November's cold chain, made of wet boots and rain...

Well helloooo there! Long time no bloggy. My apologies to those very sweet, slightly impatient people who have been asking for more. It's amazing how busy you can get when you make a few friends, join a choir and a football team, go to a few concerts in London and try to get some work done. Not necessarily in that order. Now term has finished, Oxford has emptied of most of its students and activities so it's a choice between getting work done and contacting friends. I hope you enjoy the blog entry. :-)

OK, so the month of November was actually lots of fun. That title was just an excuse to quote Tom Waits on my blog. We even saw the sun a few times. Let's start with another gratuitously scenic shot from a desk where I've been studying - this one is in the Worcester College library, which overlooks our main quad. The sun is setting, which puts the time at about 4pm. Still not used to that.

What's more, the inside of the library looks like the set of My Fair Lady:

Sorry for the crummy phone-pictures (camera is still with the camera doctor), but you get the idea. Oxford is still beautiful.

Somewhat less beautiful is the idea of me playing Aussie rules football. As unlikely and unprepossessing as this may seem, it has happened. The Oxford AFL team plays one match every year, against Cambridge, and the post-training trip to the pub is deemed almost as important as training itself; nevertheless, this fiercely (not necessarily elegantly) contested "varsity match" is the longest running AFL game outside of Oz. Many of the players haven't played in years or at all, and some of them are English, but after many weeks of practice, a creditable outfit took the field on November 25. We even had the local BBC current affairs programme at our final training session and an article in London's Australian Times. On the left you see a blurry but excited JW on the day we got our team guernseys. I seem to be scratching my bum, while Mayur seems to be making other important adjustments.



The game was a close one, in almost ideal conditions (except that we were in Cambridge), and ended up going to the right team by just 5 points. Check out the amazingly pleasant weather (it had poured all morning):


And now check out me, not quite getting amongst it:


I won't say that's as close as I got to the action all day, but I reckon it'd be safe to say I didn't have a major impact on the game. I did nail a tackle or two when not on the bench, and I enjoyed the rowdy celebrations as much as the next bloke. Perhaps not quite as much as Andrew (see right, WA Rhodes Scholar, and yes that's our trophy on his head...) or as much as Tom Smith (see below, SA Rhodes scholar, team co-captain and dirty dancer). For those of you who shared the Shout! experience with me, this is the older brother of Barnabas, our drummer. If you have Barnie's email address, please share this with him. :-) What is it with footballers and handling themselves?


For more on the football, have a look at the article in the Australian Times or the OUANZ website (has great pictures).



















In other, less eyebrow-raising news, I have been doing some singing. Quite a lot, in fact. I auditioned for several choirs back in October, and ended up in the one which I wasn't sure I wanted to join and which had the most competitive audition process. Funny old world. It is called Out of the Blue and is something of an Oxford institution, singing all-male a capella arrangements of mostly pretty cheesy pop songs, complete with vocal percussion and (yes!) choralography. Here are some of the lads in rehearsal:

And here we are in glad rags at the Mansfield College ball on November 4:



The group rehearses three times a week and gets quite a few gigs, so it's a big commitment with the pay-off being an expenses paid East Coast USA tour in the Easter break. Most of the group this year is pretty green (only 2 out of 13 remaining from last year's lot and many are first years!) but thankfully all the work has paid off and by our end-of-term concerts I was quite enjoying it. If your internet connection is up to it, have a look at our rendition of "Sex Bomb" (!) in the video below, shot by a disturbingly avid fan at our sold-out concert on December 1.



We went on a bit of a mini UK tour last week; I got to see Durham, York and Manchester, which was great. One of the troop, Deep (also known as "first grandpa" because he is 28; I'm second at 25) has a great camera so I might nab some of his shots of the tour for next time. For the moment you're only getting my phone's impression of York Minster (breathtaking through any lens):


I've also managed to listen to some great music in the last few weeks. Andrew Lloyd visited on the weekend of the footy match, and that spurred me to attend my first evensong at Christchurch Cathedral. Real English choral music - Weelkes, Byrd and Smith of Durham. Stunning. Less highbrow but just as exciting was the night I went to Koko in London to hear Neko Case, flame-haired goddess of indie country. She was spellbinding, sang all my favourite songs and even threw in a duet with her excellent support act, M Ward. Hence, her very cool silk-screened poster now adorns my wall. I am an unabashed, totally one-eyed fan. While we're on alt-country, I also went to hear Lucinda Williams at Shepherd's Bush Empire. This woman has a voice that can strip paint, and it was a hell of a concert - including (get this) an unannounced guest appearance on lead guitar from Bruce Springsteen. Surreal. Mercifully avoiding his own back catalogue, he simply duelled blues solos with Lucinda's own lead guitarist, the terrific Doug Pettibone, and completely brought the house down. Bruce is the second blur from the left:

It's going to be OK - we're nearly there. If you're bored, you didn't have to read this far; if you're not, I'm flattered. Just so that you all know I have actually been doing some work, I'm going to wind up with some quotes from my entertaining Prof. I mentioned last time that he was Italian and outrageous. Every now and then he gets on a roll and deliberate provocation collides with slightly heavy-handed English to produce a gem. Here is a sample:
- On Karl Popper, philosopher of science: “I had great respect for Popper all my life, but I hope I don’t grow old like him.”
- Bonding with the three Indian students in the class: “India and Italy, we are both backward countries but you have a future.”
- On Napoleon the Great: “...some of his friends – well, Napoleon didn’t have friends, but, well, people whom he respected...”
- On people set in their ways: “I had dinner last night with a very senior biochemist, he is 84 years of age, who talked about the history of science like he was a positivist living in the 1870’s. People have their own agendas. I mean, I have no doubt at all that he is wrong, but you cannot kill him!”
- On bending the rules: “This Oxford is a curious place. Everything here is forbidden, and that is why everything is possible...”
- On success in academia: “...and then, if you want a career, go and find a very powerful supervisor and write lots of papers and quote him all of the time. Don’t quote me – no, I’ll give you a list of who to quote...”
- And finally, the explanatory punchline: “Is OK, I am just talking. I often say you must say 100,000 stupid things and then a good idea comes out.”

More of Pietro's pearls of wisdom next time. At least that proves I pay attention in class. I'm off to bed. When you've finished giggling at the Out of the Blue video, shoot me an email with your suggestions for future repertoire and choreography. :-) I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas.