With the power of hindsight...this year would have been completely different.

Some things I've done this year. With hindsight, most might be redacted.

1. Weighing myself on the post office scales -- intended for 'parcels only'.
2. Telling people that they can't eat a banana in a non-sexual way, and proceeding to make them really self-conscious so that it becomes self-fulfilling
3. Wearing a Kermit jumper and avowedly telling people that the Muppets are the only legitimate source of political authority.
4. Wearing sunglasses in an exam, and pretending that it's normal. (This may involve asking other examinees, even examiners, where their's are).
5. Overreacting to minor inconveniences with inconsolable blubbing. 
6. Being over-enthusiastic when meeting a friend who you haven't seen for a week.  Comment on how much you've missed them/how things have changed/how they look different.
7. Ignoring texts and modern communication for a week.  Then pretending that they haven't made any effort.
8. Writing articles that quote friends as saying silly things they haven't said. Then make sure that everyone reads it. "Read all about it, Read all about it," malarky. 
9. Hiding in a box and jumping out at my bedder/any other entrant into my den.
10. Pretending that my room is a den and that I'm a lion.
11. Giving anti-presents, reserved only for arch whiners. 
12. Trying to climb in through windows when people won't let you in through the door. 
13. Playing the opposite game, and deliberately not informing others. 
14. Wearing rimmed spectacles and pretending to be a Harry Potter imitation at Kings Cross 
15. Turning Oyster cards into wands.  To do this, simply dip a card into boiling water, peel the plastic film, remove the chip, and implant it into a stick. Then tap the stick on the Oyster machine and bellow "Alohamora" at the gate. 
16. Buying enough hummus to fill your room. 
17. Then devouring it in a single meal.
18. Crashing the presidential banquet in Zagreb. 
19. Subsequently interrupting a live press release on the 10th anniversary of 9/11
20. Do an audio walking tour of Berlin pretending that it is actually referring to Budapest, more specifically war-torn Pest.
21. Hiding your friend's belongings in the bathroom. 
22. Changing your friend's phone contacts to resemble Harry Potter characters. Ideally these should bear some resemblance to those real-life characters, who can then be independently contacted and asked to text said friend with in-character phrases.  (Courtesy of Emily Fernandes).
23. Buying a giant Connect Four set for your room.
24. Insisting that everyone - including strangers/people you've just met - play it
25. Strenuously denying that it is a euphemism.
26. Essentialising your friends, and when they do a characteristic thing, say 'classic'.
27. Telling people you have a goat called Kevin. 
28. Printing multiple photos of your face, and plaster them over a friend's room.
29. Feign flattery for patently disgusting/undesirable objects. I.e., awww, is this used tissue for me? you shouldn't have.
30. Teaching people the Vegetable Game
31. Making games up
32. Treating your college like a castle. 
33. Graffitiing a friend's passport photo -- in whiteboard marker
34. Dressing up in a Sherwani, and pretending to be the Raj of Cambridge
35. 
    

Rolling up the sleeves | Varsity Online

Rolling up the sleeves | Varsity Online:

'via Blog this'

My first article for Varsity:

Eyebrows were raised after a weekend of dogged resolve in English sport, prompting questions over whether Stuart Lancaster and Andy Flower have been sharing laboratory sessions with the absent-minded professor that discovered "flubber," a rubber-like super-bouncy substance.

The substance that appears to be influencing British sport at the moment

The cause of this curiosity is England’s newfound bounce-back-ability, a word that definitely exists, especially in the absence of a rational explanation for seemingly improbable events.

The first of these came when an inexperienced rugby side – with just 248 caps between them, and eight players with 10 appearances or less – staged an impressive comeback on a snowy outing in Rome in the second of their Six Nations fixtures. Deploying all their reserves of willpower, England scored 13 unanswered points in 8 minutes (with a conversion rate higher than Berlusconi’s in a bunga-bunga session/faster than rising cost of Italian bond yields), suggesting that the Italians had colder fingers during this period. The second event came when England rediscovered their mojo in the cricket, thrashing Pakistan by 130 runs in the first one-day international in Abu Dhabi.

Yet comparing England to a green, pulsating, bouncing blob at this stage may seem overly generous, particularly when you consider that the rugby outfit are still to score a try that doesn’t rely on a charitable donation. Not to belittle such random acts of kindness, but it would be nice to score a try that does not rely on a Charlie Hodgson charge-down. England will be aware that Welsh largesse is harder to come by, since the RFU doesn’t hold charitable status in Wales. And if they aren’t already aware of the effects of devolution on tax law, surely they will be after Twickenham, where England look set to take the points quicker than you can say ‘Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru’ (National Assembly for Wales).

