophthalmologist (of zo iets, they mean Eye Disease) centre, old old inns, the Church of St. Bartholomew where the "Worshipful Community of Fruiterers" had planted a tree to celebrate the Third Christian Millenium. I entered the Church of St. Magnus-the-Martyr where they worship a Viking: really he's there, in the centre of the Church horned helmet and battle axe and all! Here the "Worshipful Community of Plumbers" had been so nice as to provide a nice replica of what London Bridge looked like in 1400 (pretty cool actually: all houses along the sides and a chapel at the centre of the bridge). Anyway, I won't bore you with what else I saw, although I decided I'll take anyone coming here to visit me on this walk instead of to the Big Ben and Hyde Park and that sort of places. Mediaeval London is way cooler. Did I mention there's a Guild Hall here? Apparently there's still Guilds here (those Worshipful Communities I mentioned) and (last fact of the day) Goldsmith's College, one of London's Universities, was founded by the Worshipful Community of Goldsmiths. Anyway, this walk I undertook yesterday lasted for four hours, but as I walked by the remnant of the (ROMAN) wall of Londondinium in Noble Street I realised what an incredible story there is in this place. And for the first time since I arrived here with that unwashable grin of the new cosmopolitan in September I realised I actually quite love this place.

Short news round-up
Por fa', disculpeme for my virtual absence on this blog; geen bericht goed bericht, but still this doesn't bode too well. So, here's a short news round-up:

• This morning my brother left for Buenos Aires, Argentina, his blog is up now (see right as well).
• Sony is an Evil Mega Corporation (EMC) whose CDs you should all shun (download 'em instead, I'd say; if you're interested why: clickery 1 & click part 2 to be continued, no doubt. Oh, and beware, these links might be info-overload if you're not really interested)
• London is sunny & cold, no snow though, gloves dearly missed.
• My posting of svenska MP3s has at least led to one person stealing an album.
  

Oxford
A bit more elaborate: last Tuesday I went to Oxford with Anna & Joost. Oh! the joy of finally leaving the Megacity London to make an Inklings & Lewis Caroll pilgrimage and visit that time-capsulated Anthropology Museum, the Pitt-Rivers. The road there was not entirely without problems (where does that bloddy bus leave ?!?), we eventually got there around 9 in the morning (involving me getting up at 5:30 and A&J having an overnight Exeter-London bus). After some confused wandering about the first stop is the Lewis Caroll shop, where the original Alice used to buy candy and where they now sell diverse Carolliana. I am sure Anna will report on this extensively in her own blog, after someone special left this country.

Some further wandering led us eventually to the Bodleian Library, keeper of the Codex Bodley / Zouche-Nuttall (text / example pic), one of the few surviving Meso-American codices, on which they had a great book that for some reason I didn't buy. Maybe I should have, but I didn't. I now know it is all on the internet as well :-)

Lunch was at the Bird and Baby, or Eagle and Child pub, where Inklings-literary club met. All in all, I can see where Tolkien got his inspiration from in Oxford, it is almost commonplace now, but true: the colleges create a magical athmosphere, somewhere where you can point at the diverse races of Middle Earth: the chapel at the Bodleian Library was distinctly Elvish, although most colleges had more late-Numenorean aspects (think: Gondor). Apparently this tower is Sauron's Temple in Númenórë that inspired its downfall.. I imagine the tower used to be black before it was cleaned by the Heritage Industry. (who's laughing? Tolkien is serious business!! Oh, who am I fooling.)

The Pitt-Rivers Museum is, as I said Frozen in Time by the will of the late name-sake General Augustus Henry Lane Pitt-Rivers, who wouldn't allow any change to the set-up after his death in 1884. Unfortunately, his ideas on the linear development of humankind are somewhat out-of-fashion nowadays ... What's left is a fascinating place choke-full of objects that we all know from cartoons on the savages, including shrunken heads, scalps, decorated blackened skulls, 'magic' items, a 14th C. "hand cannon", and hawaiian feather capes. Imagine a high hall with barely any space for movement, according to the website introduction:

"The Museum is a fascinating place for those studying changing historical attitudes."

well, indeed!

