Current Reading

1. War Paint: Madame Helena Rubinstein and Miss Elizabeth Arden - Their Lives, Their Times, Their Rivalry by Lindy Woodhead. Dreams in creams. Sounds fluffy, but this is serious (and seriously entertaining) stuff. A grand summer read.

2. Them: Adventures With Extremists by Jon Ronson. This book came out in 2001 and there was a companion TV series, which I watched, on Channel 4 in the UK (titled The Secret Rulers of the World). The series was pretty damn good, but the book is even better. Ronson is a journalist, and I've always enjoyed his writing.
I've just finished the chapter on demented conspiracy theorist (and former footballer-turned-BBC sportscaster) David Icke. He believes the secret rulers of the world are twelve-foot intergalactic space lizards in disguise. The Anti-Defamation League say that Icke's use of the term 'lizard' is a cipher for 'Jew'. Hmmm.

3. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke. Quite simply, the best novel I've read in the past several years. It's a weighty volume, and I've been taking my time with it since last winter. Put a drive on it recently to try and finish, as I'm in an online bookclub which is discussing this book in chat (tonight, in fact), but decided it was too great a treat to rush through. I may leave the last 200 pages or so for autumn. This is not a book for summertime; it's a book to be read during long winter evenings, in front of a crackling fire, and with a draught of some heady beverage to hand.

Bastards @ Blogger

It seems that Mac users are being treated as second-class citizens by Blogger.

I've found that when I go to compose posts, there's a whole whack of formatting options which I can view and use from my PC at work, but which are not available on my Mac at home. There, the only buttons available at the top of the post composition window are the spell checker, and Add Image. That's right - no bold, no italics, no font size, type, colour or alignment selection, no links, block quotes, bullets/numbering, etc. etc. etc. And God knows, I need EMPHASIS in my writing! ;-)

Which is not to say that these things can't be done from a Mac. It's just that I have to go in and manually insert the requisite HTML code, for each bit of formatting I want. While this may serve as a useful reminder of the HTML I learned years ago, it's quite tiresome to have to haul out hubby's Big Black Book of code every time I want to post at home. Otherwise, I just end up writing posts, saving them as drafts, then formatting and publishing them the next day from my PC at work.

I've looked at Blogger's help pages, which seem to suggest I may have more luck if I switch to Mozilla Firefox as my browser (I use Safari at present, and occasionally Internet Explorer - both of which have this problem). But it really is annoying that this is even an issue. I hate the way that so many Web-based applications (Yahoo Messenger being another) treat Mac users as an afterthought, if at all.

Man. I think I'm beginning to morph into a blog geek. My friend (and blogger extraordinaire) Jonathan often blogs about these sorts of technical issues himself, including all the problems that result when you view the formatting of your blog from different browsers. I used to put it down to his general curmudgeonliness, but now I think I'm beginning to understand. Mea culpa, McWetboy.

*UPDATE 29 JULY* Have now installed Firefox at home...formatting tools have indeed appeared! Wheeee!

Declining by Degrees

Yesterday, while sheltering indoors from the oppressive heat, I watched a programme that I taped off PBS Friday night. It was called ‘Declining by Degrees: Higher Education at Risk’ and was about the current state of universities in America. Given my profession, of course, I watched it with great interest.

Not much of what was covered was all that shocking. Problems such as soaring enrolments, slashed budgets, declining standards, and excessive student partying are neither new nor confined to America. But I was quite amazed by the extent to which market forces have been allowed to define American universities. The increasing importance of athletic programmes, for instance, is something I’d only been vaguely aware of, but their current use in many universities as a major source of revenue is astonishing (and not a little infuriating, from a scholar’s point of view).

However, the programme’s biggest point was that a so-called ‘non-aggression pact’ has developed between teaching faculty and students:

It amounts to an unspoken compact: don’t ask too much of me, and I won’t expect much from you. This allows the faculty members to concentrate on what their institution values: publications, research and getting grants. And it means that students get good grades and can float though college with plenty of time for socializing, networking and other activities. Few complain, even though to an outsider it’s pretty clear that the emperor has no clothes.

Nothing new about this. I started university as an undergraduate fifteen years ago, and can’t tell you how many people I saw coast along with very little effort. But there’s a difference between intelligent people doing the bare minimum to get a mediocre grade (that’s their problem – third-level education is not compulsory, and you can only get out of it, intellectually, what you put in), and people whose intellectual capability is in doubt, yet whose tuition fees are nonetheless accepted and who are pushed through the system.

