Where I Can See Sky

A short one today! The non-leisurely part of my life has two main foci at present (in no particular order): on the one hand, thinking and writing about the past, and on the other hand, acting, singing and Musical Theatre. I’m one of those people who, rather than being good at lots and lots of things, tries to be good at two big things, both of which I find fulfilling and which I think of as important in ways that relatively few other pursuits are. I have always sung – there is nothing I do or love more, and there is never a day in my life when I do not sing. And through singing I got to Musical Theatre and to acting, particularly from the age of about 13 onwards. This felt like a very natural development, and I’ve always felt that to be a really good singer you need to be able to act, because what sets the voice apart from other instruments most of all is its capacity for words and storytelling, and what makes a story most tellable is, not just good music, but good acting and ...

NB: This blog post has been vetted and checked because of complaints about high levels of pretentiousness, inordinate self-pity and pettiness in the face of criticism. I am happy to report that none of these complaints have been proved true, that my detractors lack the cultural sophistication to understand my work, that they have no idea who I am or what my life is like and that, furthermore, they are stinky and vile. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Once again I am ill. Ill and tired, tired and ill. Yesterday I got back home from Cambridge, and tomorrow I get my results. I am ill. There is little consensus over what exactly ails me, which is not surprising, because only my brother is in the house today, and we have different opinions. He thinks I may be suffering from some kind of ‘man flu’, a type of illness invented by Swine Flu Inc. while there were rebranding in an attempt to expand their commerc...

I continue to be questioned about the exact nature of my blog. Yes, it lacks a coherent linking theme except in so far as it concerns the things that happen to me, but that’s sort of is what living is, and at least it provides for ever unpredictable content! It’s been a busy few days. On Monday I went to Ely with Charlie, where we popped into the Cathedral, had a pub lunch and tried desperately to keep cool. I then had a series of Committee meetings, first with CUMTS (Cambridge University Musical Theatre Society), then CADS (Christ’s Amateur Dramatics Society), and then finally with the Seeley Society (which is Christ’s History Society). I am co-president of the latter next year with my partner-in-crime Anna-Marie, and we’ve been thinking about asking all sorts of prestigious and nearly-deceased historians to come and lecture. All I can say is that it’s gonna be *glorious* line-up. We also came up with some new and exciting event ideas for our prestigious and dignified history s...

Two days ago it was thirty years since The Proclaimers released their first album. They are hands-down one of my favourite bands, and although their 500 miles song is universally known their entire corpus appeals to me, through its rawness, its ability to balance lyrical cleverness with the genuine and insightful, to drill right down to the basics. And at the moment I've been thinking about one of their most beautiful songs, 'Shadows Fall', which is about those moments when sadness emerges out of nowhere, sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly, to tint the glass through which we see life slightly and temporarily darker. Emotions are weird. The clever scientist bods at Christ's tell me that we all actually do things and then ascribe emotions to particular actions in order to rationalise those actions - I run, a physiological response to a particular situation, and only after the fact does the 'fear' that I had believed to be the motivation for my running actual...

I've just met up with my lovely friend Heather for a nice drink at the Granta, probably my favourite pub in Cambridge. She seemed really well and we had a great time, but what Heather didn't know was that my plan for the present blog post was to see what happened if I got totally wankered while I wrote. This imagined scenario is now being played out, and I have my Vinedoes Barriheulo parked upon my desk to accompany my typing. The rules - which hopefully I will remember - TRY NOT TO SWEAR TOO MUCH; DON'T DIVULGE YOUR DEEPEST SECRETS; TRY TO REMAIN INTERESTING; DON'T BE SICK (SERIOUSLY); TRY TO MAKE IT AS DIFFICULT AS POSSIBLE TO NOTICE THAT YOU ARE DRUNK AND INCREASINGLY MORE SO AS THE BLOG GOES ON (ASSUMING YOU DON'T GO BACK AND EDIT YOUR CRAFTY MINX YOU). What's the plan, I hear you ask? Recount my activities over the past couple of days, but first I'd like to meditate on the significance of the act of drinking alone. Is this taboo? Probably. Let's...

Cambridge is full of rules. The French philosopher Michel Foucault always felt that the canny thing about modern Liberalism was that the state didn't need to do much in the manner of regulating behaviour because modern people regulate themselves so much - freedom is just the freedom to abide by cultural norms, lest you be ostracised by your disapproving neighbours or by your own pressing internal judge! And those cultural norms, by the way, often have a considerable level of arbitrariness about them, being the accumulated product of a thousand years of different competing influences, sentiments and ideas. This is how I feel about table manners. The ideological underpinning of table manners is that eating in its 'pure' form is kind of disgusting. Manners is in part there to make it less so. But why do we view this pure and unadorned form of eating as inherently disgusting? Taste is one of the few truly distinctive sensations that humans can experience in life, a source of ...

I am sitting on the terrace of Fisher House, which is the Catholic chaplaincy in the middle of Cambridge. I'm not a Catholic, for the record, but the good old 'Cathys' as they conventionally like to be called in these parts - specifically my friend Damian - have welcomed me into their peaceful quarters for a relaxed evening. It's a grand old place for the Catholites , With library, church and drunken nights, The terrace is decked with flow'rs and lights , And they've got free wifi, which is why I writes. I confess (geddit?!) that what I know about Catholicisism comes only from the contents of my degree, so my knowledge may be a little behind the times. They seem to burn fewer people now, although Pope Francis recently did get to burn Donald Trump (zing!). Other Memes are Available Actually, studying early modern Catholicism  was one of the most enjoyable parts of my degree so far, because it quickly becomes apparent that most early modern Catholics ...

Hello all. After a lengthy old exams hiatus, I am now back writing - hopefully for good this time!! What happened, I hear no one ask at all. In short, studying for the Part 1 section of the History degree at Cambridge is sort of like running a marathon, except instead of a marathon you have to run 3000 miles, and you aren't allowed shoes, and you have to memorise an impossible amount of information about dead people (and maybe like 1 person who's in their '90s). Bloody hell! One of the most difficult things I have ever done. I started revising about 2 and a half months ago (when I started this blog, which was partly designed as a way to switch off from work), but there's so much STUFF to learn that you come out the other end still feeling as though all you have had time to do is scratch the surface. It is a deeply frustrating process, especially because the great fear that despite your preparation things will all come to nought hangs over you like the aura of...