Your Weekly Anthropological Observations:
Today: Cycling in London

• Most London cyclists dress like they are practicing some sort of olympic sport, bearing a backpack with, presumably, their normal working dress.
• Taxi-drivers in London kill and are more numerous than in the NL, hence more dangerous.
  
• Busdrivers, idem. also rather universal
  
• Dutch tourists remarking "Hé! Een fiets!" when you, a compatriot, pass by... How should one react in such a case, one wonders.. please discuss with the person sitting next to you.
  
• I took on wearing a reflective shirt to not die.
• There actually are cycling lanes & a system of routes of sorts that lead you through backalleys with less cars. This also results in often losing one's way thanks to defective sigb-posting, so you end up on Oxford Street after all...
  
• Cycling on Oxford Street is NOT funny ...
• In Hyde Park is quite cool, though.
• English cyclists go about bend over their "handlebars" ("fietsstuur", wat een stom woord in het engels, i.m.h.o.) because the concept of "Omafiets" is unbeknownst to their minds. Pity the poor savages...
  

Liljorna och Jamie Oliver
OK, so the whole Lilly thing was not quite as funny as it appeared on Thursday afternoon. It turned out that my flatmate was extremely upset, which made me feel very sorry for her and made me also very upset. What could I do but say sorry, it was stupid and wrong of me to throw away your flowers? But that was the evening I could least use something like this; for it ruined any chance I could work on that bloody paper I had due friday. Eventually I had to set myself over it and worked and worked until 2:30 and then I still wasn't satisfied and about 1500 words short. So I set my alarm at 6:30. The paper had to be handed in at noon Friday and when I did, I still thought it was shit. Lesson learned: don't throw away other people's birthday flowers and start essays earlier. So this morning I started reading for next paper; really, both lessons have hit home hard..

But for something completely different: this afternoon two of my flatmates and I went out to Borough Market, the best market in London for food. We had a Jamie Oliver cookbook and we wanted to make this great 'spring chicken'-with-grapes recipe. Those are very young chickens by the way, so we all had a whole chicken each! Both the dinner (which I have just 'achter de kiezen') and that market were absolutely fabulous and I'll definitely come back there, if only to buy mexican foodstuffs like: all sorts of dried chillis and masa harina (tortilla flour) and pozole (type of dried maize). Oh! And they also had: boerenkool! Which is known as 'curly kale' around here, apperrently; but as it hasn't frozen yet it can't be any good.

Missed tradition of Yesterday: Armistice Day. Apparently everyone holds two minutes silence at 11am at the 11th of the 11th, but as I was stressing out over my paper (which I was just about to print then) and I didn't know... Found out about it at 11:20.

Missed tradition of Today: the Lord Mayor of London Day. A large parade for the (powerless) Lord Mayor of London (so that is not Red Ken). Saw some dressed-up soldiers though, and the bus wouldn't go further than Holborn (Ho'bun as Anna knows), which is still a long way from the market, which was under London Bridge. Also we heard the fireworks. But, this did allow us to learn of what I would declare to be the London street name of the year: Cheapside Poultry !

Link of the day: http://www.killbillsbrowser.com/

Lillies
Conversation in the hall-way some 10 minutes ago with flat-mate X (of female sex) who shall remain anonymous.

Her: :-( Mark, do you know what happened to the Lillies that I got for my birthday ?

Me: They were in the Kitchen and they kept falling over, so at some point I just threw them away.. [mentally: and they stank tot aan de hoge hemel]

Her: :-( But my boyfriend spent over a 100 pound on those flowers!

Me: O_O I am so sorry! I didn't know that! Fuck ... [That guy gave you lillies worth over a HUNDRED BLOODY POUNDS!?! And while you don't even have a proper vase, so you put them in a beheaded Evian bottle!?! A hundred pounds! That's 150 euros! That's over 300 old fashioned guilders! Fuuuccckk...]

Her: :-( That's alright ... [What??? I get away that easily? Ahh, we're playing the I-am-giving-you-a-guilty-conscience-game, well, you succeeded. Why, though; why?!? A hundred pounds! This world is mad...]

