Category
University
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01.01.03My Little SausageIn the Peak District village where I lived when I was writing my Masters' dissertation, there was a man called Mr Binns, who ran the local newsagent. Every morning, procrastinating the writing-up process, I would walk the two miles into the village to buy milk and a paper. Plopping The Guardian down on the counter, on top of copies of the local free rag (the High Peak Courier, I seem to remember) and next to see-through buckets of sour chews and chocolate cigarettes, I'd get read to pay. Mr Binns would be standing behind the counter in a zip-up brown ...
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01.01.03In Praise of SmashYou have got the wrong end of the stick entirely if you think for a moment that Smash is supposed to act like a foodstuff. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. That's like trying to pass off Alka-seltzer as a refreshing soft drink - it's just not. Smash is dehydrated mashed potato, and it is, in a word, magnificient. Another possible word would be bland, but let's gloss over that for the moment. Smash is, however, a genius hangover concept. In my final year of uni at Liverpoool, my flatmate Charlotte and I figured out that it was clinically the only way to recover ...
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12.16.02The Seating Rule, and when it backfiresThere is a simple rule common to most student households (and for that matter, any household inhabited entirely by recent ex-students or stoners). This rule is simple in its interpretation and often extremely harsh in its execution. It is based in roots of practicality and common sense, and yet still some people choose to debate it. There is no debate. The rule is this: IF YOU GET UP, YOU LOSE YOUR SEAT What's to debate? This rule, at least in our student house in the second year, originated in the fact that there were six people sitting around listening to music and sharing ...
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12.16.02RiotIn 1995, I was in a Bolivian riot. That is to say, I was walking down the Prado in the middle of La Paz in October when the riot began all around me - campesinos throwing stones at the police, who threw tear gas back. I was suddenly caught in the middle, eyes streaming, coughing from the gas and fumbling for the kerb and something to put over my eyes - a sleeve, some bottled water. I found refuge in the post office. There was a lot of rioting the year I lived in La Paz, for one reason or another ...
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12.16.02Dancing on the Roof of the WorldIn 1996 I was living in a tiny community in Bolivia, doing fieldwork for my dissertation. That�s another story in itself � if not a whole book � but not for now. This story concerns itself with learning valuable cultural lessons, dancing on the roof of the world, and the reason I will never have a second helping of potatoes ever again as long as I live. During the second month of my fieldwork, as the local foreigner, I was invited to the inaugural blessing of a new tree nursery in a tiny hamlet about four hours drive into the mountains ...
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12.16.02Nintendo ThumbIn February 1996, I was visiting my friend Richard in La Paz for a few days over a weekend, when the government suddenly declared a state of emergency because of widespread civil unrest in the country. A state of emergency meant complete paralysis for a few days - no buses or trains, roads closed, shops and markets shut up for the duration, and a curfew - although there was little point in going out of the house anyway, because a) there was nothing open and b) there was a very real possibility of getting caught up in a pitched battle ...
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12.08.02Movies on the MoveWent to see LOTR at the Odeon Leicester Square. Our arrival was heralded by a sparkle of paparazzi flashes and a huge cheer from the waiting crowd - although it later transpired that they were actually waiting for Joshua Hairnet and crew to show up to the premiere of Black Hawk Down. Ah well. I'll save my mumblings on the movie for another time - suffice to say for the moment that it was visually spectacular, and there was a lot of it. An arse-numbing three hours, in fact. There was also a lot of it in the sense that there ...
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12.08.02One Reason Why the Internet is a Good ThingThere was this night at the end of my fourth year of undergraduate study at Liverpool - and I have to admit that, as it was just after the end of exams, we might have been a little bit...um...under the influence, and that's ok because, you know, we were young and carefree and that's what we did back then, because we didn't care about jobs and life and social responsibility, we just cared about having fun, however remote and distant that feeling may be now. Anyway, after a momentarily diverting interlude which involved placing an electric toothbrush on the end ...
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12.08.02On My GuitarI miss my guitar. I've had the same twelve-string acoustic since 1990, when I bought it in a small music shop while on holiday in North Wales, and then hauled it over the long ocean to Canada. I chose it because it made a lot of noise - twelve strings always sound more accomplished and polished than six, and you don't need amplification to busk. I did a lot of busking. On the ferry from Tsawassen to Swartz Bay, I pulled out the guitar and busked Indigo Girls tunes to pay for the bus journey into Victoria. In 1990, I ...
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12.08.02Bills, Bills, BillsSome aspects of student house-sharing are more guaranted to cause stress, stomach ulcers, hernias, rifts, stabbings and other unpleasant social phenomena than others. Leaving a polite amount of milk is irritating, surreptitiously moving a girlfriend or boyfriend into the flat can annoy and completely failing to wash up ever is virtually guaranteed to grate (and probably cause an outbreak of salmonella) but as unpleasant as these acts are, they all pale into insignificance in comparison with the true student horror - the ritual splitting of bills. Students, as you may already know through experience or observation, do not have much money. ...
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