Where I Can See Sky

Yikes! Once again there has been quite the hiatus in my blogging. Being back in Cambridge I'm now a little snowed under with work, and these sort of gaps will probably continue until I'm done with my exams a week into June. C'est la vie, so ist das Leben, and that's the way the cookie crumbles. What's been going on in the world? Mostly work, as I said, but some other interesting things have happened. At Christ's right now we are holding our very own referendum on whether or not to keep these weird Scholar's Ballot things. Essentially, the current system is that if you get a 1st in your exams then you get an older, better room; some people see this as grossly unfair, others an acceptable reward or incentive. I haven't made up my mind yet, but I suppose I have a few thoughts: I must admit I'm sceptical about the incentive thing. Surely people here want to do well anyway without the offer of a room! I think the 'Oh yeah the room thing incentivis...

Since my last post I have made my triumphant return to Cambridge. This involved the consumption of much foodstuff in celebration. I am currently hosting a tea session at which all of the attendees have opted to be fashionably late, potentially forever, and consequently I have opted to write on here until they never arrive. They have, however, definitely missed out on having any of my exciting cake. Before I left Cambridge me and me mam dropped in on two of our elderly neighbours, Phil and June, who are both in their mid-80s. June unfortunately has Dementia (in Phil's words, 'is doolally'), although this is not immediately evident when you talk to her. She is very chipper and full of energy, but she does sometimes run into what is confusing for us but evidently fairly logical to her. On this occasion this involved insisting to me that a painting of some Indonesian huts in their living room was actually a depiction of what the area around us used to look like. Phil is old...

So far in life I have had a thoroughly unambitious *four* life goals. These were so unambitious in their particular aims that I have already achieved two, taking my projected life expectancy down to 38. The third goal is to complete a round-the-world trip, like my parents infamously did back in the late 80s; more on that another time. The fourth is the toughest of them all: to buy, with my own money, a campervan. Oh yes. You may laugh. You may label me 'a dreamer' or 'a charlatan'. You may say 'No-one's bought a campervan round these hyar parts for years'. But I say, 'I won't have to stay in these parts. I'm gonna live in a home that MOVES.' Campervans offer all kinds of social, societal and societological advantages. Studies have shown that campervan living increases happiness, improves health, and reduces crime. When campervans were introduced into Durham in 1998 homicide rates reportedly dropped by 500%. A decline in campervan use in I...

Recent reflection has led me to suspect that I may be incredibly vain. This is by no means intentional, but vanity frequently creeps up on me, pulls back my shower curtain and perforates my very being as if I were a Hitchcock-style watermelon. Life is a constant struggle - how do I balance my responsibilities and passions with mirror time, how can I ensure that my selfie camera angles are just right, and so on? It's a tricky one. Recently, and quite concerningly, I have actually begun to spend a not inconsiderable portion of my day writing purely about myself; and, what's more, a not considerable number of suckers read the damn thing. Despite this, I remain divorced from the principal institutions of 21st-century vanity. No snapchat, no Instagram for me: and I only ever used my twitter account to advertise one show (but you should definitely follow me! @RJL_Franklin). I think I sort of missed the boat on all that stuff, which I suppose is fine, becau...

"Once upon a time, chairs were living creatures. Every day they would dance around in the fields. And they would play all day, and sleep all night. But one day, an evil wizard came along and said, 'I'm going to kill you all!' And the chairs said, 'Oh no no don't do that we don't want to die please don't kill us!' And the wizard thought for a moment and said. 'Alright then. I will let you live. But on one condition: from now on, you will help humanity by providing the humans with places to sit, such that they shall continue to flourish and be able to practice their sedentary activities without the disgrace of having to sit on the floor.' And that is the story of how chairs stopped being living creatures." This is, as accurately as I can remember, a story that my dad used to tell me. He had others, which I suppose were quite similar actually, like his story 'the tables': "Once upon a time, tables were living creatu...

NB: This is my first of what I hope to be multiple (and certainly more than one) posts about history and my love for it. Undoubtedly fewer people will read these than usual, and if you hate history then please feel free to ignore this, but I hope to at least be able to share my thoughts on a few things and in an accessible way that makes it clear how much I enjoy thinking and writing about the past, and how much I think others should also. When I arrived at university, I wasn't absolutely set on what sort of historian I was going to be. It has quickly emerged that I am a pretentious one. No hard-grain economic history for me. A bit of intellectual history, sure; a lot of social history, why not; and a good old chunk of political history, certainly. But when it all boiled down to things, it turned out that at heart I was a cultural historian. Aside from the fact that 'cultural historian' means next-to-nothing (aren't we all 'cultural historians' these da...

BBC News informs me today that the Marshall Library in Cambridge has adopted a three-legged cat in order to relieve exam stress (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-39526457). Because it finds it quite hard to stay upright on three legs, it apparently only ever moves around very, very quickly, which undoubtedly must make for a single ray of light in the otherwise hellish lives of economics students. I for one think that this cat policy should be extended to all libraries in Cambridge, although perhaps they ought to vary up the animals a bit (a Polar Bear for the Scott Polar Research Institute? A Yale for the library at Christ's? A Sloth for the English library? etc.). Christ's does, in fact, have a college cat, who I'm told migrated from her old home at Jesus. Her name is Rocket, and she seems to have become less timid over time, for where once she would flee whenever she saw me she know invites me out to tea, formal and walks to Grantchester. My friend ...

I haven't read many blogs in my life, but one of the few that I have read contains a section which seems appropriate to quote back now. Here is the entry for August 19th 2013 on Dougal Irvine's blog about his musical The Other School (https://theotherschoolmusical.wordpress.com/), which had just finished its run at the St James Theatre and the cast of which I was lucky to be a part of. There was no entry for the previous two weeks. "What happened to the blog? I meant to tell you about our ten days rehearsal in Sevenoaks working 15 hour days during which I re-wrote a good third of the script.... I meant to tell you how hard all the cast, crew, band and creatives worked without a single complaint – putting many professional companies to shame. I meant to tell you about an incredible week of performances including our world premier on Wednesday 14th August.... But I guess – with all that going on there wasn’t quite the time to stop and blog about it." This quote seem...

Had my first revision wobbles last night and today. Because of changes in my course structure I am having to prepare an extra topic for the exam, a process which is engaging but also frequently frustrating. I had the strangest dream the night before last night, set on some sort of weird school trip to a a lassive adventure park and restaurant that existed on a massive cliff above the sea. For much of this dream I was under the impression that I was a kind of wolf-like creature who could not communicate with others - symbolic interpretations would be greatly welcomed! I was cheered by the fact it was April Fools Day yesterday, which as ever took me by surprise. The whole morning was essentially devoted to this, because anything to get away from the work. As it happens, I am neither going to Svalbard, nor have contracted Chickenpox, nor am failing my degree (yet). James among others have remarked to me over the last couple of days that my blog had become great diary-like, whi...