And back to my essay now. Aju.

Essay Hell
Writing my first essay in, well, almost a year is quite hellish. I am writing on the relation between History and Anthropology, but i regret having taken that topic, I haven't read enough it is way too broad! I am getting cynical and pseudo-funny anarchic in my academic writing, that can't be good. Well, I give up for tonight (even though the heading says this is written on Thursday, it is actually still very much wednesday for me). Expect fewer posts before Friday, when the whole thing is due. At 12am. Damn it. That is never going to work .. Welcome back to being a student, Mark. I had almost forgotten about the hardships involved in writing an essay, looking back it always seemed so easy. I am sure I can hear some gloating laughs coming now..

Guido Fawkes Day (a very long essay for a weblog, I got carried away a bit. No literature was used in the argument, so most of it is speculation, but -I hope- learned speculation. Just ignore this if you are actually interested in my life)

At the fifth of November people in England set fire to bonfires and sometimes burn effigies of someone called 'Guy Fawkes' and they set of fireworks. Apparently the English still celebrate the fact that exactly 400 years ago (1605) some disgruntled Catholics tried to blow up parliament. But this explanation cannot really be the full truth, i.m.h.o. There must be more to it. In anthropo-speak, I think there are two narratives* at play here. Narratives is a term used for 'stories' people tell to explain why they do what they do, but anthropologists never completely trust what the natives tell them ;-)

One of these narratives is an official, 'state'-narrative. And I think it may be reminiscent of what was intended by the dictators in George Orwell's 1984 by the "Two Minutes / Week of Hate": to ritually focus the angry feelings of the masses at an enemy to create a feeling of national unity and to strengthen orthodox belief in the system of the ruling class (be they 'Party'-members or Parliamentarian Democrats). In 1984 people scream at a picture, at Guy Fawkes Day people burn traditionally burn an effigy of state-enemy Guy Fawkes. These enemies, by the way, are both mysterious conspirators and most importantly: outsiders. The one is a Catholic (Guy Fawkes) and the other a Jew (Emmanuel Goldstein in 1984). As Anna showed in her blog (here), Catholics were targeted in Exeter during Guy Fawkes day in the 19th Century and the Church of England openly participated. I am guessing here, but I believe that 'the state' (who's that then? Shut up.) at that moment in time particularly needed such a rallying point as the nation was very much divided. Marx called it class struggle and believed that the inevitable revolution of communism would start in the UK.
But also: this is a State-occassion at which the ruling system is affirmed in its rule. By setting of the fireworks people 'celebrate' (that is why we usually set of fireworks, isn't it?) the fact that Parliamentary Democracy survived and continues to thrive. May be we can see it as a sort of acclamation, a form of election by voice.

But this alone can, again i.m.h.o., not explain why people still celebrate Guy Fawkes Day. There must be another 'narrative', one that is more hidden and not really pronounced. What I am going to say here is, by the way inspired by an explanation for Guy Fawkes Day that I found in an tiny article in last Saturday's 'Guardian'. In this explanation 'Guy Fawkes Day' is a more 'primitive' (mind you, not necessarily pre-Christian pagan) ritual transition between Autumn and Winter. Primitive in the sense that "transitions and borders (wherever and in whatever shape they may appear) always invite ritual" is almost an Anthropological law - although of course invitations are not always accepted - and because we are dealing here with an event that was very close to home for people living with nature in a way city dwellers don't. That means the other 99.99999999% of humanity that ever populated this earth of which you are not a member.

At the bonfire people burn 'life' (plants & a human figure), just like winter kills 'life' in autumn. And from the ashes new life emerges in spring. On another level you can explain the burning of the evil spirit of Guy Fawkes as a ritual moral cleansing. Fire = 'cleansing', and 'destruction', a necessary pre-condition for regeneration. Another aspect of the burning of the puppet at the stake ties in with the 'state' narrative, but 'elevates' the meaning of Guy Fawkes to the level of 'Evil Spirit'. Warding off of evil spirits is an important thing to do when winter approaches! And this way we find another explanation for the fireworks, because they are often associated with the expelling of evil spirits as well. This is certainly true of the Chinese context, and I believe also of the Western context. See for instance how often the Chinese explanation is repeated in our parts of the world; plus this explanation fits in nicely with the picture I am trying to make here, so again shut up, you imaginary critic ;-) But to give you another reason: note, for example, how fireworks are associated with the 'moral purity' of individuals that set them off: we want only trustworthy people to be allowed to handle the potentially dangerous materials.

