So, yesterday I had my viva. I’m still quite out of it, and haven’t processed the fact that it’s done, I’ve fixed my typos and am about to go pick up the bound copy and submit it. Meantime, I wanted to post up my acknowledgements…
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I owe a great deal more than gratitude to the many people who have supported my progress. My first thanks are due to the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the University of St Andrews’ School of Classics, the Thomas Wiedemann Fund and the Classical Association for their financial support and to St Andrews’ School of Classics for their administrative support, without which this project could not have been carried out.
Secondly to my supervisor, Jill Harries, who has been a font of wisdom and support, my heartfelt thanks. I owe much to her ability to encourage her students to follow their odder ideas whilst still keeping them on the right track, and to her understanding of when they need to be pushed and when they should be sent home to put their feet up. I am also indebted to Christopher Smith for his years of support, and to Jason König for encouraging me to read Foucault in the first place.
The School of Classics has been my second home over the past four years. It has been a pleasure to be a part of such a convivial postgraduate community; my thanks to Alexandra Albury, Jeremy Armstrong, Adam Bunni, Ralph Covino, Victoria Crook, Carmen Cvetkovic, Katie East, Susanne Gatzemeier, Joe Howley, Sarah Jordan, Trevor Mahy, Gwynaeth McIntyre, Jamie McIntyre, Daniel Mintz, Sam Moss, Andrew Neill, Mark Philippo, Julietta Steinhauer, Estelle Strazdins, Amos van Die, Allison Weir, Paula Whiscombe, Evan Williamson, Katie Wilson, and Laurie Wilson for making it so. I would also like to thank the staff in Classics their part in making the School such a supportive and vibrant environment in which to work, particularly Ralph Anderson, Emma Buckley, Jon Coulston, Adrian Gratwick, Alisdair Gibson, Emily Greenwood, Stephen Halliwell, Jon Hesk, Harry Hine, Dan Hogg, Sian Lewis, Alex Long, Rebecca Sweetman and Greg Woolf. Beyond the School I am grateful for the stimulating conversation and wide range of ideas provided by Michael Bentley and Anthony F. Lang, and by the members of Theoria, notably Sarah Dillon, Bettina Bildhauer, Christina Chandler Andrews, James A. Andrews, Ben Davies and James Stedman. I would also like to express my gratitude to Henriette van der Blom, Alison Rosenblitt, Malcolm Schofield and Kathryn Welch for their ideas about my work, and to my examiners, Roger Rees and Jonathan Prag.
Gratitude, affection, and a lifetime supply of cookies must go to my wonderful friends who have helped to keep me, if not exactly sane at least tolerably well balanced: Jessica Armstrong, Daniel Bigler, Naomi Brown, Fiona Byrne, Jenni Caldwell, Eleanor Carleton, James Davies, Katherine Davis, Emma Dollard, Krisz Echegoyan, Lisa Evans, Katherine Fletcher, Caroline Friggens, Danielle Gera, Laurence Goodwin, Melanie Hartley, Andy J, Robert Lamont, Zoe Lee, Tom Leppard, Naomi and Malcolm McCloud, Claire Newdick, Fiona Raffell, Hannah Stewart, George Swithinbank, Elizabeth Thomas, Pauline Tucknott, and Stacy Whitmore.
Finally, to my second families at Eden Fellowship and Hayle Methodist, and to my parents, for all their love and support, no thanks can ever be enough.
To start with a random aside. One of the problems with Peter Mandelson’s Digital Economy Bill (other than the widely reported facts of it not being workable, or in any way in touch with the modern world, and if you want a really good explanation of why, you should read Hannah Nicklin’s open letter to the man himself) is that it’s hard to say that it’s a deeply stupid idea, without actually admitting that you’ve broken it, and that puts you in an interesting legal position. Incidentally, does anyone know if this bill is going to be retroactive?