I could rant about this subject at great length, let me tell you. But it’s a beautiful sunny day, so I really ought to get out and do something frivolous.

Rabbiting On

We have a guest staying with us this weekend - a disabled, lop-eared, male English rabbit of indeterminate age. A. brought him home from the clinic on Friday.

Sadly, a few weeks ago, Teddy (the rabbit we adopted last September as a companion for our other bun, Fawn) died suddenly. A. was out of the country at the time, and I ended up having to deal with it all. :-( Opening our hearts to another animal feels like the last thing we want to do right now, but of course Fawn really needs a friend, and it's not fair to deprive her. And there's no shortage of abandoned animals looking for homes at the clinic where A. works. So, we've got this English lop we've christened Tim, who is currently healthy, but disabled. He suffered a bad case of 'head tilt', resulting from a middle ear infection - and so his sense of balance is buggered. As a result, his head is permanently tilted to one side! Poor guy! (but the effect is actually kinda comical)

Our observations thus far? He needs to be fixed before we can even think about adopting him. He’s completely hormonal, poor lad. On introduction, Fawn was her usual aggressive self, lunging at him and biting (she was the same way with Teddy before he was neutered - and then they became best friends). Yesterday, I put him in the cage for a bit with our guinea pig, whom he proceeded to chase, pin down and hump furiously. The guinea pig, of course, was having none of it, squeaking and chirping like her life was about to end. So I had to separate them, and gave Tim a plush ball for, erm, company. Quite enjoyed himself with that.

A. will definitely need to sort him out on Monday... *sniiiiip* But hoping he makes it through the surgery - he has some lung damage from a bad respiratory infection that he was suffering from when he was first abandoned at the clinic. But we can’t keep him unless we can rectify his hormonal state. So, fingers crossed....

New Furniture at Last!

The last space in our house that remains to be properly furnished is our bedroom. We've been living out of suitcases and with makeshift shelving for months. The TV sits on a stack of milk crates, and my bedside table has been a Smirnoff box.

Back in May, we custom-ordered some furniture from a place over in Dartmouth called Lakecity Woodworkers. We got everything made in solid pine, with a clear finish (originally, we thought we'd get oak or maple, until we saw the price). Finally, all the pieces were delivered today - very exciting!

We got a big twelve-drawer dresser, which will pretty much be for my own use...


...and a king-size headboard (which is almost impossible to find in stores):


...and two bedside tables - begone Smirnoff box! Hurray!


It all looks great and I'm delighted. Felt sorry for the delivery guys though...today is the hottest day of the year so far (about 40 degrees with Humidex) and they were totally miserable by the time they finished...

In My Garden

Went out this morning and took some pics of things flowering in the garden at the moment. Occurred to me that uploading the pictures and blogging about it occasionally would be a good way to record what happens in the garden as the seasons pass. As we're planning some serious work on re-designing the garden next year, this is probably a good idea.

One of the best things about moving into this house last autumn has been watching the garden to see what grows. There are some very pretty flowers and shrubs - so a great foundation from which to start. This year, we're mostly taking stock of what we already have, though we did fill up a bunch of pots and planters with annuals, and have a small kitchen garden going, in containers (herbs, salad leaves, strawberries, and tomatoes). We're coddling a few rather sickly raspberry and currant bushes, and Andrew planted a few pumpkin and watermelon seeds, just for a lark.

A Better Class of Analysis - Sort Of

We get The Economist at work. Normally I give it pretty short shrift, because of its obvious right-wing, Anglo-American biases. But occasionally they publish interesting stuff.

There's an article in the June 9th issue on social class in America, called 'Minding About the Gap'. It reinforced a lot of my own suspicions about contemporary issues of class, not only in America, but also in Canada and other largely immigrant-built societies. Personally, I reckon we in North America like to think we live in a classless society, but in reality, class is very much a feature of the social landscape. Granted, it's less structured and institutionalised than in places like Britain, but to pretend that we live in a utopian meritocracy, where everyone somehow manages to be middle class, is ludicrous.