But that is again state narrative, we have all seen the kids roaming the streets with fireworks and every year people get injured by experimenting with fireworks, as this risky behaviour does not fit in with the state narrative it is repressed, at least where the central state is strong. Because another interpretation of Guy Fawkes Day is also possible: as a carnival (inversion of roles) and a ritual challenge to authority. This is demonstrated in places like Ottery St Mary (where Anna went) and Lewes. In the first village people run around with burning barrels of tar and in the second there is general mayhem of a similar manner combined with a, erm, more contemporary interpretation of Guy Fawkes: here puppets made after dis-liked local and world figures are ritually burned at the stake (including people like the mayor, certain police officers, Tony Blair and George Bush). If I had more energy left I would try and find out why people in Ottery St Mary carry burning barrels around, but I've got more to do, although this essay is already quite long now...

But indeed, as Anna already rightly noted, traditions are constantly under negotiation; they need to maintain a meaning for the participants. May be that explains why there was no bonfire on Black Heath Park, where I went last saturday. For the city dweller the whole 'regeneration of the earth' business is of no importance (a simple"but the bonfire is so nice for the kids!" won't do, unless a new meaning is constructed), as the shift of the seasons will not affect his live apart from the clothes he wears. That might explain why there was no bonfire at Balck Heath Park, as it was too much associated with regeneration and cycles of seasons and hence unimportant in the city. Of course you could say that there were practical reasons why there was no bonfire, but if the bonfire would have been important enough in the heads of the organisers there would have been a bonfire, believe me. For this reason I think that for the city dweller what I called the 'state'-narrative is the more important one, so they celebrate 'Parliamentary Democracy' and drive away the 'Evil Spirits' of its enemies, all by setting off fireworks, while the shift of the seasons argument might be more important in the countryside (Ottery St Mary). Lewes is, I believe, somewhere in-between countryside and sub-urb for London, and apparently the authority / carnival question is more important there. But I don't really know the contexts of these two places so I can't really say anything about them.

But, to conclude: I think the tradition of Guy Fawkes Day is not going to dissappear anytime soon. There are many reasons to celebrate that all fit under the big mask of Guy Fawkes Day; reasons that can give the day a meaning in many different places, from agricultural communities to big cities.

OK, now I have ruined another evening that I could have better spent writing an essay that is actually due friday, but I guess I am half-excused as I praticed my Anthropological analysis skills. Please, any feedback is very welcome, just write me an e-mail or leave a comment by clicking on the comment button below.

Deaventer Koeke!
I would like to share my joy with you at finding today in my local Sainsbury's the following item: J.B.Bussinks Echte Gemberkoek (although redubbed as "J.B.Bussink's Real Dutch Stem Ginger Loaf"); truly, such discoveries, combined with my first home-ground coffee brought light to my otherwise dreary I-really-should-be-writing-that-bloody-essay-life.

Furthermore, due to some expectant and reproachful comments elsewhere, I shall deliver my Anthropological analysis of Guy Fawkes day later tonight that I promissed earlier (and that Anna so dearly missed) (another excuse not to write the essay that I should be wiritng, I fear)

Hail reader, onverdroten this account of life, the universe and everything (focused on Central London) continues. I wouldn't know what would interest you, but there is a lot in store, although I guess we'll have the summary tonight.

What I did not do.
For instance it may interest you to know that I did not get to see Karl Marx's tomb this pouring wet Sunday as High Gate Cemetery charges an entrance fee I wasn't feeling like. Although while overthere I discovered there is quite a nice view over the city from Hampstead Heath. All the while it poured rain.

