"We will sleep through all the lectures, and cheat on the exams...

...and then we'll pass, and be forgotten with the rest."

Yesterday brought with it my final two exams and an essay deadline, and much relief as consequence following their passing. The first one I was really worried about - half an hour oral exam over all the texts from the course, all 14 of them. Because the class was on fin de siecle Viennese literature most of the texts were concerned with beauty and death, and the ideas, rather than plot, were the most important things. It's nervewracking discussing it with a professor who has written papers on the subject as an Auslander speaking in your second language. Once I got started though it flowed quite naturally, I find an interruption or a question I have no idea how to answer can really scupper me.
The second exam however, was not plain sailing. I was the last examee of the day having arrived slightly late when the professor's secretary was registering us for it, and finding an orderly queue outside her office, just like home!
This is not in itself a handicap, but by the time it was my go everything was running half an hour late and he was obviously growing weary of hearing people talk about Exile Literature 1933-1945 for the whole morning. More importantly he cut me short as he had appointments that hour we had eaten in to, meaning a lot of what I'd prepared I didn't get a chance to say. While i sympathise and understand he was on a schedule it is a little galling, as I could by my reckoning have gained a few more marks with what I still held 'in reserve,' planning as I was for the full twenty minutes. Anyway, I passed., and for that I am thankful.
Now I've got to pack up all my stuff for leaving I've got large collection of undemanding crime fiction bought for escapist wind-down purposes that I can't really take home but don't want to throw away, so if anyone wants a copy of Kiss me Deadly or The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, let me know

"I know it was dawn, because there were lark-noises in the sky, and the grass looked as if it had been left out all night."

Spam comments duly deleted. I have so far resisted application of word recognition software as I find it tiresome, and steadfastly refuse to recognise "tfdgxx" as a word, else it shall claim sovereignty next. I'll hold off until/unless it becomes absolutely necessary, upon the explosion of traffic when the world realises my talent. I do sometimes worry that my writing style is frozen at 16 years of age and, while mindful of the need to first imitate a style on the way to stumbling over one's own, I sometimes doubt the wisdom of electing Saki to such a post.

But that's not what I came to write about.
This news story
is old news now, but in my defense, there is a timelag on news reaching me here. I'm not qualified to comment really, as I've not read the book, but I have a suspicion that puts me on a par, in one aspect at least, with the spokeswoman for The Commission for Racial Equality.
I shall elucidate.
To summarise, the Co mission for Racial Equality (CRE) have complained that "Tintin in The Congo" is racist and should be removed from sale. Racist material in children's books is a topic fraught with exposed nerves and bruised opinions, in short, a touchy subject. Borders, the chain cited for peddling the book to minors, have moved it to the adult section, where presumably it will join "Tintin in the Land of the Soviets" from the same era.
The CRE response is quoted directly from the bbc news website below.

The CRE spokeswoman said: "How and why do Borders think that it's okay to peddle such racist material?"

"The only place that it might be acceptable for this to be displayed would be in a museum, with a big sign saying 'old-fashioned, racist claptrap.'

"It's high time that they reconsidered their decision and removed this from their shelves," she added.

Comment on this seems almost superfluous, so I shall edge around it.

A common response seems to be 'it has been on sale since 1931, what does it matter?' While it is true that the CRE have not been quick off the mark, this has no bearing on the matter - The penultimate surviving ship from the Battle of Trafalgar was scuttled in 1947, an action which would surely never come to pass now. You may be thinking this has nothing to do with Tintin or racism, and you would be right in that belief; I wanted an example that didn't use attitudes towards race as they remain, as the spokeswoman's outburst proves, a difficult subject. What is important is coming to terms with one's own cultural past, not hide it in museums with opinionated and inflammatory signs. It is also important to choose your targets well. Banning a Tintin book when the complete works of The Marquis de Sade and 'Mein Kampf" remain in print is perverse.

The museum idea is interesting, as the contents of my favourite museums, The Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, come principally (and I did have to look this up) from the collection of Lieutenant General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers, an old colonial whose views on race would probably send the CRE into apoplexy. Gosh, I do enjoy that word.

Confessions of a lax blogger

Yes, truth be told I have been appallingly remiss in my blogging, and indeed now should be writing an essay on aestheticism in Hugo von Hofmannsthal's 'Der Tor und Der Tod,' but it is amazing the lengths one will go to to avoid objectionable assignments.
Anyway, last time I revealed that Tuebingen was considered to have the highest quality of life of any city in Germany. After having lived here for 9 months, I can easily believe this to be so. I was told when I arrived by a bearded native that Tuebingen existed in its own bubble of security, and it seems to be true, ridiculous though it sounds crime seems to be negligable save the odd grafitti outbreak, and even that a) stays off tiled murals (although the bits of concrete that abutted it were covered and b) appears to be largley gnomic statements about Currywurst. The worst example of crime I have seen was a wooden palette some miscreants had smashed up. last semester at about 2am a small group of cars (a rare sight after dark here) pulled up not far from us and disgorged what I shall call youths, complete and replete with hoodies and swagger. They took from their vast pockets small exploding pellets, the name of which escapes me, but which were used by Fred Astaire in the film 'Holiday Inn' and are the sort of things William might fire at a cat. They threw them on the ground where they (the projectiles, not the youths) made satisfying 'bang' noises. Patience and/or ammunition thus exausted, The boys (for they were all male) returned to their respective cars and drove them away. This is the most threatened I've ever felt here.
From a healthcare perspective the town is tripping over its own clinics, figuratively, with at least 5, including what seems to be a tropical diseases clinic. I had a postcard from the 1970s (now dispatched) with views of the clinics aranged in a rather pleasing hexagon around the word 'Tuebingen.' This, along with a 30% student population (average age: 23) makes Tuebingen pretty well sorted medically.
Tomorrow I shall be reading the new Harry Potter book, just like everybody else. It's not something I'm proud of but I do need to read it quite urgently