Similarly, the large margin of victory in the cricket should not obscure what was, with one notable exception – Alastair Cook, whose knock of 134 was also the difference between the sides – still a batting capitulation at the hands of any bowler who was able to spin the ball any more than the width of an amoeba. On a positive note, it was better than the test series. Realistically, however, it was hard not to be, given how low the bar was set, lower even than Homerton’s performance in the Thomkins table.

Moreover it is hard to laud England’s performance without lamenting the Pakistani collapse. Fortunately, the latter appear now to have reclaimed the mantle of self-destruction that England hogged throughout the Test Series. In an attempt to emulate the farcical displays of assistance in the rugby, Pakistan has spontaneously plumped to become a net foreign aid donor by the end of the series, ignoring Saeed Ajmal’s (Pakistan’s best bowler) wishes to the contrary.

Context, however, is everything, since it could so easily have been worse. Rewind just one month: the RFU was in disarray following the shambles of the World Cup, culminating in the acrimonious resignation of long-time coach Martin Johnson; in the cricket, whitewashed by a lower-ranked Pakistani side in the Test Series, where England’s batsmen managed to surpass 200 runs on only two occasions, the selectors were left with the unenviable task of wondering which batsmen to drop, and how many.

Viewed in this way, damage limitation has already been a success. In the rugby, victory against the Italians makes it two wins from two, despite the tricky conditions and inexperienced setup. As for the cricket, England still tops the test rankings and by now will have scheduled a crash course on not-getting-out-cheaply-to-any-bowler-that-threatens-to-impart-any-turn-on-the-ball. I hope.

Unlike Philip Brainard when he discovered the magical formula, fans and players alike are firmly grounded. The self-criticism that characterises the teams’ approach is refreshing to see. Ultimately, it could help to puncture the inevitable tide of nationalistic fervour, which serves only to unrealistically inflate expectations. English sport isn’t in such a bad place after all.

Blackout at the Labs « The Tab – www.cambridgetab.co.uk

Blackout at the Labs « The Tab – www.cambridgetab.co.uk:

My first article for The Tab.

'via Blog this':

Lectures were cancelled and Cam FM was forced to stop broadcasting when a power cut today plunged the New Museums Site into darkness.

The cut struck around 10.30am, cancelling lab sessions and causing lunch to be delayed (malnutrition alert), before being restored after 2:00PM.

Early attempts by engineers diagnosed the fault point in nearby road works, where it is believed that an 11,000-volt cable was damagedduring the improvements.

The National Grid said the majority of their customers now had power restored, but engineers are still at work.

Electric Feel: power cut panic at the New Museums

Emily Fernandes, a Robinson student, claimed that it was “spooky” walking among the dinosaur skeletons in the Zoology Museum.

Another commented that she received a “real shock” when the lights on her microscope failed.

She added: “Lectures may be cancelled, but of much greater concern is that we now lack access to the stream of verbiage that is theVarsity website,” whose service was also tragically disrupted. “Undoubtedly it has ruined my Monday morning.”

The Tab and other more powerful on-line services were impervious to such problems.

This is the second major power cut this term, after St. John’s was left in the dark two weeks ago.

This time will be different. I promise.

Obviously it should be Redknapp. I mean, it’s not like the FA have made rash decisions in the past, pressured by public opinion or overly reflexive in response to previous failures in managerial choices.

Clearly such mistakes are a thing of the past. Clearly there will be no knee-jerk transition from the ice-cool Sven to the pally Maclaren. Clearly the disciplinary deficiencies of the latter will not be superseded by an authoritarian Italian.

For one thing, a ‘shortlist’ is being considered. Imagine that: a list of names. Real names. Of people. (Hopefully this list isn’t as short as the last one, Fabio the sole feature).

To be sure, Harry has plenty going for him. He’s not a crook, as the media are suddenly at pains to tell us. He also isn’t a hamster. Or a dog. Or a long list of other, equally unemployable, organisms.

It helps that he’s likeable, earning him a healthy dose of media good-will. His competency at Spurs probably wouldn’t harm his CV either. But let’s face it, he’s not a stand-out candidate, and he’d be assuming a poisoned chalice – one which no sane or ambitious type would ever contemplate.

You see, part of the problem is the national psyche. There has long been a belief – perhaps dating back as far as 1966 – that the time will come again. Maybe it will. Maybe it won’t. But the public expects, and all players since have been shouldered with that expectation.

Fat Les and the crowd that sung Vindaloo are guilty of a fatal error: they wrongly assume that nationalistic devotion to an all-but-hopeless cause can militate against the failures that will invariably arise from a sub-optimally managed and less-than-talented squad.

But history cruelly demonstrates that shouting loudly is no indication as to the validity of those claims. Just ask Balotelli for futher information about that one.