Anyway, the point of this is that without the internet and friends sending me music I’ve not heard by artists I’ve never heard of, I would never have heard of the French Countertenor Philippe Jaroussky. And that would mean that his record company wouldn’t have made the money that they have off me for the two albums I’ve bought so far and the future albums I intend to buy in a month when Christmas isn’t imminent, and whoever makes money off concerts wouldn’t have made money off me buying a ticket to go see him at the Kölner Philharmonie, and no one would make money from me buying his albums to give to people for Christmas/birthdays. I would almost certainly not have thought to pick up an album of Castrati songs by a singer I’d never heard of. The only other way I might have come across it would have been if Jaroussky had been performing at the Proms and I’d happened to hear that particular concert on the radio or on iPlayer. And then not only would people be losing out on making money off me, I would be missing out on some seriously gorgeous music.
On Thursday Philippe Jaroussky was performing Handel and J.C. Bach, with Nicolau de Figueiredo on Harpsichord and the Concerto Köln. It was beautiful. Gorgeous music, and such an engaging performance. I’m normally fairly rubbish at sitting in a concert hall listening to a performance without fidgeting, but I was pretty much entranced. He performed about four or five encores – after each round of applause people left the auditorium and then missed out on another song. It was wonderful. Can I have a tardis and go back in time to go hear it all again?
So music business, I hope you enjoy the money I have and shall continue to give you in order for me to carry on enjoying the work of Philippe Jaroussky, but please don’t forget, you’re only getting it because I was able to try it first to see if I liked it.
Posted 3 months, 2 weeks ago at 12:28. Add a comment
A very nice person sent me an invite to GoogleWave, which I’ve been wanting to play with, ohhh, only since they announced it, pretty much. Not many people I know have it – and it is in many ways a kind of specific tool, so it’s not something you necessarily just sit and play with, especially not on your own, because that removes the point.
However, @Sunsetmog and I spent some time on Thursday playing with GoogleWave, trying to explore it’s possibilities and potential. The verdict so far is, as above, ‘Hrroomm, Hmmm’ – lots of potential, not quite there yet.
The first (and main) problem is that it is very slow. Typing into GoogleWave feels a lot like typing on a computer without enough RAM – your fingers go faster than the letters can come up on screen. I think this is mostly because of the live-type function that allows all the people on the wave to see exactly what you’re typing. I have to ask – why is this feature necessary or good? Is it just so that people can start responding to you as you go, without waiting you to finish your train of thought and absorb it before replying? Because I’m not convinced that that’s a good idea; much better to see your fellow-waver’s full thought before you reply to it. Additionally, the nature of GoogleWave means that a lot of people will probably end up using it for project work, quite often with people who are colleagues rather than friends. I don’t need or want the people I might end up working with to see that I am constitutionally unable to type ‘constitution’ fluidly and correctly with any regularity (all those ‘t’s confuse my fingers). They probably don’t want to see it either – it’s quite painful. Delete isn’t a bad in this situation. Making the text input the same as that of IM would make GoogleWave faster, I think, and also less embarrassing!
It’s also not that intuitive. I don’t think it helps that it has gone live without the ’settings’ wave being completed. At the moment I can’t get it to ‘ping’ me when a message comes through – meaning if I’ve gone to check something out in another tab, or in a book, I don’t know when my fellow waver has responded. I’m also annoyed by the scroll function, and I found the system of commenting, replying and editing fairly unintuitive for a lot of the time – I couldn’t always tell where the new bit of text was going to pop up.
Those are the main annoyances – once I found the paperclip, sharing files was easy (although we didn’t really play with text files, actually, which we should have since I suspect that’s what we’ll both be using it most of the time). There’s an extension called ‘trippy’ which involves Lonely Planet, and which allows you to plan joint trips, which I really like. And I still really like the potential of the whole thing – I think it’s going to make joint projects easier to handle and keep track of, especially when more than more than two people are involved. It’s just not there yet. I really hope it gets there.
I can’t remember exactly why I decided that skipping out on a day in the library to go to Aachen was better than waiting to the weekend, since there wasn’t any rugby to watch at the weekend (I’ve found an Irish pub in Cologne that shows rugby, and I’m very excited about the possibility of seeing the autumn internationals – or I was until practically the entire England squad ended up in the hospital). I suspect it was to do with the weathe – that I decided that I didn’t see the point in day-tripping in the rain, and so picked the first not-rainy day to go hop on the train.
