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ravenI really, really ought to be working right now. Oh, dear. But I got interview questions from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
foreverdirt, and it was much more fun answering those:
1) Do you have a favourite judicial ruling? If so, what is it and why?
At this point I feel obliged to talk about Miller v Jackson. I feel at this point that everyone ought to talk about Miller v Jackson.
Okay, for Americans and other aliens and people who just don't spend as much time on these things as I do - why, I don't know - about the most influential British judge of the twentieth century was Master of the Rolls and Court of Appeal judge Lord Denning. He was influential for his variety of interesting judgements and the whole areas of law he attempted (sometimes successfully) to create single-handedly. But possibly the reason why he was as well-beloved as he was because he wrote like this:
[From Miller v Jackson [1977] QB 966]
"In summertime village cricket is the delight of everyone. Nearly every village has its own cricket field where the young men play and the old men watch. In the village of Lintz in County Durham they have their own ground, where they have played these last 70 years. They tend it well. The wicket area is well rolled and mown. The outfield is kept short. It has a good club house for the players and seats for the onlookers. The village team play there on Saturdays and Sundays. They belong to a league, competing with the neighbouring villages. On other evenings after work they practise while the light lasts. Yet now after these 70 years a judge of the High Court has ordered that they must not play there any more. He has issued an injunction to stop them. He has done it at the instance of a newcomer who is no lover of cricket.
I defy anyone to deny the loveliness of that. Mmm. I have cases I like a lot - Turberville v Savage, for being so old and so punchy, Miller, for the chutzpah of the defendant, Pinnel's Case, for being a case that is still cited despite having been decided in 1602, etc. - but as actual rulings go, I refer to cliché above.
2) Who's your favourite philosopher, and why?
Hmmm. I have written here before about my general dislike of textual fetishisation when it comes to philosophy. Obviously it happens a lot with philosophers who were a) very influential and b) wrote a lot - subsequent thinkers try to draw out the threads of their thinking across their works, make extensive studies of individual works and place them in their wider diachronic and synchronic contexts, and to a certain extent I understand why they do it; it brings a deeper meaning to our readings of those philosophers' works to know how and when and alongside what they were written, that makes sense.
But beyond that I wonder why it's done to the extent it is, the immense focus on individual words in individual phrases, I wonder how this contributes to the greater whole of philosophy's projects - I mean, we can spend a lot of time on what Marx meant by alienation and what Kant meant by the will, and as above I understand why, but after a while, what are we contributing to theories of political economy and metaethics more generally? I have a generalised horror of philosophy approaching literary criticism; I can understand its working the other way, literary criticism that aims to find philosophical undercurrents in literature, but philosophy isn't supposed to be that sort of exercise.
So in general, I avoid saying I have a favourite philosopher: I have favourite areas of philosophy (language, mind, logic) and favourite contributions to them. But I might finish this incredibly long answer by saying I am very fond of Socrates (the "gadfly" model of philosophy, I endorse it), and Wittgenstein's theories of representation always strike me with how neat and elegantly argued they are.
3) What's your favourite guilty pleasure TV?
Friends. Shut up. I love it, I've seen every episode. Also Frasier, but I'm not so guilty about that one; I do genuinely think it's one of the best television programmes ever written.
(Look, you never know when you might need an encyclopaedic knowledge of nineties sitcoms. And when you do, you know where I am.)
4) Which author has most influenced your writing?
I actually don't know. Well, I've always been writing something or other, since I was maybe eleven or twelve, and this sounds terrible, but when I grew to the point where I was tracking influences on my own writing and thinking how best to write rather than doing it by instinct, I'd already fallen into fandom. It was fandom that taught me to teach myself to write, and individual people I met in fandom who did that specifically: the one person who has the most influence on my writing isgamesiplay, who has been talking to me about writing, showing me her writing, critiquing my writing, for nearly eight years, and I don't think you can discount an association like that.
So, er. One author, though, whose style I would like to emulate is Ursula Le Guin. She has a way of using a minimal set of words, but the right ones, which is exactly how I would like to write.
5) Not so much a question as a request, but I really like this idea, so: my housemate has just been reading me six word stories -- write one?
Program "reality" not responding: force quit?
If you would like questions, please comment and say so. eta: and that's a wrap, folks. I don't think I can come up with any more questions!
foreverdirt, and it was much more fun answering those:1) Do you have a favourite judicial ruling? If so, what is it and why?
At this point I feel obliged to talk about Miller v Jackson. I feel at this point that everyone ought to talk about Miller v Jackson.
