Housemates Needed!

Jane and Steven have decided to move out! They both seem very ready for a place of their own, and good luck to them. But it leaves us needing a couple or at least two individuals to fill their room (and/or the spare room). I attach the following ad in case any of you know someone who knows someone, etc. or in case in a freakish coincidence someone who is looking for a place in Sheffield stumbles upon our humble blog.

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ROOM TO LET - NETHER EDGE

Us
Three open-minded, quiet but friendly academics who like home-cooking, drinking wine and looking out for each other.

You
One couple, or two individuals (two double rooms available), vegetarian/pescetarian, friendly (and eco-friendly) professionals or students (esp. postgrad or mature); chilled, quietly sociable, open-minded, tidy.

The House
Modern 4-bedroom, 5-person house in Nether Edge (near Jacksons); rather gorgeous for the money (excellent kitchen with tiled floor & high quality appliances; bright living room with hardwood floor, bay window and working fireplace, lovely large bathroom & separate shower room); landlord requires non-smoker, prohibits pets & DHSS; we prefer to share household & food expenses; Rent is £150 pcm/pp (excl. bills), £250 pcm/pp (inc. bills: 2GB wireless, cable TV, food, council tax, etc.); available immediately.

Contact
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Gilliam for Potter & Pullman!

A fun interview with top-notch, underappreciated film director Terry Gilliam (Brazil, Twelve Monkeys, Time Bandits) also featuring everyone's favourite movie critic Mark Kermode and an amusing discussion of the merits of Pirates of the Carribean (I'm with Gilliam on this). But most of all it makes you think, how cool would it be to have Gilliam doing Harry Potter 5 or the Philip Pullman films (His Dark Materials), he would be perfect! In fact, he's the only director I can think of who might pull off the Pullman books without ruining them. Alas, it looks to me like these magical stories are at the mercy of a bunch of hacks. How on earth is Chris Weitz of all people going to cope with the extremely tricky religious material? My greatest fear is that he simply won't bother with it, spoiling the real substance of the books.

Our Strange Academics and Intellectuals

I hesitate to recommend this, because it's surprisingly disappointing, yet it might well be something people should look at, in case they're curious about the strange worlds and minds of contemporary academics. It's a Slate feature, whose premise is a rather irritating man interviewing a large number and variety of influential academics on various topics, all with distinctly religious under/overtones. Among the guests are our beloved (ahem) Dan Dennett, Francis Fukuyama, Steven Pinker, and lots of others I'm not so familiar with. Apart from the interviewer going on at greater length than seems to me polite, never mind interesting, the attempts of some of our supposedly greatest academics to talk about these really exciting and interesting issues are often disappointingly dull. I'm sure there are some gems in there however, so perhaps people could comment if they have the patience to search and manage to discover something amusing. The following link is to Dan Dennett discussing death and the afterlife. Notice his rather poor initial effort not to 'disparage' the comforting illusion of an afterlife!

By the time he was 27...

...Stephen Arnold Douglas had been appointed to the Illinois Supreme Court.
...van Gogh had been a theology student, a semi-trained evangelist in the slums of London and the mines of Wasmes (in Belgium), a French tutor, an unsuccessful art salesman and spurned by love. [I got to that one way earlier!]
...Yann Martel was earning his living as a writer.
...Cho Chik-un held four major Japanese titles as a player of 'Go'.
...Orson Welles had already made Citizen Kane.
...Louis the XV had already fathered ten children.
...Tom Brady (quarterback for the Patriots) had already won three superbowls.
...Alexander the Great had already conquered 90% of the known world.
...Kurt Cobain was dead.

Hmm. Maybe I have some work to do? Or maybe I'm doing pretty well?

(By the way, there are now more holiday snaps on the Flickr page)

On the Market

We're back, and very slowly getting around to the idea of blogging again. (I haven't yet tried persuading Laura to come back to her nice photo post, but once I get hold of some cake I will get to work straight away). In the meantime I just thought I would share with you the news that my humble little Edinburgh flat is now on the market. So, in case any of you are looking to invest, or know someone who might be, you can have a look at details on the ESPC website and get bidding! (Or more likely, you can just have a nosy at where I used to live when I was an undergraduate.) I have also posted a few initial holiday photos on the Flickr page.