Aachen is a wee city (well, wee-er than Cologne) near the border, and it is where Charlemagne had his palace. It’s busy developing a Charlemagne trail at the moment, which could be fun. I mostly wanted to see the cathedral (which is home to Charlemagne’s throne) and go spa-ing. I also fancied seeing the cathedral treasury, but in the end I passed up on it to go spa-ing, on the theory that I would be going back to Aachen, hopefully with the brilliant @Sunsetmog if she can make it out here, and could go to the Treasury then. In the end result, I probably should have gone to the Treasury instead, spa-ing was fine, but just not quite as unwinding as it should have been, due to – well, cultural differences/personal hang-ups. I just don’t do mixed nekkid saunaing. I find this not relaxing. I also like my spa-baths to be not two flights of stairs away from my saunas. Carolus Thermen is big and swish and all, but it’s actually too big for my tastes. Well now I know – next time I will go for Mediaeval Treasures.
The Cathedral was Made of Awesome, though. FYI, the Treasury is open from 10am and the cathedral from 11am (there are services before, so you can pop in, but not really tourist). Also, if you want to see Charlemagne’s throne, which is up in the gallery, you have to take a tour. It’s about €3 and it also takes you into the cathedral Choir, which is otherwise gated off, so it’s worth it – even in German. I did the German tour in the morning, ‘cos I wanted to go to the Spa, but there’s an English one at 2pm nowadays, which is a Good Thing, ‘cos I’m pretty sure, based on what I gleaned, that the tour guides are good and interesting.
It’s just the most gorgeous building. If you come at it from the train station you sort of fall upon it, set in a wee square, all soaring lines and architectural wonder. Then you go round a corner and find yourself in the small square in front of the cathedral. The other side of the cathedral faces onto a large square between the cathedral and the Rathaus, but it’s a bit empty and not as nice. Basically, the cathedral’s in two bits. There’s the older two tier octagon, which
Charlemagne’s original chapel, and which is a masterpiece of mosaic bling, and is home to the throne (a very simple set of marble blocks bound together, with a view down to the altar. Then there’s the the later, gothic choir, which flies up straight and narrow, and seems to be made of stained glass windows (which were restored after the war). It really is the original definition of awesome. There was definitely awe involved as I stood with my neck craned looking up at the ceilings and windows. Although it’s relatively small, it’s definitely one of the loveliest cathedrals I’ve been in – and I’ve now been in a fairly large number of European cathedrals.
Finally, in Aachen, there was Printen. Nom nom nom nom nom. Printen is Aachen’s own special kind of lebkuchen (german gingerbread) – a spicy, chewy biscuit, with crunchy rock candy bits. It comes in all shapes and sizes, and coatings – sugar glaze, chocolate, chocolate with bits – and it’s NUMMY. I came home with a stash at it.
So, Andre Agassi has admitted that he took crystal meth while he was still a tennis player, and then lied about it to the tennis authorities. I have to confess to being baffled as to why anyone is really surprised by this. If any top player in recent memory was likely to have taken drugs recreationally it was going to be Agassi, and it was going to be in that period when his career was on the slide. I think if the story had broked come out at the time, it would have been hard for me to think much worse of Agassi than I did back then, because he annoyed me for his behaviour and the way he seemed to be wasting his talent – I should point out I have no knowledge whatsoever about the potential performance-enhancing qualities of crystal meth, if it does have performance enhancing qualities then I might have thought worse of him, though I’d probably have had a hard time believing that was why he took it. It also doesn’t make me think any the worse of him now, or be any less impressed at the way that he rebuilt his life and his career, or lessen my appreciate his tennis in the second phase of his career.
I’m not surprised he lied – I’d be surprised and impressed if any tennis star *didn’t* try and get themselves out of such a situation by any means necessary. I’m inclined to be pretty digusted at the tennis authorities effectively blinking the other way – but I’m not that surprised either: Agassi wasn’t winning anything at that point in time, but he could still make money for tennis. I hope they tested him regularly once he did make his comeback – in the same way that I hope they test all of the big names. But they have far more questions to answer than Agassi does.
