"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

Town Hall

This building is across the square from the two I posted earlier, and sometimes does make it on to postcards. Closer examination however will reveal that all the decoration which adorns it is painted on. It used to all be real, but something happened. Just what happened unfortunately fell through a crack in my German understanding, but if I find out, I'll post it here. Just before I go to bed, here's a fact culled from Wikipedia, so therefore it Must Be True:
"(In) 1995, the German weekly, "Focus" published a national survey according to which Tübingen had the highest quality of life of all cities in Germany."

Next time I'll tell you more about learning Czech in German, if I remember. That is, I'll tell you in English about learning Czech, which happens to be in German. think of it like One Song to the Tune of Another in I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue

Best Detective Yarns on Record!

I had ready another picture of Tuebingen and a story to accompany it, but after an emotionally, if not physically, draining day I settled down to read an adventure of Sexton Blake in an issue of 'The Union Jack' magazine I have, from 1910. The inside covers of these magazines are given over entirely to advertisements, one of which piqued my interest somewhat, so I've attempted to reproduce it here. Again I plead camera insufficiency, but it can be seen that it concerns growing a moustache.
I shall reproduce the text below, with formatting faithful to the original

GROW A MOUSTACHE.
A smart, manly moustache speedily grows at any age by using
"Mousta," the only true Moustace Forcer. Remember, Success
positively guaranteed. Boys become men. Acts like magic. Box
sent (in plain cover) for 6d and 1d for postage. Send 7d to-
J.A.DIXON & CO., 42, Junction Road, London, N (Foreign orders, 9d)


More about Tuebingen tomorrow, when I hope to go a-roaming, a-using my Semester Bus Ticket, which for 38 Euros gives me local bus travel until the end of March

Some old movies

2 seconds each, so won't break your modem.
Filmed in 1888 on paper strips, these are credited as being the first and second moving pictures ever made, a full 6 years before the Lumiere brothers' more famous attempts. And thanks to the internet, available for all to see.




Awe at the internet is not fashionable I know, but isn't it incredible that the old woman in the garden scene died later that same year, 118 years ago, but we can still see her walk around, if only for two seconds?

A Little Tuebingen Story

here on the left is a photograph of two old buildings in the market square at Tuebingen. These ones don't get on the postcards, because there's no shortage of timber frames in the old town, and this pair is fairly unremarkable. Except that if you look closely at the one on the left, you'll see all its windows are brown, save one which has a white frame. The room with the white window now belongs to the other house, and can only be accessed from the room next to it with similar fenestration.
The stories explaining how this change of ownership came to be are many, but almost all involve payment of a debt, gambling or otherwise. Thankfully the confirmed documented true story is obscured by a kind of volksfog, allowing taletellers to embellish, although I promise that's been kept to a minimum here.

bother!

it would seem my attempt to put photographs in the post below was not a success. help welcomed from someone with the wherewithal to assist

edit: Thanks Chris! here they are, inelegant but learninh curves often are

Deutschland

It's been a while, but I'm now set up here in Germany with a stable internet connection and my homesickness has abated sufficiently not to taint my opinions of my time here.
I'm about two weeks into classes here, mostly literature lectures but with a history seminar and one on silent film additionally, which are both German enough to count for Edinburgh. I've also started to learn Czech. I have no excuse for this, I just thought it may be fun.
I'm getting on well with people without yet having any actual friends, if that makes sense. Such bonds do seem to take time, and I am rather culturally isolated, was back at home come to that. I'm sure I'll manage, I do seem to be well-liked in general, conceited though that may sound. But I have dwelled too much on such things in my journal already, and certainly should not broadcast them to the ether. A friend back home always writes in moleskines, perhaps in an attempt to be like Hemingway or something, but I have resisted such fripperies, writing instead in a plan bound notebook. My lecture notes are taken in children's small jotters which bear the legend 'It's creative school!' on the front.
In my stationery shop the other day I saw that they had for sale love-letter ink, which is rose-scented. I managed to resist this marvellous anachronism but am writing an awful lot of letters - although I'm fully equipped for internet telephony something in me doesn't seem to sit well with the digital age, and besides, mistakes in ink are easier recanted. The downside is that I come across as frightfully and pompously verbose in writing, and that is never my intention.

presented here for your enjoyment, are the covers of 5 magazines I picked up at a fleamarket. They date from 1933, save one which is of 1935 vintage. The picture quality isn't great, because they come from the camera on my mobile phone. Hark at me, with my technology
hopefully it'll work


one more thing to add today
Of all the things I rhought I'd take away with me from this year abroad, a filling was not high on the list. And yet I have it, a little piece if Germany glued into my mouth. The dentoist was awfully nice about the whole thing, and it didn't hurt a bit. I've not got a picture of that, this is not that sort of blog.