Posted by Martin Orr on
Wednesday, 08 November 2006 at 16:11
I resolved to try not to buy anything in a supermarket this term (mainly Sainsbury's, which is next door to Trinity). This is because I am concerned by the monopolistic impact of supermarkets - reducing the number of customers of smaller independent shops, and damaging producers by using their buying power to push prices down. So I decided to see how easy it was to do without. For the first week or two this was hard as I didn't know where any alternatives were. I can buy bread and fruit in the market, and I am sure I have seen a cheese stall there, but never when I have wanted to buy cheese. Eventually I found two shops where I can buy things like milk - one Spar and one independent grocery shop.
I have been entirely successful in not going to a supermarket, except when buying drinks for TCMS. Will I continue with this next term? To a large extent, having developed the habit, it is quite easy to continue although it does mean walking a bit further. But I'm not really sure how much benefit there is - for example, in Sainsbury's I could buy organic milk which I am now not able to do.
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Martin
Tags
cambridge, food, supermarkets
Posted by Martin Orr on
Tuesday, 20 June 2006 at 15:40
This week is May Week, which is full of post-exam parties. In particular, a number of colleges hold May Balls which are absolutely massive; last night was Trinity May Ball (£205 for a double ticket). It rained lightly during the fireworks near the beginning but fortunately it was only a little, and the weather was otherwise good. We queued from 7pm but this was worth it as we got in very quickly after it started at 9pm, and stayed until 4.15am (it goes on until 6am, when it ends with a survivors' photograph).
As for things to do, there were so many it was impossible to keep track of them. There was a main stage with rock/pop bands, a jazz tent, a classical music room, swing/salsa/ceilidh dancing in the Great Hall and a cabaret tent, each with six or seven different acts over the course of the night. There was also a fairground, a synthetic ice rink and an endless supply of food and champagne.
During the fireworks, the Cam was totally blocked by punts who had come to watch - there might have been forty of them, plus some canoes. A few people came in punts in black tie and made an attempt to run up the bank and enter the Ball; these may have been just symbolic and certainly had little chance of success, there being a security guard every few metres.
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Martin
Tags
cambridge, mayweek, trinity
Posted by Martin Orr on
Monday, 05 June 2006 at 08:36
I am now half way through my exams - two gone and two to go. The first did not go as well as I had hoped - the questions just took a long time. The second one, which I had expected to be the hardest, turned out to be easy and I completed it in just over two hours (out of three). There are two more today and tomorrow. There are some strange things like the fact that the invigilators wear gowns (although in Oxford the students have to wear academical dress, at least while entering and leaving the exam hall), and they began by addressing us as "ladies and gentlemen".
I was reading that the prime minister, shortly after taking office, has to prepare secret instructions which are carried on the UK's nuclear-missile submarines; should they be unable to detect any sign of life from the UK for several days, the captain of the submarine on patrol will open the instructions and carry them out (although it's hard to see who the missiles would be targetted at post-Cold War). Anyway this makes me wonder: politicians probably give little thought to this area of responsibility until suddenly it hits them when they become prime minister, and certainly the electorate don't consider who they would trust to make such decisions when voting. So I suppose the question is what makes the prime minister better qualified than anyone else to make such decisions, and to have them carried out even after the country has been completely destroyed? I remember a science fiction book which contained a planet who left decisions about whether to go to war up to their military commanders and were astonished at the idea of giving politicians a say.
Tags
cambridge, exams, nukes, tripos
Posted by Martin Orr on
Sunday, 28 May 2006 at 19:52
Exams are coming closer now - mine are from Thursday to the following Tuesday. Last Sunday I went to Oxford to play croquet against the Oxford Maths society. Croquet is an intensely tactical game and we were thoroughly trounced - there were several Oxford people who seemed quite experienced - although I did manage to be the first person to get my ball through a hoop. Oxford is a strange place: it is far too big a city to put a university in, and they appear to have no equivalent to May Week, which is the period in mid-June when there are lots of post-exam parties.
According to the BBC, someone is to open a crocodile farm in Cambridgeshire. This reminds me of when I saw crocodiles in Australia. Apart from being a bit dangerous, I think they are very farmable animals although I don't know if they are happy with the climate in England. The article says that he will be allowing visitors on Saturdays, but it doesn't say if this has opened yet or how to contact the farm; I would certainly go and visit.
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Martin
Tags
agriculture, archimedeans, cambridge, oxford
Posted by Martin Orr on
Sunday, 05 February 2006 at 12:55
Well this week I had (as I think I mentioned previously) a busy Wednesday afternoon, with three supervisions, and a busy few days before that doing the work for them. David, one of the chaplains, asked me to do the prayers of intercession in the College Chapel for Candlemas on Thursday. (Candlemas is the festival of the presentation of Christ in the Temple, and involved more candles.) That meant both writing the prayers and reading them. We had a brief lesson on how to write them last Sunday. I was very nervous but it went well.
Last Sunday I went to the United Reform Church (what the Presbyterian Church in England merged to become). It was fairly similar to a progressive Presbyterian service at home; one interesting thing they did was to compose a "psalm" during the service by different people in the congregation suggesting a line of praise. There was also a fire drill following the benediction; I'm told that neither of these things happen every week.
This morning I went to a Lutheran Church. This surprised me because the liturgy were almost identical to a Catholic Mass, starting with Kyrie, Gloria, etc, and some people crossed themselves at each mention of the Trinity. However it was a very Protestant sermon, focussed tightly on the text and enthusiastically preached, and of course all the Catholic theology of the Eucharist was dropped. Also they replaced "holy catholic church" with "holy Christian church" in the creed.
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Martin
Tags
cambridge, chapel, emmanuel, lutheran, trinity