The Economist says:

For a people who pride themselves on ignoring social class, Americans are suddenly remarkably interested in it. The country's two leading newspapers are winding up blockbuster series on the subject. ... [T]he series' conclusion is that social mobility has failed to keep up with widening social divisions: in other words, that class does indeed matter.

America, of course, is rife with social distinctions, but it has always prided itself on the assumption that talented people are free to rise to their natural level. The country's favourite heroes have been Benjamin Franklin types who made something out of nothing. ... And its favourite villains have usually been Paris Hilton types, who combine inherited wealth with an obvious lack of talent.

The idea that "talented people are free to rise to their natural level" is, of course, at the root of the American Dream - and indeed, is the foundation of the attractive promise offered by all immigrant societies. But what happens if, for lack of funds, encouragement, or opportunity, talented people find themselves stuck on the lower rungs of the ladder of progress? In a classless society of equals, the obvious explanation is that such people simply haven't worked hard enough - that their lack of success is their own fault. Which neatly lays blame with individuals, and exonerates society and the Establishment from criticism.

The article goes on to suggest that increasing class distinction in America is largely due to decreasing access to higher education - an argument I find somewhat dubious. But it's interesting to see the topic of social class in America broached by an American publication. It's not often I see this subject explored.

Ignorance Abroad

A weighty tome landed on my desk at work today. It was a copy of "The Big Guide to Living and Working Overseas" by Jean-Marc Hachey. As I work in the field of international development, it was delivered for the Director of my unit. Apparently it's regarded as a bit of a bible for Canadians looking to work or study in other countries. I had a flick through it, and there was some pretty interesting content, particularly the chapter on Canadian identity in the international workplace (you can read most of it online, after registering, by going here).

Based on interviews with ex-pats, it made for pretty frank, self-reflective reading. A lot of the material explored the conflicts caused by differences in our working culture and that of some other countries, which can often make Canadians extremely uncomfortable (e.g. the preponderance of bribery, nepotism and other blatant forms of corruption). But what I found most interesting was the section on the perceived North American lack of general cultural knowledge, and how this has a detrimental effect on how foreigners view us:

North Americans are known as culturally ignorant for our common inability to discuss art, literature, politics and history. Unlike other countries where interest in these topics is widespread and encouraged, our work ethic, and in the case of Canadians, fear of treading on controversial ground, often prevents us from enjoying art and appreciating knowledge for its own sake:

"I remember being amazed in France by the level of knowledge of plumbers and other tradesmen. They were far better at discussing politics and literature than I, despite my master's degree. Our education simply does not put enough emphasis on general cultural knowledge."

Our omnipresent concern with work leaves other parts of our lives underdeveloped. Conversation is a rare art in our society. For many of us, our most meaningful exchange of ideas occurs at work. By avoiding discussion of such imprecise subjects as the arts, we deprive ourselves of growth into new fields of knowledge.

I think this is totally true (and applies in equal measure to other countries, including America and possibly also Australia). While living in England, I can't tell you the number of in-depth conversations I had with cab drivers and the like. There, general cultural knowledge is seen as part of a common inheritance. Here, it's largely seen as the preserve of geeky types - dull, earnest people without 'real' lives, or much else to do except read books and newspapers. I've been one of those geeks all my life. It's probably the main reason why I left this country and went to Europe in my early 20s. Intellectually, it felt like home.

Enter the Panopticon

So I've been dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century. I've set up this damn blog, and now I've got to maintain it.

I first bestowed the name Panopticon on the hard drive of my old Macintosh laptop. But now that said laptop slumbers peacefully in electronic retirement, it's time I recycled the name. And it's far more suited to a blog, I think.

Pray, what is a 'panopticon', you ask? Astonishing the things you remember from your undergraduate days. It's a type of prison building, first designed in the late eighteenth century by the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham. The Panopticon was circular in construction, and allowed the jailer (located in the centre of the building) to view all the prisoners at all times, without the prisoners themselves knowing if they were being observed. This bestowed "invisible omniscience" on the jailer, "assuring a surveillance which [was] both global and individual."

[For more gripping facts on the Panopticon, get thee to Wikipedia.]

Needless to say, I find the concept of invisible omniscience extremely attractive. If this is to be my niche on the Internet, I suppose it's time I start surveying the world around me. For here, I am all-powerful. Muahahahaaa.

So here we go. I know I'm a lousy diarist, so I guess we'll see now if I'm a marginally better blogger.