I’m also not surprised that he included the story in his autobiography; no, Boris, and no Rafa, I’m really really not – and it’s not damaging modern tennis *players* (they can do that quite effectively themselves) and it’s not like we didn’t all know the authorities had questions to answer about the drugs testing/appealing/banning process (hello, Gasquet case). For a start, it’s an autobiography – what would you expect? Sports autobiographies are normally duller than a very dull thing (see for example, Wallace, David Foster, ‘How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart’ in Consider the Lobster) – my personal desire to sleep through very dull books by sportsmen I have a lot of time for reached its zenith when reading Jason Robinson’s autobiography. Agassi’s life and career are actually autobiography worth at this stage (unlike, say, that of Andy Murray…), and might actually be worth thinking about in relation to the problems that face some tennis players. Jennifer Capriati’s could be worthwhile for the same sort of reasons.
I’m inclined could be a good thing for Agassi for him to admit to this – he’s been sitting on it for a while. Isn’t honesty supposed to be part of the healing/recovery process? Would we really think better of him if he hadn’t admitted to it and then it came out later? I have a lot of respect for Agassi for admitting this – he’s taken a personal risk, and not, I think, just to sell copies. He’s a hero and example to a lot of kids as a tennis star, and I’d rather see him openly admmitting he made mistakes and what the repercussions were – I think it’s better than glossing over the ugly bits. So good on him.
Posted 4 months, 2 weeks ago at 10:41. Add a comment
I always suspected that living in a city would bankrupt me, as I would spend all my money on going to the theatre and the ballet. It’s why I’ve often considered it a good thing that I am ambivalent about the prospect of living in London (although if one of the applications I’ve submitted for next year comes through that’s where I’ll be) – I know the National Theatre and the Royal Opera House often have cheap tickets, but I’d still end up ruined.
I mention this, having been to the Kölner Philharmonie twice in a week. Ahem. That said – the first was a freebie courtesy of the university’s international office, tickets to see a show called ‘Fanfare Ciocarlia’ – a performance by a band from Romania. Also, I left at the interval because I was tired – and whilst I did enjoy the music, I tend to enjoy it more outside of the concert hall – especially a sit-down concert hall like the Philharmonie.
I went again last night, though, under my own steam, to see The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment play Hayden – three symphonies and the Trumpet Concerto (which is one of my personal favourites), with David Blackadder as a soloist. While I wasn’t bowled over by the concerto, I did like the slightly different sound that the natural trumpet brought to it – I’d not heard it that way before. I also had a rather good view. I had shelled out a whole €8.50 to sit in the top level of those little ice cream bowl shaped balconies you can see behind the stage – right up in the gods, on a level with the big light fixture. But because the performance wasn’t sold out (wasn’t even HALF sold out I think), the ushers let everyone in those seats move down to the ‘chorempore’ – the choir seats behind the orchestra. So I had a pretty much perfect view of everything – except David Blackadder’s face during his performance – but I can live with that. It’s much more fun to be able to watch the conductor, anyway, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the conductor, turns out to be one of those whole-body type conductors – appearing to draw out the music by means of interpretative dance rather than conducting the orchestra. It was rather wonderful.
I am not very good at listening to live music in concert halls though, I think. I get fidgety easily, and I’m not used to sitting and listening to music, especially classical music. I have it on in the background a lot of the time, but then you’re doing something and listening, and I’m used to listening to it at the ballet or opera, but then you’re watching and listening. Sitting still and watching and listening a bunch of people play instruments (as opposed to bouncing around at a gig or whatever) seems odd and possibly unnatural. I need to practice, clearly. So with that in mind, I have bought tickets to go and see Philippe Jaroussky, the French countertenor, when he performs at the Philharmonie. If you haven’t heard of him, I highly recommend his Carestini: The Story of a Castrato, which has unexpectedly become one of my favourite albums. It’s beautiful stuff. So I’m looking forward to that – and I even splurged on sitting to the front of the stage this time.