I was also going to see "Howl's Moving Castle", a Japanese animated movie by Miyazaki tonight, but that unfortunately went wrong as well; for which I can partly blame my mobile-less existence, which - sorry Anna - I guess will be under revision soon. The fact was that I was going to meet a girl from my programme at the Odeon at Leicester Square, so I arrive in time (actually slightly early, as befitting), but it appears there's quite a crowd and part of the square is fenced-off because today's the bloddy World Premiere of "Harry Potter And The Fire Goblet" or something like that. I spotted surprisingly few kids in silly costumes, I guess they had all already left as apparently everyone invited was inside watching the movie. Well, I assure you it is quite hard to find someone under such circumstances and one wonders how people managed in pre-mobile days, as it transpires that people nowadays can't.

Guy Fawkes
OK, now I have almost forgotten to introduce you to Guy Fawkes Day. My 5th of November started off by refusing to leave my bed for any significant amount of time until 15:30; I finished my Terry Pratchett book now: thank you Lani! By 16:00 we (being myself and two of my flatmates) had decided to leave for Black Heath Park, one of the last remaining firework places of significance in London that did not charge you an entrance fee. As, however, this was in the South east of London it took us a well over an hour to get to the Park (having picked up one of my flatmates' friend, a native to the area. Fireworks were pretty nice and lasted for almost half an hour, for the rest: items no. 2, 3 & 7 of this report apply. No. 8 as well, with the modification that our masses all wanted to enter the train station. This we circumvented by getting lost in the sub-urbs of London looking for the DLR station Lewisham, where we had got off. We got lost because the local High Street that we had past on the way to the park was now completely filled with people and the only way to pass would be to walk over the heads, which doesn't seem all that unrealistic looking back at it.. Points 4 & 5 don't apply for the rather glaringly untraditional lack of bonfire, but as there was no Mayor of Greenwich to boo at, nobody seemed to mention anything, I guess it was the price we paid. Point 9 doesn't apply either, as my flat- and country-mate P. took some nice fireworky pictures on his phone that I may or may not be able to post as we first need a computer able to establish a bluetooth connection ... (The weblog I got this report from, by the way, belongs to someone I never met and don't know, but I have been reading it for years now. I think it is a pretty nice weblog (obviously so because of similar politics, a.o.), so explore it when you're bored!)

The Kent-mp3
I have tested it & on my computer the downloading of the file seemed to work (see post below), you open the link and then select the free-option (all the way down), which then makes you wait a full bloddy 30 seconds before you get the download link (scroll all the way down again). There are no annoying commercials, just those google text thingees which you can easily ignore. Maybe there are pop-ups but firefox blocks those anyway. (Public Service Announcement: You should ALL USE FIREFOX. Thank you.)

But! Lo and behold thanks to O. and J. I now have the translation of my favourite song twice.
Hosana!
Here they are, first I put O.'s Dutch home-made version, then J.'s English one (dunno where he's got his; he's in Barcelona you know?)

Rozen & Palmblad
Wachten, altijd dat wachten
Van wit tot grijs tot zwart
Dit jaar was zwart
En de lelies vallen 's nachts uit een raam in Västerås
Ik hoor je lach

Boven de pluimen, het palmblad en het kruis
Die ratelen daar in de wind, zo licht als hese stemmen
Van hen die reclame maken, zombies uit het graf opjagen
Geef mij iets bekends

Verlangen, altijd dat verlangen, ver hiervandaan
Ver, ver weg
En de rozen laten alle blaadjes weer vallen
Alsof ze bloed huilden, omdat het leven zo kort is

En mensen in de gesloten stille huizen
Kijken door een kier in de gordijnen en staren naar buiten naar de straat
Met bange ogen, bang voor alles dat kan gebeuren
Hoewel het al gebeurd is

Roses & Palm-leaves
Waiting always this waiting
From white to grey to black
This year was black
And the lilies fall from a window
In Västerås tonight
I hear your laughter

Over the plumes palm-leaves and crosses
That rattle there in the wind
That sounded like hoarse voices
From those who do the commercial
Chase zombies from out their graves
Give me something that is known

