Wednesday, September 28, 2005

And they write innumerable books

Check this out.

Whoah - three posts in a day. I need a lie-down with a cold compress.

Goodnight, dear Reader.


Weave the sunlight in your hair

I was thinking over the holiday. (OK, that statement is rather self-evident, since I was working on my doctorate. It's meant colloquially.) My mother and I were discussing Islam - the burning topic of the moment, according to pretty much every news agency and television documentary - and she said that she can't see how a culture which forces women to cover their hair in public can claim not to be misogynistic. Fair enough, in some ways - I think this is a sticking point for many people with otherwise liberal views of Islam.

But how different is "Western culture" (an unfortunate term of convenience)? Forget if you will the well-known facts about the gender disparity in pay and employment, the far higher rates of domestic violence and sex crimes perpetrated against women than against men, and the unequal standards of beauty and attractiveness which apply to women in the media and the public eye (would a woman who looks like Andrew Marr, Jeremy Paxman or John Humphrys have reached anything like the status that these men have? Just look at Sophie Raworth, Moira Stewart, Anna Ford...) But even disregarding these challenges to the "emancipation" of women in the modern Western world, facts which even the least ardent feminist would agree are pretty damning, our society actually accepts discrimination between women and men as a normal, if not essential, part of life.

"Surely not!" I hear you cry. (No, I'm not hearing voices - it's a rhetorical technique). But think about it... What would happen if I walked down the street naked from the waist up? Flattery aside, I've no doubt I'd be arrested for public indecency. And what if a man did the same? Well, some women would no doubt swoon. Not me - I'm far too serious. But the point is that, in our society, we generally sexualise the female chest and not the male, and therefore insist on the former remaining hidden in public. What, then, is so different about a culture which sexualises female hair? There may be little biological difference between female and male hair, but equally there is little difference between female and male breast tissue. The hair is generally longer and more luxuriant, the breast tissue generally more enlarged and prominent. Why do we consider the insistence on covering the one to be oppressive, while covering the other is only normal and decent?

Now, I'm not advocating a cultural relativism which overlooks true oppression - violence, the denial of basic human rights, or anything of the sort. All I'm saying is that it's sometimes necessary to reevaluate what seems strange or offensive in another way of life.

Meanwhile, I guess we liberated Westerners are still waiting for the dawning of the Age of Aquarius...

Known to be the wisest woman in Europe

So, is it possible to contract Fresher's 'Flu before Freshers' Week even begins? Clearly it is, or at least some malign fate wishes me to believe so. Accordingly, I am well-stocked with Vitamin C, Echinacea (with added Vitamin C), Beecham's cold powders (with added Vitamin C), and some healthful fruit smoothies (with added Vitamin C). Perhaps the next bizarre Oxford Mail headline will be "Giant blackcurrant-woman in bus tragedy - Woodstock Road blocked by jam". Watch this space...

At least, however, I have a decent kitchen in which to produce herbal tea concoctions and comforting food. Upon which note, why must bacon be sold in such large packets? An individual of moderate size such as myself finds it difficult to consume more than two rashers per day, which means eating the damn stuff for four days in a row. (Unless, of course, one wishes to run the risk of hearing in the mind's eye (erm...?) one's mother's childhood voice... "think of the starving children in Africa"... as half a pack of Marks & Spencer English Maple Cured Bacon ends up in the bin.)

But, apart from the cold and having to endure living in a house filled with improbably attractive and pleasant people, life in Oxford is going well.

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

And ghosts return

So, back in Oxford.

Apologies for the lack of recent posts, but it's so much easier when I have an ethernet connection.

Anyway, during my time in Swansea and the environs, I collected a number of photographs which provide further evidence of the tact and tastefulness displayed in this charming corner of the world (see earlier post). I include a couple for your perusal.

An advertisement in the city centre:











and a small boat sitting by the side of the sea:










I can also tell you truly that TK Maxx (clothing shop) has, amongst its other varied clothing departments, a rail devoted to "girls bottoms" [sic.], and that there is a town on the way to Hay-on-Way with the glorious name of "Three Cocks". Should anyone wish photographic evidence of the same, I can provide it.

But, anyway, I am now back in the national hub of culture and refinement, and such puerile amusements must be beyond me. I was, however, sturck by the headline of today's local newspaper:


This doesn't quite measure up to my all-time favourite Oxford Mail headline "Pub attacked by killer slugs", but still it's a good one.

Sunday, September 18, 2005

That is not what I meant at all (Part III)

I thought I would take this opportunity, dearest reader, to share with you some of the incompetencies of the subtitlers on the major terrestrial television channels. I wish I could remember all the evidence of this which I have seen over the years (I seem to recall "Roam yo and jool yet" as an offering on Comic Relief night one year), but the few I have collected over the last little while will have to suffice. Shimon Peres, according to one ITV subtitler, is in reality Dado Perso, head of the Democratic Unionist Party. Well, Irish, Israeli - it's all the same, isn't it? Sir Edward Heath, whose death was much lamented earlier in the year, was subtitled as "Sir Health Health Health" son of "a competent other" (a carpenter, to you and me). Apparently the great man was to be buried in Salzburg Cathedral, which he could see from the windows of his house. Pretty clever that, what with him having lived in Salisbury, and all. But my particular favourite was a simple cock-up which raised the old chestnut of "weapons of mass-seduction". No, I'm not kidding.

Any contributions?

**UPDATE**

A few more clangers noted by my wonderful mother:
'schleppty' [celebrity], 'more cock row' [Morocco] and 'an adult with a pension [penchant] for young girls'.

Go Steff!