The rules I use to decide which University Challenge team to support

In order of least to greatest support:

• King's College, Cambridge over other Cambridge colleges *
• Cambridge over Oxford
• London over Oxbridge
• Anywhere else over London
• Northern over Southern
• Less "posh" over "posh" (e.g. Glasgow over Durham, but Manchester over St. Andrews)
• New university over old (Sheffield Hallam over Sheffield)
• Mature students over youngsters
• The team with the most ethnic minority members over the other
• The team with more women over the team with fewer
• Distance learning over traditional university
• Open University over all

It boils down to women > men, new > old, poor > rich, age > beauty. 

* Actually, I would probably support one of the women's colleges or newer, more obscure ones -- e.g. Churchill, Girton, Homerton -- over King's. 

There is such a thing as Britishness!

With Scottish independence and all that there's been focus on the idea of Britain, and what it means and all the rest of it.

There is a British identity, one which makes sense, with shared history and cultural values. The problem is that this Britain is ruled by, but doesn't culturally include, the English South East.

England just isn't a real country. The differences between northern England and Scotland or Wales are much smaller than the differences between northern England and the south east. The Russian dolls of identity make more sense as northern > British than English > British.

There's a natural brotherhood of the Scots, Welsh, Cornish, (Northern) Irish and Northern English. These guys all have loads in common. Landscape, sheep, post-industrial decline, an interest in folk and country music, tea, fish suppers, reserve, good humour, a shared hatred of London.

An independent Scotland would be sad for the rest of this Britain, but at least some of us will have got out. It's just a shame that it's the wrong bit going its way. That bit at the bottom, the England of Top Gear and Bake-Off and finance and media and royalty and morris dancing and London. We don't need that bit. Also, they hate us.

A nice Britain of 40million, with the capital in, say, York, would be lovely. We could just crack on being a medium-sized European country and relax. England-minor could go its way making money and being "global". Everyone would win.

We've really buggered up how we've organised this place.


ADDENDUM: I don't really know where the South-West fits in, or the Midlands. I'd like to take Birmingham with us but I guess it's up to them.

Notebook clear out (2)

More clearing out of notes. 

• Hood up
• "I practise law" "Well, practice makes perfect" / "You're no good at it yet"
• You're letting "I would wait upon I dare not", over there like George McClellan
• Hobbes, Locke and baby-led weaning *
• Masturbating to a magazine = Quaint. Old worlde.
• Car mirror intimacy (this refers to being able to clearly see the people behind you in a traffic jam with your mirror, while they can't see you; of course, the car in front can spy you, but you forget that)
• Germans as intellectual seducers: Wagner, Hitler, nietzche, Freud, Marx…
• Naked bodies not seeming practical.
• Obligation to take a nip from a hip flask - not there with a beer can. Tramp/cowboy.
• Intimacy of seeing someone's fillings  

* This would be a hell of a blog post if I could just remember what I meant by it. 

Notebook clear out (1)

The following are things I've written in notebooks, emailed myself or saved as drafts on my phone. I can't remember the context for most of them. I may have been drunk. There are loads so I'm splitting them over two posts.

• Story: man who lives for his family learns the value of selfishness one Christmas
• Calling the police 5-0 * 
• Don't use your taste in fermented hop drinks as a weapon.
• Face like a punched cushion
• Don't come from a rich enough family to vote labour
• Contolded: to be cuckolded by a woman.
• Bowie/Bowie as slang for bisexual: the first bow to rhyme with row, the second with row
• She wasn't winsome, but not exactly youlosesome either
• Too Slow, Hamburgular

* I heard some guys in Bradford doing this

Oh! If only I'd paid more attention to Sam Wollaston!

This article on pop culture resolutions came out months ago and I still think about it most weeks. Some of them are OK (a couple of guys talking about finishing their novels), one is superb (getting back into tabletop RPGs) but generally they're bonkers. Reading Salman Rushdie! Watching Deadwood! Seeing more new films! Seeing more old films!

Christ, as if there aren't enough things to worry about we're turning fun into to-dos. You see it all over - "Your Next Boxset". My next one? "Have you seen ___ yet?" Yet! 

Not saying these things aren't good, most of them are, but there's an insidious sense of cultural obligation here, fostered by the Media-DVD Boxset complex (who need to make profits); you will not be a proper person unless you watch True Detective (or whatever).

It's worth remembering that if you never watched anything else on TV, or ever read another book, you'd be just fine. There is not a gap which can be incrementally filled with culture units.

I'M NOT SAYING THAT TV IS RUBBISH. Just saying you can swap in having a chat, popping out or playing gin rummy. These are all perfectly acceptable substitutes for culture, they just have smaller marketing budgets than HBO.

It's a cliche that no one is ever on their deathbed wishing they'd spent more time in the office. I'm sure it's the same for consuming "stuff". 

I wish I'd spent more time watching television.
I wish I'd spent more time checking twitter. 

This video is good. Don't be put off by it being from Sam Harris, it's not too scolding. It doesn't suggest people shouldn't have any fun. 

It is always now. You won't live forever. Don't spend any more time reading this half-arsed blog - start your own half-arsed blog!

Pippa Middleton = Damon Albarn = Nigel Farage = Ed Miliband

Funny when people complain about the prominence of football in the news. 

Imagine still watching the news! Worse, imagine listening to the news on the radio. Imagine buying a newspaper. Incredible. 

There was the same questioning of media seriousness when Peaches Geldof died. And any coverage of the royals brings out the moaners. 

This isn't important. Kate Middleton is trivial. 

Well, none of it is important! The news isn't important! It's all soap opera - you might enjoy it, but you can ignore all of it with no consequences whatsoever. 

Newspapers are more useful than TV news as some of their content has the potential to affect how you live your life: the recipes; the gardening tips; the film reviews. That's the powerful stuff in any newspaper, you can safely junk the rest. 

You might like football, celebrity and royalty, or iPhones, Mad Men and UK politics, it doesn't matter - it's all for fun. Knowing about any of these is a hobby, not a moral good. 

Here is a nice recipe for slow-roast pork belly. There. I've given you more than a week of BBC News 24. 

Why your social media feed is clogged up with mums

It's not because they're obsessed with their children.

I need someone to acknowledge I exist. It sucks going to work but at least you can catch an eye over your desk and say, "hey, did you see that thing last night?" or "this project is really annoying me".   

This endless wiping, and tidying and washing and cooking and pleading and conversations about narwhals. I'm losing track of reality.  

Sure, sure, fun too, sometimes, just like those first few drips of water on your forehead can be refreshing.  

I'm here, I exist. Don't I? Please acknowledge that I exist and I am a person.  

I wish I had something more interesting to share with you, I really do, but I've got nothing. Just what's happening today.

I am so tired. 

Here is a picture of my stupid baby.

Stop Picking on Menswear

Every article about Britpop draws the same line: on one side blur, Oasis, Pulp, and on the other, Menswear.

Unfortunately Menswear were no good (I can see the appeal of Day Dreamer, though I hate it) but who cares? They don't stand up outside of their context, but neither do the Clash, and everyone bends over backwards pretending to like them.

Best bit about this video is Mark Goodyear in a tanktop.

This Britpop-bashing article from the Guardian is carefully calibrated to play to the music snobs and wind up the nostalgic 30somethings who read the culture section.

what Britpop became, a collection of lowest common denominators that ended up setting music back

Setting music back… Here the author is confusing scientific research with "listening to the radio".

Music is not a series of experiments aiming towards some future perfect music; if it was, everyone would have given up when Nellyville dropped in 2002, for if ever there was such a thing as perfection, surely it had arrived.

And we're back...