But just look at those gardens, those buildings, those libraries, those facilities, those dinners at High Table, those perquisites that are much more than little perks. State education, these institutions? Good luck to them, for they have long contributed to genuinely high achievements of higher education. The New College of the Humanities has found itself firebranded as “odious”. Pernicious is the word for the pretence that, say, New College, Oxford (founded 1379, and handsomely privately funded for centuries), is part of a solely state system.
— Christopher Ricks, “Common cause : in defence of the New College of the Humanities”, The Times Literary Supplement, 5 August 2011, p. 14
But the separate identity people are actually part of an older tradition (and yes this environment is old enough to have an older tradition). It’s the tradition of the Handle, and it comes from back when computer networks were esoteric, back when using them was a marker of class. Back before Eternal September. I think that culture began because the people you’d meet online (be that bbs, or compuserve, or whatever) were exactly people that you’d rarely meet in real life; that was the beauty of the networks, that you could meet interesting, intelligent people who you would never otherwise have access to, but with some other, better kind of proximity; shared interests, shared tastes, shared culture at some level.
—
Emlyn O’Regan, “Google+, the pseudonym banstick, and the netizen cultural schism”, Point7, 24 July 2011
http://point7.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/google-the-pseudonym-banstick-and-the-netizen-cultural-schism/
The National Academy of Sciences in the United States did a very extensive study several years ago assessing water intake,” says Professor Goldfarb. I can hear the smile in his voice. “Their executive summary was: drink when you’re thirsty.
—
Emine Saner, “Have we had our fill of water?”, The Guardian, 23 July 2011, p. 42-43
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jul/22/had-our-fill-of-water
One simple explanation for this development: We now have access to a ridiculous variety of media. The music we spend our private time on, and use to build our identities, varies more wildly than ever from person to person. But there’s at least one kind of music that needs consensus to function, and that’s the stuff we dance, party, and strut around to. “The club” might be the last remaining space where strangers are all forced to pay attention to the same songs. And whether it’s an actual club or just a bedroom, it tends to be a space where people enjoy feeling fabulous.
—
Nitsuh Abebe, “We Must Be Superstars”, New York, 10 July 2011
http://nymag.com/arts/popmusic/features/narcissism-2011-7/
Passing the time one day, Kreipe began to recite some lines from Horace’s ode Ad Thalictrum. The Latin syllables caught his captor’s ear. “As luck would have it, it was one of those I knew by heart.” After the general had run out of steam, Paddy carried on through the remaining 40 lines to the end. “We got on rather better after that.” In 1972, an almost equally unlikely event occurred, when the pair were reunited on a Greek version of This Is Your Life.
—
James Campbell, “Obituary: Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor”, The Guardian, 10 June 2011 (online), 11 June 2011 (print), p. 39
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2011/jun/10/patrick-leigh-fermor-obituary
Observers with a sense of history have noted that the tabloids’ self-justification, advanced in the name of press freedom, mirrors that of the authoritarian state. The Sun columnist Jane Moore admonishes errant public figures: ‘If you don’t want your private life splashed all over the papers, then behave yourselves.’ Or, as it was once put, if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear – for there is only one way the state or the Sun can know whether you are behaving yourself.
—
Stephen Sedley, “The Goodwin and Giggs Show”, London Review of Books, v. 33, no. 12 (16 June 2011), p. 3
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n12/stephen-sedley/the-goodwin-and-giggs-show
In declaring her his princess, he brings hope of real change to millions of people denied a decent education and the means to better themselves, to millions of tiny babies denied even books, that one day they too could be randomly rewarded with untold wealth and privilege.
—
Stewart Lee, “Stewart Lee’s insider’s take on William and Kate”, The Guardian, 27 April 2011 (online), 28 April 2011 (print)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/apr/27/royal-wedding-secret-kate-wills
We emphasise, when debating climate change, the importance of the scientific consensus, and reliance on solid, peer-reviewed studies. But as soon as we start discussing the dangers of low-level radiation, we abandon that and endorse the pseudo-scientific gibberish of a motley collection of cranks and quacks, who appear to have begun with the assumption that it must be killing thousands of people every year, and retrofitted the evidence to match it.
—
George Monbiot’s blog, “The double standards of green anti-nuclear opponents”, The Guardian, 31 March 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2011/mar/31/double-standards-nuclear
The census allows you to determine for yourself whether you’re disabled or not, without the usual kind of interrogation. I’ve written to David Cameron and Iain Duncan Smith telling them I’ve found a way to save them squillions of pounds on the DWP budget: simply remove the complex assessments in favour of a straightforward Yes / No tickbox. After all, if it’s good enough for the census it must be good enough for the DWP, right? I think the political mood is behind me on this one. I feel sure we’re onto a winner.
—
Disability Bitch, “Census and Sensibility”, 24 March 2011
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch/opinion/b1tch/db_census_and_sensibility.shtml
