2000 words.
"No comments"
Sigh.

Once upon a time, Victor Lams wrote a song about weblogs.

It was vocations Sunday at Mass this morning. I went on my own, but met Richard there, and asked him why he was becoming a Catholic. I'm starting to feel a bit awkward about going to mass and not doing things like signing the cross and genuflecting; it'd be a very easy thing to go through the motions, but it's strange not to do so, and strange to do so. It reminds me of learning to pray as a child. You start off by closing your eyes and putting your hands together, and it seems like that's what prayer is, but it's not really. I couldn't have much less issue with signing the cross, it being a sort of pious reminder. Genuflecting would seem to indicate particularly emphatically the presence of God. One is meant to genuflect towards the tabernacle because Christ is physically present. This is slightly more hardcore, and I'm pretty sure I don't want to affirm something I'm not sure of. Well anyway. James had a long entry about holy water, which I haven't got round to reading all of yet, but will now. Anyway, he also complained to Fr. Paul about there being no such water in the stoop last week, even though James indicated on his blog that he was very much up for it. This week however, Paul decided to bless some to do the baptismal reminder thing, and was pseudo-put-out by the fact that James wasn't even here to appreciate it. Had a little chat with him afterwards about the physical bits of the liturgy.

When I got back, Andy had decided to watch Tron, because I'd mentioned it a couple of times in relation to my liking of lightcycles clones, such as Armagetron, which is the only 3D one I've ever seen. You can play it over a network, but it's well laggy. I wonder if a direct serial link would be any better. Anyway, Andy thought the film sucked, and this is because it does, but it sucks in an entertaining sort of a way I think. After that, Andy asked if I fancied coming to Evensong. I'm a sucker for this Christianity thing, so I tagged along, listened, prayed, creeded (crode?) and sang a little. Every other time I've been to evensong, Andy and myself have sat at the far corner, but today we were directed to sit right next to them, thus enhancing the clarity somewhat. Andy did some shopping at Sainsbury's after this. There's a girl I know slightly on my course who was, I noticed, doing her shopping concurrently with us. I saw her a couple of times, but she didn't register my presence. Nor Andy's, who revealed after she left in front of us at the checkout that he also knew her. Better than I in fact, but that she hadn't spoken to him in ages. He's most put out by this, because he does not know wherein he has offended her. She also lives at St. David's apparently, so we came back the same way too. Unfortunately, she fell down the steps, and proceeded to be deeply embarassed and started talking to me, but still studiedly not to Andy. This perturbed him still more. Poor Andy.

Well, it's about time for Raiders of the Lost Ark. God bless, you crazy crazy people.

Neil came round at about 1800 in the car to take us to Tamsin and Martyn's for tea, which was good. Their new pad is quite groovy. Some of their brickwork looks a bit faux, like desinger brickwork or something. They sound hollow. Anyway, it's a nice, light, homely sort of a place, and Martyn's most pleased with the shed. I narrowly avoided forgetting to remind them that I was veggie, and we had a very good casserole and mash. And we sat and chatted about various things.

Random Stuff and Morality in Animals

Hello, and welcome to this entry.

My brother Nicholas* has set up his weblog, because I badgered him into doing it. He's going to Swansea soon, and the start of university is a much more sensible time to start a blog than just before the last term, so that should be fun. The link's above. He doesn't have comments yet, but he says they should be coming soon.

Well, I haven't read my bible for a little while, but when this came to my attention, it was bedtime; I had promised myself that I would go to bed at 2200, but Nick came online, so I talked until he felt it necessary to retire. Anyway, I thought I'd see if anyone had done mp3s of the bible. And they have. Here's the first one I came across, which seemed to do the trick. So I fell asleep listening to Joshua, and when I woke up this morning, I listened to the bits I couldn't remember. The guy's voice was less than inspiring, but hey.

I had a lie-in too, as part of my don't-study-to-become-a-hollow-shell-of-a-man plan, until mum phoned me to see how I was getting on, after which I thought I might as well get on with the day. My impulse purchases are getting a bit wussy these days. Unplanned purchases today included:

• Greek yoghurt, sweetened with honey
• A snack pack of "cranberry & banana fruit mix: snacking fruit mix, bursting with jumbo flame raisins golden sultanas, sweetened, dried cranberries sweetened, dried pineapple chips & dried banana chips"
• Another snack pack of melon slices
• 1 punnet blueberries

I finished the cranberry and banana thing whilst note-taking from Metaphysics, and discovered that I had thereby ingested 6 and a bit portions of fruit, 5 being the RDA. Oops.

