Lizard Spock

This weekend we had a drink in the bland and faceless Rye Hotel.  Sitting next to us were a group playing Jenga.

The tower toppled; they rebuilt it ready for the next game.  And then, to choose who went first, they played ‘Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock’.  Imagine my surprise.

Now, I admit I intervened at this point, because I misremembered and thought there was a sixth option (as eldest says that wouldn’t be right, you ought to have an odd number).  So we had a brief debate.  Then they got back to their game.

They didn’t all go for Spock! 

But, unfortunately, they couldn’t remember all of the power relationships, so had to look up the helpful icon in the Wikipedia article on a smartphone, to check.

And for the record, here is the original…

Wandering 1

And so as I explained earlier, a few weeks ago I wandered, reminiscing with permission, around the city of Durham.

There are three stags on Collingwood's crest, so there seemingly has to be a sculpture of a stag by the car park.  Who'd have thought it? 

This is just to make sure we keep to some of our brief here at TANH - a tree.

A view of the cathedral from between Collingwood & Grey

An old question I know but why is Grey so brown?

Here is the Grey hill, where the infamous Marching Song of the Fighting Uruk-Hai was first sung.  Well, I say sung...

At some point, when sufficiently inebriated, I may post it.

The path behind the tennis courts that leads down to the Science site avoiding South Road.  I remember this only too well...

But I don't remember this, the Ogden Centre for research into theoretical physics.  Built after my time. 

Although I seem to know quite a lot about it, as they regularly write to me (as a Physics alumnus) and ask for dosh...

Here are some parts of the old Science site I do remember.

... although the Library now has a new name...

Bryson is very kind to Durham in 'Notes from a Small Island' - and was also a very effective Chancellor (2005-2011).  On the University Web site he says:

I am struck by how expertly well you have a good time here. Durham students always seem to doing about a million things that have nothing to do with academic life and they are always doing them incredibly well. I cannot imagine there's any place in the world where fun is done more skilfully and well to a higher level than at Durham and often while you are having fun you do a lot of good.

So, fair enough. Why not  name a library after him?

Another tree...

The building below is also after my time - but some of the rooms inside it are named after people who were teaching way back then, such as professors Rosemary Cramp (History) and Arnold Wolfendale. 

The latter was Astronomer Royal for four years in the '90s.  I certainly sat in some of his lectures but I'm not sure how much he taught me. 

And he also features in the letters from the Ogden Centre...

More tree:

The Science site is undergoing development and expansion, as some departments move there from Palace Green.  I haven't really got my head around it...

Anyway, I left the Science site and headed into town past some of Durham's well-known sights...

...such as South Road...

... and the New Inn.

More reminiscent, meandering wanderings will follow.... (you have been warned).

Poem of the Week

The Second Coming
William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Who and Who Two

I rarely look at the number of pageviews generated by the Treees (he lied), but I did notice with some surprise a renewed interest in a rather dry post from 2009 on Rosencrantz and Guildernstern - and other stuff. 

How strange...

Rabbit

And here is one of the Collingwood rabbits...

Permissions

 A few weeks ago I went to my college reunion.  The college (Collingwood, Durham) is roughly 40 years old, and those who started within the first five years of its opening were invited to the event.  From the start I had the feeling that this would be a complicated affair. 

I really enjoyed those three years, and I did go back once to a reunion in the early 90s, which was good fun.  But actually and for some time now, I have felt a greater attraction to the city...

... than the college. 

Also, a lot of the attraction of the place was - of course - related to the people I met there, and I am still in touch with a good few of them (albeit somewhat distantly).  So no need to go back to meet up.  In fact many people I knew had decided not to reunionate.

And we now have a son at Durham, so in the last few years I've been back several times, and - as has been pointed out to me more than once, particularly within the family - it isn't just my place now. 

And Collingwood has grown, expanded almost beyond recognition.  None of these blocks existed in my time.

So in many senses it wasn't like going "back" after a long time away. 

On the other hand, the grounds are still great. and there were rabbits on the lawn. Although the field next to the College, which used to have cows in it, is no more.

And there was still a game of table football to be had.

So as I said, it seemed a little complicated. I wasn't quite sure why I was there and it felt somewhat awkward.

(Here is a sample of complicated and awkward Collingwood architecture to illustrate the point and hint at some kind of pathetic fallacy...)

On the other hand, the room was rather good (in one of the newer blocks they've built, in part, to encourage the conference trade).  And Joe Elliott, the new Master, (or rather the Principal, as I gather they are called nowadays), seemed very pleasant and rather jolly.

There were few from my year there - so I spent most of my time with people I remembered from the year above me, which actually wasn't bad at all(!)  Anthony Tuck's history of the college was being handed out, and I also spent some time looking at the old college photos - which Christine got the porters to fetch down off the wall. Lots of memories returned with those.

However, it only really began to come to life for me when I went on a solo walk into town. 

Walking through Grey, looking down towards the Science Site and the City, I suddenly realised in a rather weird way that I was *allowed* to reminisce.  I had permission.  In fact, it was the whole bloody point of the weekend - it was what I was there for.

So for the next day or two, I'm afraid to say, I revelled in the past just a little...

Dawson Quip

A favourite Les Dawson joke appeared on the hated Saturday Live this morning:-

I was sat at the bottom of the garden a week ago, smoking a reflective cheroot, thinking about this and that - mostly that - and I just happened to glance at the night sky, and I marvelled at the millions of stars glistening like little pieces of quicksilver thrown carelessly onto black velvet. In awe, I watched the waxen moon ride across the zenith of the heavens like an amber chariot towards the void of infinite space wherein the tethered bolts of Jupiter and Mars hang forever festooned in all their orbital majesty, and as I looked at all this, I thought to myself, 'I must put a roof on this lavatory.'

- and thanks to h2g2 for the quote...