Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry

A deep and sincere apology is owed to you all. I haven't had time since the last entry to actually write this blog, a fact which has fatally and catastrophically undermined my expressed intention to write every day. Like an unreturned Snapchat or an unrequited poke, I am sure this newfound absence has come to dominate most of your lives, throwing your routines into disarray. But like the angels who visited the shepherds who watched flocks by night all seated on the ground (because it was Bethlehem, and no-one could afford the Wilko Round Patio Set), I say 'FEAR NOT' - I remain alive and writing.

What have I been doing instead of revising like someone productive, I hear you ask? I was headed up to Cambridge a couple of days ago to see uni friends and collect books. Relatively recently I seem to have overcome my fear of entering Cambridge outside of term time: certainly a year ago I couldn't enter the city without at least a mild sense of existential dread and harrowing memories of supervisorial dismay. I still try and escape whenever I can, but I think I have a slightly better attitude this time around. It's not such a bad place, although I'm still of the 'if only it ALL looked like Robinson College' school.

This is true beauty, Ladies and Gentlemen. Pompeiiesque.

Ellie and I met up for Pizza Express in the evening on Tuesday. Fun fact: Pizza Express don't have a 'Carbornara' pizza on the menu anymore, but I have ordered it for about a year and a half and they still make it without fail. The one in Cambridge is a haunt of post-seminar research fellows and was *definitely* once a Roman bath, when as all history books tell us 'the Romans were top nation on account of their classical education etc.'. It then turned into a jazz group, and then a religion, and then a Pit club, which is where miners used to go to relax; then they went back to jazz, but the 'ja' bit disappeared when Britain went to war with Germany so then they decided to do pizza instead.

Following this margheritey theme, I have also been hanging about with the my fellow members of the Italian Inquisition i.e. the lovely group of friends who I went with to Italy last year - in no particular order, because otherwise they will analyse this, Damian, Arianna, Leah, Seb, James, Anna-Marie and Beth. In fact it was only the first four that were there this week, which means there was a particular order, and therefore I am a terrible liar and deserve prosecution.

All was well with the team, who are juggling work with telephoning Christ's Alumni, including one unfortunate man who apparently wants to escape data analysis and become an artist. I introduced them to Café Sicilia, a place I frequented for a couple of weeks in the summer because it was the nearest café to the Scott Polar Research Institute. It serves burgers now! Arianna's heading off to France on an art trip soon, and got her grant through today, which is excellent news. Damian is finishing up his Dissertation, and we had a lovely lunch yesterday at the Regal, the biggest pub in the UK! Seb very kindly gave me some of his Classics notes while Leah seems mostly to have recovered from her Shingle - just the one! All lovely pals, who I look forward to seeing again in three weeks or so time.

Selected Members of the Italian Inquisition. Even more Pompeiiesque.

Funnily enough I chanced upon an old photo from our Italy holiday featuring these very four. They must have been walking, or I must have been moving, because the photo has came out with a strange blurred light effect, almost as if it were a painting. We joked that it might make a good cover were one of us were to write a history book about our friendship, and it does have that strange nostalgic feel about it, because when you look at your own past things do always come back to you a little blurred and distant. I miss that holiday- undoubtedly I'll bang on about it here at some point!

All through the week I have been reading about American women's history, and the history of feminism, subjects everyone should study. It is amazing how many books I have read on things like Progressivism and the New Deal which fail to account for female (and non-binary) perspectives in any systematic way at all. I have much to learn on these issues but they have endless interest for me, and intense relevance to the present. I identify as a feminist, but that identification necessarily involves a constant process of reading, learning, communicating and thinking about the gendering of modern society, and reflecting critically on my own position within that.

Anywho, back to work now. Apologies once again for the delay, avid readers!

RJLF