I usually ignore the BBC News Ticker, but today it said that "Animals 'are moral beings'", which grabbed my attention, so I had a look. Given the fact that I don't see any reason to assert the existence of any meaningful morality based purely upon scientific inquiry, I was sceptical right off the bat, but it wasn't half so silly as I was expecting. The argument, as presented by the BBC, is that some animals (communal) may be seen to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their community. Apparently there are claims for sentience as well, "possessing a level of conscious awareness, and able to have feelings", but I know nothing about that, so I won't go into it. What I do know is that a tendency for self-sacrifice does not imply morality as it is generally understood, in either animal or a human.* On it's own terms, self-sacrifice is merely a fact. It only means something moral if it is good to do so, or if it is a thing which ought to be done. A friend of mine told me once that he thought morality was essentially an evolutionary adaptation, a way of bringing stability and avoiding pain. If this is all there is to it then I wouldn't hesitate to call any animal moral, but (needless to say) I don't think that it is, so I'm more inclined to be hesitant. This is to say that any more grand conception of "morality" is just a deeply-rooted expression of a desire for the species to continue, worth as much inherently as my current desire for tea. Well, I think that animals are worth preserving, and that we should protect them from suffering, which puts me in the messy realm of a supra-naturalistic conception of morality and means that when someone works me over with a baseball bat on a whim, I can consistently think them a bad person rather than merely an unpleasant one. What I believe, which leaves the possibility of animal morality open, is that in every species which God has lovingly created, there is an imperative towards preservation, expressed in instinct, but which, because it places value on life, is also moral (on God's part). Now the same thing can be said of people, but in addition to moral behaviour, I'm sure we also have moral sense. Animals? [to be enlarged - betcha can't wait... update: actually, I think I'd better get on with the old blog before it getting bogged down in making the perfect post about animal morality]

Two very silly things:

1:

paul says:
  would you like to sign my petition to change the name of exeter to mordor?
Mark D says:
  would i!

Unfortunately, he was only kidding. I think he was inspired by the girls who came round with a petition to try and get the free bus service to campus extended. Andy had to make the difficult decision between signing it based on the attractiveness of one of the ladeez, and declining on the basis that he doesn't like lazy people. I for one thought it was slightly cheeky to complain about the limitations of a free service. Speaking of unreflective approaches to issues; yesterday on Richard and Judy, 97% of their audience apparently thought that upon illegally entering a property, potential criminals should waive their rights. Grief.

2:
celebdaq

Schnarf. I reckon I could clean up after my course is over. I might give it a shot.

Read more Orthodoxy this morning. I would say that it's a very engaging read, but perhaps this is due to the fact that I have work to be doing. Ah well. On that note, I went to my meeting with Margaretta, who was neither annoyed, nor seemed to think that I was sliding into an academic abyss. So that was good. However, somehow, she got me to agree to get a 2000 word extract in her pigeonhole for next Friday, all yet all unwritten. So, another week of unparalleled fun ahead.

So I got back and started reading Metaphysics. And then wrote this. Hmm. Doesn't seem to have been much to my day so far.

I contrived to read The Witch of Edmonton before the meeting somehow, which was dashed convenient. It's an odd sort of a play, with curiosities which sound engaging on paper, but somehow I couldn't get myself worked up about it. It's ostensibly about an ordinary village, which is odd in itself, and is also based on real events. From the appendix in my edition:

The wonderful discovery of Elizabeth Sawyer, a Witch, late of Edmonton, her conviction and condemnation and death.

Together with the relation of the Devil's access to her and their conference together.

Written by Henry Goodcole, Minister of the Word of God, and her continual visitor in the Gaol of Newgate.

So there you go. I could go into do detail with regards to my views about it's veracity, but I haven't exactly examined it in depth - it'd be quite pointless. Suffice to say, Goodcole professes cynicism, though Sawyer herself admits to a number of extraordinary, witchy type things. However, she also denies charges of similar gravity in fairly equal measure.

After finishing that, I got into G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy, which I'm still reading. But I had to go to the meeting anyway, so I did. As always, our amazing teaching plan is to all research a bit, then meet up on the day, and propel ourselves through it by desperation. After this, I had some printing to do, bits of dissertation, in case of computer-crashery and a 2000 word extract to wave at Margaretta, in case she wanted one. I put 'em on the print queue, and found Felix, another English student that I know behind me. I said hello, and he revealed that he'd just crashed the printstation. Excellent. On the way home, there was this random girl outside a peripheral university building by the Imperial with a clipboard. "This might sound a bit strange" quoth she, "but I've been told to hug ten people that I don't know today." I obliged, and went on my merry way. When I got in, Paul was there. I asked him whether it was the drama department that she was by - Thus it was. It all makes sense now.

James completed Zelda. I (and James) started off by being very unimpressed by Ganon(dorf)*, but in the end, he was really cool. Obviously the combat method in Zelda is nothing like your beat-em-up proper (roll on Soul Calibur II), but the graphic designer's obviously weren't to know this, because Ganon was the (nasty) man. I couldn't be bothered to go to choral society. I really should go to bed early sometime soon.

