Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Bur Under the Conscience

It looks inevitable that this week I will only think about the blog when I have little time to jot down any more than vague ramblings. 'What's new?' I hear you say. Well, okay. It is a fair point.

But in good old blog tradition, let me ramble. The PhD is in a delicate state presently. Monday simply had to be a day of rest, or at least a break from the laborious process of proping up the rushed arguments and wild citations mascarading as proofs in Chapters 1-4. Accordingly I spent most of the day making job applications.

But one bright moment in the fuzzy gloom that has descended on me ever since my glasses needed changing was the rediscovery of Stephen Fry's glorious 'Jeeves' and Hugh Laurie's marvellous 'Bertie Wooster'. Dad's new DVD machine and 20" TV - 20" screen, woooooooooooww - has never seen more worthy service. Goodness, Wodehouse was a philosopher, even if he somehow got embroiled with the Nazis! I must glean some of Bertie's gems and relate them on this august forum, before I return to Lyon on Saturday. Here's one. 'You cannot be blamed for somehow becoming engaged to Honoria Glossop, Jeeves. Honoria Glossop is an act of God'. How very true that sounds, especially applied to certain females!

Another philosopher who has wandered into my life, but who this time was on the Nazis' hitlist, is the incredible Dietrich Von Hildebrand. Here's another worthy subject for more blogging at a later date. You have to admire anyone who was writing about the 'Metaphysics of the Community' in the 1930s, an age when metaphysics was discredited, and community was thought of - bizarrely - as communist. More on him in due course.

Meanwhile, with less than 50 minutes to go before Lent, I must go and mediate on all possible meanings of the word 'repent'. If only it was the same as the Latin 'repente', which is so beautifully rendered in French as 'rapidement'.