Skating Pictures
Not much news from London today: have some pictures from last week's skating trip.

Booooooksss!
As compensation for my studious readings yesterday (and this morning, too) and because I felt a good introductory/overview type of book about Post-Modernism and/or Post-Colonialism would be useful, I decided to go to Waterstone's after lunch. To get the facts straight immediately: I did get a good and cheap "Introducing: Post-modernism" from Icon Books, which - despite the retro 80's lay-out - nicely and intelligably seems to cover the theory/theories I needed. But, while looking for my book I noticed that apparently Waterstone's is having a promotion of the Routledge Classics series and there were loads of them, all with nice orange "£2 off" stickers. All of a sudden I felt like one of those crazed women at the door at the opening of the Harrod's sale (yes, shopping is a very gendered activity, and I won't be PC about it: I'm a white male after all! Muhahaha, the power!! (metacommentary: introducing: postmodern ironic (meta-)commentaries))))) Why, you ask, this sudden possession? This series, I read somewhere and I agree, is of similar importance for our/my generation as the Penguin Paperbacks/Classics (with those orange back-covers) for my parents's generation, they've got all those luvly, luvly books that you really, really want and they're cheap.. So, along with my post-modern book I bought today the Brothers Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales (all 210 of them), founding fathers of the ethnographic/folk-lorist story-collectors, and it has a scientific/historic introduction and afterword. I guess I will just have to come back to buy Hans Christian Andersen's Stories and Tales (with 19th C. illustrations). I've always wanted these books, but not in some dumbed-down children's version; I wanted the real thing! And here it is. Hallelujah!
"The Faries in Tradition and Literature" by Katherine Briggs, Marc Ferro's "The Use and Abuse of History". Midgley's "Evolutionism as Religion", and quite a couple more: Foucault, Adorno, Malinowksi, Durkheim, all these people that I definitely should read at some point.. All about 7 or 8 pound. Aargghh... This summer I will return home with quite a lot more books than I arrived with.

What is the value of books? When walking back just now I was comparing them with Hawaiian Mana: a power residing in particular objects (e.g. a royal feather cloak, a gun, the bones of James Cook etc.), but then, here in Europe there are only certain ritual specialists (known as intellectuals) that are capable of recognising the power of certain of these so-called books: for instance, they will know the tremendous power (controversial and otherwise) associated with Edward Said's "Orientalism", and the possession of such a book will be one of several marks that can denote the owner as a fellow ritual specialist. Note that mere possession can't be enough, you need to be able to say something more about it than "I really like the picture on front of that naked girl dancing with a snake". Such remarks can immediately disqualify the owner as a proper ritual specialist. Unless he's clearly using (postmodern) irony.

Some people say it's crap, all that talk about (P/p)ost-(m/M)odernism(s).

More English Skating & other Adventures.
Believe it or not, but skating appears to be extremely popular here in the UK. Well in any case, the Alexandra Palace Ice Rink (not open-air like Sommerset House, but also cheaper and no one-hour time limit) in North London was literally packed. Eventually three brave skaters showed up (plus me, makes 4), one Englishman, one Italian, and one American, but before being able to display their superior ice-skills they had to wait in traditional English queues for well over an hour in total to, first, get a ticket, and second, get skates. But we made it! We will not let English efficiency get in our way, nay, our right to skate on proper ice. So, after Tuesday's first on ice-hockey skates, I now had my first on figure-skates (there must be lead in those, btw). It was a great success, despite this being, on average, the second time on ice in my fellow students's lives, only one fell (the Italian), and that only once. But did I say it was busy? It was. I don't think I was quite expecting it, but it appears that quite a number of Dutch stereotypes about the outside world don't really go (for the UK at least):

1. Drop, or Liquorice, is in fact well known around here, and not only here (in the UK), but also in Scandinavia where at least the Fins apparently have a great diversity of Dropjes. Overhere, we find at least, as expected, the so-called Engelse Drop (freely available at Sainsbury's) and also various other sorts, as explained to me by one of the natives, although the various names escape me at the moment.
2. Stroopwafels, another ex-pat heimweh-object is, thanks to globalisation (or something like it) freely available at the local Starbuck's, and the UCL Union Coffee Bar!
3. English (London) weather, when compared to the Weather Forecasts of our beloved NOS 8 Uur Journaal, compares favourably. What dreariness? Although ... Unfortunately, chances are we won't be skating on Thames anytime soon (what with those whales and all...)