I got going fairly early today, amazing myself by doing a respectable amount of work despite not feeling like getting up for a bout the past week, which isn't exactly very me. I then settled down to a little Zelda, cruelly making James stop just as we got back to Hyrule.

Went to the pre-seminar study-group to find, to my dismay, that next week's text is The Witch of Edmonton rather than Othello. Unfortunately, this means that I need to read it all tonight in preparation for an extra seminar. I'm meant to be teaching on it. Ho hum. I was soooooooo tired it wasn't funny at the seminar proper, but I did score a good quantity of "Starburst" confections for answering quiz questions on Edward II. They presumably had gelatin in, so I gave them away. Karen slyly asked me if I was thinking of doing an MA next year. Well...

I'm in a park and I'm practically dead. What good's the countryside going to do me?

It's a good thing to hear anyway.

* * *

I had a vague idea of going to Mass on Wednesday since bumping into Richard, who James is sponsoring for entry into the Catholic church, on Monday. James said he was going to go, so I did. We saw many more cars than are usual on entering, but the only additional people who might have cars that I noticed at Mass were two women, and there were a few more than two cars. Later we found that a convocation of clergy had been scheming in the back rooms. I was still rather tired, and had intended to go straight back home, CathSoc notwithstanding, but we slyly opened the bar for one of the women, who was a previous CathSoc member, but didn't want to impose. Pound a pint at the ark bar, so James, Lisa, myself and the two ladies hung around chatting for a while. Neither James or I can actually remember their names*, but they did introduce themseves. The more talkative had a very Catholic name; I think it contained T(h)eresa. She'd found that the chaplaincy had a lending library and decided to pop in with her friend. She was also a student here in 1991, and by an amazing co-incidence, the chaplain resident in 1991 was among those in the back, so she kept popping out of the bar to try and catch him. Topics we somehow managed to get good conversational mileage out of:

• Theology (as a subject)


• Childhood injuries


• Smoking


• The Bible Challenge, a board-game which has suddenly appeared in the bar


• The Chaplaincy Through Time (Bouffant haircuts & degrees of Earnestness)


• The paucity of places to get Catholic books

It was all very good fun, and I believe they even decided to come back next week.

P.S. I do know when I haven't blogged, fair readers. In such times of crisis, it is important to remember that there is a real world to explore; failing that, plenty of other .html documents to refresh.

We never did go to Exmouth in the end. Initially the plan was to go to Ghandi's and get a curry, but none of us had ever been to Mad Meg's, and they serve mead, so we made a snap decision to go there instead. Shortly before entering, Andy commented upon the fact that this was going to be the first theme-restaurant he'd ever been in. Ditto here, except I hadn't really thought of it. I said something like "Good grief. I hadn't thought of that. What if there are wenches?" In we went; it was pretty empty, but the one duty-wench swiftly presented herself. Andy turned out to be a fan of the wench actually. Things proceeded to get a bit testosteroney when James and Andy tried to compete for meat consumption, both trying to order the largest set of ribs. But they didn't have enough, so they made do with the ribs "for timid eaters". Ahem. Andy had a salad with his. It seemed... somehow... wrong.

On the way back home we found ourselves at the bottom of the iron bridge. I wanted to go the iron bridge route back, and Paul was up for that, but James and Andy didn't like the idea of traversing mild inclines so we split up. I noticed them start running. Not to be outdone, Paul and I bombed it up the side of the bridge and down the steps of doooooooom to arrive back substantially before them. We were a bit knackered, which was probably why we didn't end up meeting John and Joe at "the pub". Turns out they went anyway. Whoops.

Played a bit more Zelda, and then bed.

Hey :) Neil just came bearing gifts and cards, and an amusing card from the university supermarket, which has an "EXCLUSIVE UNIVERSITY OF EXETER GIFT SERVICE" apparently. The gifts were two CDS from Neil and Nick, Power, Corruption & lies by New Order and Complete 'B' Sides by the Pixies. Awesome. I really like some of New Order's singles, so I thought I'd give an album a shot. Plus, they've been around for ages, they probably need something to supplement their pension. Someone's put a balloon on the front door. Paul, I would guess.

"Terry's", "Chocolate Orange" and the "O" device are registered trade marks of Kraft Jacobs Suchard Ltd.

The "O" device?! See, already we're in Batman territory again:

ROBIN Holy explodable lemming-flavored* screwdrivers Batman!* There doesn't seem to be any way out of this sticky situation!
BATMAN Not so, boy wonder; the Riddler's "O" device is impressive, if misguided...
[exit pursued by a bear]

A matter of minutes ago, an small object, wrapped in yellow, was propelled upwards, to my landing, where it landed with a disconcerting thump. Immediately this brought to mind the Adam West Batman series and the possibility of my imminent assassination, Joker stylee*. I cautiously unwrapped the gaudy yellow paper to discover.... a Terry's chocolate orange, from Paul. Thanks Paul.

I shall be drinking birthday tea in a moment too.