Longing always this longing
From here far away
Far far away
And the roses shed all the petals again
As though they cried blood
Because life is so short

And people in the locked, quiet houses
Slightly open the curtain
And look out into the street
With eyes that are afraid
Of everything that can happen
Even though it already has happened

So far for Kent. Here's for the rest of today: I went to the embassy today to request my new passport, as a result of which I now go without one, which I hope won't be a problem later tonight. This because another revolutionary act will take place as I have been invited by one of my flatmates to celebrate her birthday here. A huge, fancy club at Piccadily Circus. Another first, I wonder what it'll be like. So, to continue my capitalist exploits I bought a set of clothes @ Muji! A Japanese department store ... Very nice, though. (imagine my sheepish grin here)

Ok, tot zover. Oh, and remember, remember the fifth of November! (Guy Fawkes Day for non-Brits; see tomorrow's entry no doubt, or otherwise Sunday's)

Bah.
I was lost in the platonic cave today; surrounded by people, who apparently had seen the light of a realm of ideas that said absolutely nothing to me. Marxist Metaphysics, I should be interested: power relations and ideologies were on the programme today. But please, please PLEASE leave the bloody miereneukerij (ant-fuckery, sic) and haarkloverij (hair splitting) on these issues between Althusser, Lacan, Žižek, Strathern, Dumont and all the others OUT, especially when I am tired. Thank you.

Good Music.
On a different note, I am terribly and hopelessly in love with this CD now. You should all travel to Sweden and buy it. I guess liking music is always personal, but this music just fucks with my head in a very special kind of way; some of these songs are so compelling I have to stop everything else that I am doing and I can only listen, listen and forget everything around me, listen and, this sounds almost religious, become one with the music. En timme, en minut // Här står tiden stilla // Jag är bara ljud (One hour, one minute // time stands still here // I am only sound). That song is from another album, but it catches my idea of listening to Kent very neatly. I will share one song (click it and download the mp-3! Oh! wonders of contemporary technology!) with you, one that I particularly like. It is called Rosor & Palmblad (Roses and Palm leaf) and don't ask me what it is about as I haven't found a translation yet, although the swedish lyrics are here. It is melancholic and maybe at some point bombastic if you approach it from the negative side, but just sit back, close your eyes, and let yourself be led by the rythm, which is like a wave or a brook; it all flows very organically, then one instrument leads and then another, but not your average rock instruments. But, ah, what am I saying? I stop, before this becomes yet another of

those commentaries on music that are written with an abundance of tedious paraphrase and misguided abstractions - as if music could be the object of linguistic discourse, when its peculiar quality is to express what can be said no other way. (Claude Lévi-Strauss - The Raw and the Cooked 1986:31)

Which reminds me: according to this same man only Mathematics, Music and Anthropology are the sciences that are worth persuing. So I am happy; I made the right choice and some of the people reading this will be too (I mention F, who took up at least two of these, and A. too if we count Sociology as Anthropology). And I, for now, shall forget about Marxist Metaphysics.

In het kader van "ils sont fou, les anglais"
Yesterday's Guardian featured a one-and-a-half page In Memoriam for an exceptional racing horse, plus a two-page 'centrefold' picture of the horse in question. Requiescat in Pace Best Mate, that was his name.

Furthermore
Yesterday I worked a bit on the student-teacher relation/networking field by joining the big men for dinner at a curry place, which was nice. Mind you, I wasn't the only student. It was esp. interesting to see academic politics at work; we had a speaker from Saint Andrew's in Scotland, and one of the visiting profs (a young man from Manchester Uni.) who followed us to the restaurant was quite obviously working on getting a job either there or at UCL by, indeed, networking: getting himself known amongst the elders who might later decide upon his appointment. And as the big men were too engaged in their own carribeanist conversations, he spoke frankly with us, the students, about this. As Foucault already argued (he was reading this week), power is everywhere, politics is everywhere, no escaping it!

on another note: in the five minutes it just took me to get home from uni it poured rain .... grumble ... grumble ... And there's noisy noises coming from the grave yard ever since hallow-e'en ...
BUT: next week's reading week: a holiday they instated here so all the stressed students get an opportunity to catch up the reading that throughout the semester goes at an incredible pace.