Okay, for Americans and other aliens and people who just don't spend as much time on these things as I do - why, I don't know - about the most influential British judge of the twentieth century was Master of the Rolls and Court of Appeal judge Lord Denning. He was influential for his variety of interesting judgements and the whole areas of law he attempted (sometimes successfully) to create single-handedly. But possibly the reason why he was as well-beloved as he was because he wrote like this:
[From Miller v Jackson [1977] QB 966]
"In summertime village cricket is the delight of everyone. Nearly every village has its own cricket field where the young men play and the old men watch. In the village of Lintz in County Durham they have their own ground, where they have played these last 70 years. They tend it well. The wicket area is well rolled and mown. The outfield is kept short. It has a good club house for the players and seats for the onlookers. The village team play there on Saturdays and Sundays. They belong to a league, competing with the neighbouring villages. On other evenings after work they practise while the light lasts. Yet now after these 70 years a judge of the High Court has ordered that they must not play there any more. He has issued an injunction to stop them. He has done it at the instance of a newcomer who is no lover of cricket.
I defy anyone to deny the loveliness of that. Mmm. I have cases I like a lot - Turberville v Savage, for being so old and so punchy, Miller, for the chutzpah of the defendant, Pinnel's Case, for being a case that is still cited despite having been decided in 1602, etc. - but as actual rulings go, I refer to cliché above.
2) Who's your favourite philosopher, and why?
Hmmm. I have written here before about my general dislike of textual fetishisation when it comes to philosophy. Obviously it happens a lot with philosophers who were a) very influential and b) wrote a lot - subsequent thinkers try to draw out the threads of their thinking across their works, make extensive studies of individual works and place them in their wider diachronic and synchronic contexts, and to a certain extent I understand why they do it; it brings a deeper meaning to our readings of those philosophers' works to know how and when and alongside what they were written, that makes sense.
But beyond that I wonder why it's done to the extent it is, the immense focus on individual words in individual phrases, I wonder how this contributes to the greater whole of philosophy's projects - I mean, we can spend a lot of time on what Marx meant by alienation and what Kant meant by the will, and as above I understand why, but after a while, what are we contributing to theories of political economy and metaethics more generally? I have a generalised horror of philosophy approaching literary criticism; I can understand its working the other way, literary criticism that aims to find philosophical undercurrents in literature, but philosophy isn't supposed to be that sort of exercise.
So in general, I avoid saying I have a favourite philosopher: I have favourite areas of philosophy (language, mind, logic) and favourite contributions to them. But I might finish this incredibly long answer by saying I am very fond of Socrates (the "gadfly" model of philosophy, I endorse it), and Wittgenstein's theories of representation always strike me with how neat and elegantly argued they are.
3) What's your favourite guilty pleasure TV?
Friends. Shut up. I love it, I've seen every episode. Also Frasier, but I'm not so guilty about that one; I do genuinely think it's one of the best television programmes ever written.
(Look, you never know when you might need an encyclopaedic knowledge of nineties sitcoms. And when you do, you know where I am.)
4) Which author has most influenced your writing?
I actually don't know. Well, I've always been writing something or other, since I was maybe eleven or twelve, and this sounds terrible, but when I grew to the point where I was tracking influences on my own writing and thinking how best to write rather than doing it by instinct, I'd already fallen into fandom. It was fandom that taught me to teach myself to write, and individual people I met in fandom who did that specifically: the one person who has the most influence on my writing is
gamesiplay, who has been talking to me about writing, showing me her writing, critiquing my writing, for nearly eight years, and I don't think you can discount an association like that.So, er. One author, though, whose style I would like to emulate is Ursula Le Guin. She has a way of using a minimal set of words, but the right ones, which is exactly how I would like to write.
5) Not so much a question as a request, but I really like this idea, so: my housemate has just been reading me six word stories -- write one?
Program "reality" not responding: force quit?
If you would like questions, please comment and say so. eta: and that's a wrap, folks. I don't think I can come up with any more questions!
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no subject
on 2009-12-05 01:54 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-12-05 02:08 pm (UTC)Questions:
1. Do you think you would be a theologian if you weren't yourself religious?
2. What's your favourite poem?
3. What is it that appeals to you about the Age of Sail?
4. If you were elected Queen of Everything, what would be the first thing you would do?
5. What do you want to be when you grow up?
no subject
on 2009-12-05 01:56 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-12-05 02:11 pm (UTC)2. Where do you imagine yourself in ten years?
3. Is there a book that you think everyone should read?
4. What did you like and dislike about teaching?
5. Tell me about your favourite item of clothing.
no subject
on 2009-12-05 02:10 pm (UTC)Do you know about copyright law? I have a query.
Also, ah-ha, you are a fellow 'Friends' fan, now we can gang up on Laura.
no subject
on 2009-12-06 03:39 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-12-06 04:15 pm (UTC)So my question is: Could I make my own anthology using work still in copyright if it were only for personal use?
Any idea?
no subject
on 2009-12-05 02:13 pm (UTC)If you want to ask questions, I will totally answer them. :)
no subject
on 2009-12-06 03:46 pm (UTC)1. Your little brother's getting less and and less little! How do you picture him when he's grown up?
