Storyteller’s World

The wife says I’m besotted with this little scrap.

I ask you: do I look besotted?

The National Archives website contains its own teach yourself Latin course, for beginners and advanced students.

I had this really weird dream about the Falkland Islands claiming sovereignty over Falklandia Terrafirma, (Mainland Falklands), sometimes misleadingly known as Argentina…

Amazon tells me that customers who bought this also bought this.

I don’t think so, actually.

But what if? Would they have been majorly disappointed? Or would they have had the windows of hearts and minds opened to wondrous new experiences?

Perhaps there’s a book here? A year in the life of a man who, each week, bought the most unlikely thing that Amazon recommended to him, and wrote about it?

Mary Beard’s is a blog I read not every day, but often, and is certainly one of my favourites. It brings on that wistful dreaming about how my life might have turned out differently if I’d continued with Latin after O-level, and maybe been encouraged to read Classics at university, instead of modern languages… It reminds me that I’ve always quite fancied the idea of being an academic – and that I probably wouldn’t have been very good at it… It keeps alive the idea that I could still brush up my Latin (and later-learned Greek) enough to be able to read something(s) in them.

I haven’t generally warmed to the idea of reading blogs in book form, but Mary’s book-of-the-blog was great fun, and is thoroughly recommended. Sometimes you read people’s blogs and think, Thank goodness I never need to meet this person! Mary Beard is one of those you’d very much like to meet, whose conversation would be witty and stimulating, who it would have been a joy to be taught by. (Though if I was now as insecure as I was then, as an undergraduate, I would probably still be terrified of her.)

And I bet she has done the cause of Classics, and of Cambridge, a lot of good. I can’t remember if I’ve ever even known the name of a professor of Classics at Cambridge, let alone anything about their sexual activity at the age of 18. (To tell the truth, I don’t think that’s on her blog, but it was certainly on her Desert Island Discs appearance. But doesn’t that prove the point even more? When was the last time a Professor of Classics at Cambridge appeared on Desert Island Discs?) Mary has raised the profile no end, and probably the number of students applying for a place.

Long may she blog.

The first member of the next generation of our family arrived at 2.44 today. Li’s firstborn, Libby, 7lb 13oz. Pretty tough labour towards the end, but all well.

Giving great thanks in my prayers this morning, I suddenly noticed myself feeling much more passionate about the environment, and the future of the planet. Every politician should have this kind of long-term investment.

I wrote a piece for the Marston Times, about the difficulty of knowing how to vote in the present political climate, when so many are so disillusioned by a Labour Government that failed to fulfil its great, hope-full promise. It included this paragraph:

Many of us feel disillusioned or betrayed by hopes unfulfilled, promises broken. A Labour Government, which promised so much, took the country into controversial wars which have cost a terrible toll in human lives and billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money – and for what? It failed to regulate the financial sector, riding on the popularity that accompanied the “good years”, and has left us and our children with trillions of pounds of debt. It promised to focus on “Education, education, education”, yet crippled the schools with a programme of worthless tests, rather than real teaching and learning; while higher education, which was already underfunded, now faces further stringent cuts in funding. Worst of all, we read that the gap between rich and poor in British society is now greater than it has been for 40 years. Is this what we voted for?

The editor, who is a True Believer, thought I had been a bit unfair to the Government. I thought I let them off quite lightly, actually – didn’t I?

And that view was confirmed for me when I read The Spirit Level: Why equality is better for everyone, by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. It’s a thought-provoking, scary yet optimistic book about how inequality in society leads to all the social ills which are so prevalent in British society, and to an even greater extent in US society which we are so anxious to emulate: mental illness, drug abuse, ill health, lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality, obesity, educational disadvantage, teenage pregnancy, high prison populations. They write:

Mainstream politics no longer taps into these issues and has abandoned the attempt to provide a shared vision capable of inspiring us to create a better society. As voters, we have lost sight of any collective belief that society could be different. Instead of a better society, the only thing almost everyone strives for is to better their own position – as individuals – within the existing society.

Yes. That’s why I believe Labour has betrayed us. It too has bought into the crass consumerism that drives society, and forgotten what it is for: to create a better, juster, more equal society.

It’s time to support The Equality Trust.

And see Michael White in the Guardian, on why Labour is running up a down escalator to tackle inequality.

Oxford Light is a great blog with photos of the city.

Welcome to the Story Museum in Oxford.

It’s only a virtual museum at present, but it’s now got a building and aims to become something more tangible within the next few years.

Medical Aid for Palestinians reports on its recent open letter to the Prime Minister, calling for action to end Israel’s blockade of Gaza, and its disastrous effects on the Palestinian people. It includes the Prime Minister’s response, beginning with the words:

Your open letter to me of 27 December in The Observer was right to draw attention to the grave humanitarian situation in Gaza, one year after a conflict that cost over a thousand Palestinian lives and those of over ten Israelis.

And over ten Israelis? Could it conceivably be that Gordon Brown is being satirical?