Anyways, to wrap up the story: the people at this ice-rink definitely knew how to skate just as well as any Dutch(wo)man, although indeed speed ice-skating is quite unknown. Still - we have seen the results at recent World Championships - in the USA it has recently become pretty popular among High School kids. So, we skated for about an hour and then we got off, off to Harrod's. Other side of town, who cares? But we went there, because there I would get my present: a bowl of ice-cream at the ice parlour in Harrod's. Random, but nice, I'd say, and I hadn't been to Harrod's yet. The ice-cream was good, although somewhat overpriced, but I didn't need to care about that and it came in great quantities: the four of us shared two bowls. Harrod's is a busy place, in the early evening during sale! It's lit like a christmas tree outside and packed inside, and what surprised me: large parts of it didn't look all that different from your average V&D or Bijenkorf, except maybe some extra weird & fancy stuff. How about: a clothes department for your dog ... Huge bottles of perfume.. A chocolate making machine.. A rumoured room full of Antiquities for sale.. Luv'ly fake Ancient-Egyptian style escalators and halls (remember: Egyptian-owned business), and Di-and-Dody Memorial fountain/portraits/shrine type of thing, with one of the most original immortality symbols I ever saw: "You Look at 30,000,000 years" (a piece of petrified wood). But other places were quite spectacular to see, especially the food hall, and then especially the bit where you could buy prepared meals and 'canapés' (hapjes). Makes you hungry, although prices can cure easily here. Ever wondered how much a kilo of Beluga Caviar costs? Think about: 3,200 pounds. I'd hope they'd give that nice mother of pearl spoon with it (otherwise: 11.65! Bargain!). Must admit I was tempted to buy a 'baby' Stilton for 10 pounds. Might have been a tad too much Stilton for a one person household.

OK, enough ramblings. Does it show I tried reading an entire book that I really didn't want to read today? "The Nuer: a description of the modes of livelyhood of a Nilotic People" by E.E. Evans-Pritchard, heartily recommended. Especially the bits about Kinship Structure And The Relation To An Acephalous State are always a cracker.

Goede Nacht.

The Hotel that is my room was busy this week.

This weekend and this week brought two consecutive guests from the Netherlands and a booking for next week Wednesday from Edinburgh. And all the while the new semester is coming along too. Although the library here managed to loose all readings required for my courses this week. An enormous feat, imho, that freed me from feeling guilty about not having done much course work. Not that this week was quiet! I went skating with Joost P. at the Sommerset House Ice Rink, probably the most beautiful ice rink in London in the court of a Tudor Palace right in the centre of London... That day the ice rink included a whole school class of 10-12 year old kids. It was absolutely great, watching the poor sods struggling to keep on their feet and the occasional brave boy fall flat on his back when trying to go too fast or simply as a punishment for moving at all. Also notable was a snake made of people slowly crawling along the boarding consisting of all the poor kids who didn't dare to leave its safety or each other. Quite reminiscent of a trafic jam.

Tomorrow will bring another skating adventure: this time the Anthropologists will skate! I'm looking forward... Reports will follow soon enough.

Wow, it's been a while. I'll send another signal to to Cyber space, informing you (whoever you may be) of my continued existence. I was home for three weeks, which was excellent; I came back pretty refreshed, which was a good thing because, as was to be expected, I hadn't worked that hard on my paper and on my other assignment for this break. So, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday were all pretty damn busy (I returned one week and one day ago). London is increasingly feeling like home now, which is good. Right now I am thinking hard about what the hell I'm going to do next: what am I going to do my thesis on and what am I going to do after that? It will probably involve going back to the Netherlands, but may also not. Dunno.. First I'll need to make up my mind what I'l do: PhD, another Master's (in history?), a job. I'll place my bets on multiple horses :-) Sorry for lack of inspiration lately, more posts will follow, hopefully.