2. What's your favourite thing about your job?
3. If you could visit a period of history, which one would it be?
4. Do you have any religious beliefs?
5. I'm asking everyone this, but what's your favourite item of clothing?
no subject
on 2009-12-05 02:20 pm (UTC)Me too! Me too! (only not eight years)
no subject
on 2009-12-06 03:26 am (UTC)no subject
on 2009-12-05 02:35 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-12-06 04:11 pm (UTC)1. If you weren't studying English, what would it be instead?
2. What kind of music do you like?
3. How did you get into fandom?
4. Tea, coffee, or something else?
5. Where in the world would you like to visit?
no subject
on 2009-12-05 02:44 pm (UTC)And, er, feel free to ask me questions. I don't promise to reply promptly though, as the approaching couple of weeks are taking up a lot of my mental energy.
no subject
on 2009-12-06 04:18 pm (UTC)Questions you shall have.
1. Tell us all about medical physics. What's it about?
2. What do you love best about Doctor Who? Is there anything you don't love about it?
3. What are you reading right now?
4. Where do you see yourself in ten years' time?
5. What's your favourite item of clothing?
no subject
on 2009-12-15 08:27 pm (UTC)I shall, as promised, come back to this. Sometime around Christmas. Completely unrelatedly to the festive season, my timetable has suddenly become very full! It's very odd.
no subject
on 2009-12-05 02:46 pm (UTC)Join forces with me and my encyclopedic knowledge of nineties dramedy and sci-fi shows! We will RULE THE WORLD!
I probably won't be able to post answer to them until the end of next week, but could I have questions too?
no subject
on 2009-12-06 04:28 pm (UTC)1. Nineties sci-fi and dramedy! What do you like, and what don't you like?
2. I confess: I don't know what your thesis is about, beyond "something to do with Eavan Boland". Englighten me?
3. Relatedly: why did you decide to study literature?
4. Where are you from?
5. What's your favourite cocktail?
no subject
on 2009-12-05 03:03 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-12-06 05:47 pm (UTC)2. Is postgraduate study like what you expected, and are you liking it?
3. What's your superhero power?
4. With money no object, where would you choose to live?
5. (Okay, totally not a question, but.) You know some Hebrew, right? Teach me some!
no subject
on 2009-12-07 12:38 am (UTC)2. The work load is generally less and it's much less focused than I thought it would be; I'm having to be more self-directing than I was expecting. Mostly it's good, I'm finally getting ideas for my first big essay, which is encouraging. I'm really looking forward to next term, though, which is when I get to focus on the stuff I really love.
3. I've always been really keen on the idea of superhuman speed.
4. Notting Hill, London. Although last year put me off a bit, London is my home town and unless I go into academia, it's the only place I've ever considered living. I really like Notting Hill; it's centrally located and has loads of really cool shops and things. However, I would love to live in Rome and Berlin for long enough to pick up the languages, since they're both wonderful cities.
5. My Hebrew is not nearly at the standard I would like (except for Yiddish, it's the only language I would like to learn for a reason other than reading literature), and even when I was doing my Bar-Mitzvah it wasn't good enough for me to keep up in services. I always keep meaning to practice it, but never get round. Anyway, teaching you some, yes. Well, just about every prayer starts with (spellings phonetic):
Ba-ruch atah adonai
which translates roughly as 'We praise oh lord our God'. As for something a bit more personal:
Aleh toldot Noah. Noah isht tsadic
So began my Torah reading for my Bar-Mitzvah, which means 'This is the line of Noah. Noah was a righteous man'
Yeah, very scatty knowledge, I'm afraid.
no subject
on 2009-12-05 04:03 pm (UTC)Can I get questions?
no subject
on 2009-12-06 05:53 pm (UTC)2. What's the second best?
3. What are you reading at the moment?
4. What do you want to be when you grow up?
5. What's your favourite drink?
no subject
on 2009-12-05 04:13 pm (UTC)And I love Friends, watch reruns all the time.
I wouldn't mind questions, if you can think of any!
no subject
on 2009-12-06 06:18 pm (UTC)1. What do you like about Habermas? :)
2. Tell me about where you grew up.
3. What next, after the Masters?
4. What's your favourite silly sticky drink with umbrellas in?
5. What do you look for in romantic partners?
no subject
on 2009-12-08 11:10 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-12-05 11:53 pm (UTC)Strange, as I don't like Le Guin's Earthsea books, but I really enjoy your writing.
Thanks for the link to the six word stories. Plenty of laughs, smiles & the odd frown, but none of them quite told me a story the way Hemmingway's baby shoes did. That really was a novel in six words.
no subject
on 2009-12-06 01:11 am (UTC)THAT IS KIND OF INTENSELY FLATTERING, especially since you're a better writer than I am.
Also, the more I read of Le Guin, the more I feel the same. How is it possible for a single writer to produce so much that is so good? And to remain so unpretentious about it? In my next life, I would like to be her.
no subject
on 2009-12-06 06:25 pm (UTC)Le Guin - is so, so awesome. Have you read the Left-Hand Commencement Address that's flying around the internet at the moment? So good.