Meditation
Tonight I first went to have some italian coffee at the place of one of my fellow students who also lives in these halls and afterwards I went for a walk. One of my old-fashioned wanderings, at random through the residential areas that surround us (remember: this is central london we're talking about, and still, there's no irony involved here). I walk the empty streets and I clear my head, just forget about courses, anthropology, passports, bank accounts and all the other shit. And after I wandered into a hidden little square where really I wasn't supposed to go, something struck me: there was silence here, no, not silence: there was a sound, the sound of the wind in the trees, rustling. I stood still and I don't think I moved for a couple of minutes looking up at these two trees in the little square. All of a sudden, I felt I would almost have cried if I had stayed still any longer, feelings of joy and sadness went through me. Joy that I found this little place at this beautiful moment, when the eternal sound of traffic was far away and overwhelmed by the sound of rustling trees; nature wins over culture eventually. Sadness as I was reminded of the forrest of Amelisweerd, where I loved to walk and wander and that all of a sudden seemed so far away. Anything qualifying as not-city seemed so far away in this metropolis, you wonder whether it ever ends... Thankfully, to add the my melodramatic feelings it started raining.

For those of you less versed in Lower-Saxon dialects (see post below):

I just had my picture taken under the most anarchic of circumstannces: I was sitting down on a little stairs with a white screen behind me while the photographer was struggling an over-full deks in order to get a good sight of me. It worked out in the end and there's nothing ot be seen in the final product of all this. Now I can get my passport tomorrow! Yay, my first visit to a Dutch embassy abroad!

Vandaege 's Plat.
Mien va ef mien gester 'n artikel estuurd woar uut bliek da plat 76 persent rapper sol wean as Hooghaarlemmerdieks. Dus vandaege alleenig op Plat! Maer 'k ebbe nog völle te leer'n (in kort wean) as dèze veurbeeld'n bewiez'n:

Ik wil u uitnodigen voor een gesprek onder vier ogen ...........gao'j met noar buut'n?
Hetgeen u zojuist meedeelde, was mij niet geheel duidelijk..............Hè?
Uw lijn van redeneren lijkt mij van logica gespeend .........gao toch hen!
Ligt dat in de lijn van verwachting? ........................zol dat?

De zunne schient iier in Londen en ik wachte op de kaffee-iene um mien blood te berei-jk'n. Tis alderbarst'ns weineg te melden van iiere wieders. Gester e'k ok noa de Ambassade bie 'aid (hyde) park ewes um mien passepoort te verleng'n, maer zie kont mien alleeneg 's maarns vroog elp'n, dus mot ik nog een keere terug en ok e'k nog een 'footoo' (twents) neudig. Dus da letste doo-w vandaege maer en maarn giet't vroog terug noa d' ambassade. Die ambtenaar'n warkt aleenig tussen 9 en 12; ik gie-j loater ok bie d'Ambassade wark'n!

Ik 'eb n bettien an't opruum'n wes, dus mien kaemer lik noe 'n bettien minder volle en noadien 'ek nog wa wieter underzooek edoane noa wat asse'k dèze zommer gie-j' doon; woar asse'k mien tiesis, zoas zie da iier nuumt, over gieje skriev'n. Iene van mien idee'n ef wa' me dit artikel van dooen; maer 'k bin gaar nie zèker da'k doar wa me wil goan dooen: wille'k we in Nèdderlaand goan warken? En ok nog in Holland? 'T blif muuilek .. ik perbere dus 'n bettien n gooed underzooek ideegien te verzin'n, waor ik ie-je nie wieters mè gieje verveel'n noe.

Nah, dèze mallegeid ef noe wè lang genog eduurt: Gooed goan en völle wölle iederiene!
(die letste uutspraek (völle wölle) mut iemand mien nog es uutleggen, wat as da noe eg betèknen..)


BTW: The site I linked to Saturday is now un-borked
and should work properly again.