Also – if anyone has a spare €70-odd that they want to donate to a worthy cause, Cecilia Bartoli is singing here next month, and I’d love to go…
Posted 4 months, 3 weeks ago at 13:43. Add a comment
Spike Jonze and Kanye West have made a short movie. (And huzzah for twitter and Rian Johnson posting it). It’s sort of wonderful. At first I thought I just kinda liked it and that Spike Jonze makes very good looking films – the man does know what he’s doing with a camera, I think. But there’s a beautiful little twist towards the end that I wasn’t expecting, and that actually took my breath away for a second.
I have finally finished my photobook of Tanzania. It’s mostly photos and just a little bit of travelogue (as the vast majority of the travelogue was either me listing all the different animals and birds, or spitting about Kennedy, and that’s no fun for anyone) – but I am proud of the photos. Have a look.
I feel like I want to write something about this, because not only was it a pretty big deal in the big picture of British media and politics, it felt like a pretty big deal for me and my engagement shifting from interested and theoretical to faintly active (I mean, it’s not like twittering uses up many calories but it *is* still participating in a discourse). It was also a little sobering, because although I would normally count myself as pretty engaged in current affairs, I hadn’t heard anything about the incident in the Ivory Coast or about Trafigura (I mean, I might have seen a Trafigura logo on a board at a rugby match, but I hadn’t heard of them). Time to read more papers and watch more Newsnight, clearly.
Anyway, I first heard about the Guardian’s initial ‘This is all we can’t tell you about some stuff that we can’t tell you’ report late on Monday night – I can’t remember, but I suspect someone tweeted the link. My initial reactions were (a) that’s really weird, (b) how can it happen that a paper can be barred from reporting on parliament and, (c) that’s a very canny piece. But I didn’t quite realise how canny, and off I trotted to snoozeland. Only to wake up the next morning to find that #trafigura had exploded on twitter. And bang, my plan to spend my morning applying for JRFs disapparated in a cloud of retweeting and reading and participating. Sure it was head and finger business, but I actually really enjoyed the buzz of business after three years of sitting in libraries and offices slogging through books and thesis writing. It’s not that I don’t enjoy my academic-y-ness, it’s just that I really really like the bit where my academic interests hit the actual real world and has the potential to be functional in some way that I’m just beginning to try and work out. (On which subject, of interest and participation and new tech and its role in enabling participation, you should read Hannah Nicklin’s post about Louder, a new online space for campaigners, it’s really exciting). Even if I stay in academia (and my future plans are still pretty up in the air), I don’t want to get lost in my little ivory tower – and I really like that the internet has the potential to make it so much harder for that getting lost to happen.
But back to #Trafigura. It’s been said that Carter-Ruck’s claim that the Guardian would be in contempt of court (over their injunction) if they reported on Parliament would have been ruled against when they got to court, so twitter wasn’t necessarily a big factor – but I think it must be seen as a factor in getting Carter-Ruck to step back before going to court. That’s a lot of popular pressure – and more importantly, a great rise in unpopularity for your law firm and your client that you might think you could offset by backing down in advance of being removed. And I really liked the way the word spread on twitter – it was essentially well-mannered outrage, which sounds silly, but honestly, you’re more likely to make something happen and LAST if you don’t swear and jump up and down on people’s heads. It was a spread of information – which is, of course, exactly what Carter-Ruck and Trafigura didn’t want, so in this case the medium really worked for the issue.
I also quite like the way it’s worked politically – yes, the Prime Minister jumping on a bandwagon that is already rolling, in his call to investigate these super-injunctions (but I happen to like the bandwagon). But it was a bandwagon that actually started where it should have started – in good journalism by the likes of the Guardian and Newsnight, and in a question by an MP who actually decided he cared enough to ask the Justice Secretary a question about the injunction banning publication of references to a report (this one, here, on wiki-leaks). The dog did actually cause the tail to wag, created a broader public discourse and got some traction on the issue. This is good – long may it continue.
Oh, and you can see Newsnight’s report on #trafigura, here.