Ultimately, while 14K per day is a big number, I don’t envy Fabio’s successor, because only a world cup will satisfy the fans. And winning a world cup, well, it ain’t easy.

http://cambridgetab.co.uk/sport/capellos-successor-in-for-a-rough-ride

Yet more memes: a political slant

Until a week ago, I had never even heard of a meme. Now they’re plastered all over Facebook, clogging up my newsfeed with their wittiness. Are they anything more than the latest Facebook fad? The answer lies in the politics.

Liberal democracies pride themselves on allowing citizens to make rational, informed choices based on the world around them. For this to happen, there must exist a free press with the ability to scrutinise the vehicles of the state.

But the recent scandal at News International – revealing the nexus between a media elite and our politicians – has shown this to be little more than a cosy fiction. Rupert Murdoch, along with a cabal of media tycoons, have been allowed to set the political agenda, determining what is talked about and even shaping the way people approach certain issues.

Memes are hardly about to solve this problem overnight. Yet they are symptomatic of a wider trend: the rise of social media, a forum where users generate their own content and where information is disseminated more widely. The result is a more meaningful dialogue, one that more accurately reflects the hopes and fears of people, rather than simply a function of whatever News International decides to publish.

What memes contribute to this dialogue is their simplicity. A cursory glance at one, and you understand why they work: you chuckle both at the parody itself and the realisation that someone else feels the same way about an issue. Until now, this solidarity has been the preserve of literature and cartoons. But crafting and reading an article take time; depicting David Cameron in a condom isn’t easy either. Memes, by contrast, are both straightforward to make and easy to understand. Any person from any walk of life can enter quickmeme.com and conjure a scathing 5-word critique of the coalition government’s planned reforms of the NHS.

In other words, memes hold the power of literature condensed into a single graphic. They can elicit norm-defying responses, prompting people to challenge their staid conceptions of power. Or, you know, they can just be funny.

The Memes are Winning

Until a week ago, I had never even heard of a meme. Now they’re plastered all over Facebook, clogging up my newsfeed with their wittiness. And frankly, I’m still not convinced that they aren’t a repetitive, self-obsessed cry for attention. (The joke will become apparent later).

Still, I shouldn’t be surprised. Facebook and indeed social media in general always move ahead of my electronic proclivities. As soon as I’ve mastered the latest gimmick, the next arrives. Only the other day, I finally grasped the Guardian Online, and the tactics required to project the idealised journalistic profile to my ‘friends’. You know the feeling. The one where you flick through your ‘article history’ to discover that most of the articles are either banal or sex-related. And then the guilt which induces you to hurriedly click on a series of more serious articles so you can purport to also care about ‘the issues’. And go to Cambridge.

Then, all of a sudden, along comes a meme. My first thought: why is this all about ‘me’? Surely it would be more efficient simply to write me². In any case, the memes are spreading, and fast, feasting off Cambridge stereotypes.

Naturally Homerton and Johns have fared worst of the colleges. The former may as well not be in Cambridge. And the latter, well, most people wish that it wasn’t. But enough college-ism. Clearly everyone’s special in the Cambridge community. Unless you study education.

Finally, a quick quibble with the memes I’ve seen: all to often, despite their generalisations, they’re undeniably right. In fact, the frequency of their correctness is beginning to undermine my belief in my own independent agency.

My only serious observation is that memes alter the discourse, offering an easier, faster, and more striking avenue for sharing in-jokes and parodying the institutions around us. If you are a fan of empowerment, then you should enter quickmeme.com

No thanks, Alan. Redknapp's better.

In an attempt to shake off the media circus ensconced outside his home, Peter Alfie Roland Dilon Edwin William (P.A.R.D.E.W.), my pet dog, has joined the list of sentient beings ruling himself out of the race to be the next England manager.

The three-year-old reaffirmed his commitment to the Cambridge Kennels but admits he would like to see the job go to an English breed, hoping a deal can be agreed to appoint Harrier.

Although Durham boss Harrier is the clear favourite to take the job, PARDEW has enjoyed a strong season at Kennelside, guiding the Hounds to fifth place in the Canine League.

His previous achievements include reaching the KA (Kennel Association) Cup final with unfancied Hull but, despite an impressive CV, which could see him considered, the former Terriers United boss does not wish to abandon what he has started with the Hounds.

"Firstly, as an English dog, I'm proud to be in that sort of frame, but it's not for me and I'll make that quite clear," he barked to reporters. "I'm not even in the running as far as I'm concerned.

"I'm very, very happy here at Cambridge, we're on a little project here that's going really well and I want to see it through. And the passion and everything about this place is why I want to stay here."

"I do want it to go to an English dog, just on a personal level," PARDEW said. "That's important this time. I really, really hope Harrier and club themselves out and can do it in a manner that it works for everybody."