My parents arrived last Saturday and stayed till Tuesday when they left to see my sister in Thailand. They had a nice time here in London and they’ll be back next in a week as well for a bit. We went to the Tate Modern to see their Duchamp, Manray and Picabia exhibition which was actually very good. I had never seen work by Picabia and I was quite impressed. However I was disappointed by their antagonistic anti-photography policy. I took this one on the sly but my dad got caught and berated by a guard. I understand galleries not wanting people to take photos of the work and then publish them. However to do that you would need to bring a tripod to take quality photos. Your average visitor taking hand-held snaps is not a threat to the gallery or the owner of the works. Some galleries have a no tripod policy which I think is much more sensible. I get quite irate when being told not to photograph art that I paid to see and would like to remember.

I had a Hittite exam last Wednesday. It went pretty well I knew the texts and tried my hardest on the unseen passages. I have an Akkadian exam this Wednesday as well as an Archaeology essay due on Friiday. None of this is helped by the fact that our downstairs neighbors decided to invite ten of the friends over last night to have an argument/fight outside or flat at 4am and leave the dogs barking crazily in their flat under my bed. Chris called the police; I called the councils noise complaint line.

Today was the first proper day of summer; the sun was shinning and it was very warm. I got a flat on the way in and upon taking the tube off couldn’t find the puncture. Sick and tired of getting flate (I’ve had three in the past two weeks) I walked down to the bike shop and bought two new tires and two new tubes. My bike tires were looking pretty horrible with the rubber mostly falling apart. It’s a good investment as they were Armadillo tires, meant to prevent flats. I Finally got to SOAS and did some studying.

I went with Chris and his friend Janice and others to a graffiti show featuring Banksi and other graffiti artists in a disused tunnel near Waterloo. We had to wait an hour an a half to get in but it was well worth it. Every space was covered in some sort of stenciled or graffitied art.

Boris Johnson won the London Mayoral election. It’s hard to believe that the city voted for him. His policies were pipe-dreams and he was just chosen by the conservative party to oust Ken which is a shame because Ken cared about London and worked his way up to the job. Hopefully everyone (Boris included) realizes that he has huge shoes to fill and will take him to task for not filling them.

We have baby foxes in our garden. I was watering my plants and the water ran down the wall into the garden below when these two cubs came out to lick the water. The next day I saw three cubs playing in the garden. I think this explains the persistent fox sounds I’ve been hearing at night.

Last Thursday I did some work for SOAS at a university fair at a private boarding school north of London. It wasn’t quite the right crowd for SOAS. I think I talked to a total of four people over the whole event. But I was particularly amazed at this school and I loved their slogan “Successful careers start at the top”.

Last weeks Pub Quiz was a hoot. Chris the barman bought balloons and made little baggies for all the teams with enclosed instructions. Everyone had a blast these were the two winners, we had them explain the pieces on the spot. Everyone shared in the Treasure Chest afterwards. This week is the last Pub Quiz of the year and my last at SOAS. I’m going to miss it, this past year has been particularly fun.

On Saturday Anna, Holly, Esther, Maria and I went to the Barbican to hear the LSO’s woodwinds chamber orchestra. It was very nice. I’d never been to the Barbican before; it’s an amazing building very well designed and quite pretty. Plus the tickets were five pounds thanks to Anna so it was more than worth it. I’d love to go there more often.

In other news I’ve applied for the Residency Manager position at the Beacon Hill Friends House. It would really be the perfect situation for next year. Hopefully I’ll be interning at the MFA two days a week and living and working at the Friends House the rest of the week.

In terms of right now I’m in the midst of exam revision of dissertation research. I have two exams in two and three weeks. My parents are coming in one and a half weeks. I’m going to Paris at the end of May. My dissertation has to be finished before mid-July when I head off to Turkey to start digging again.

I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of drawing on my window before.

I just received and excellent piece of spam. Someone remarked a while ago on how spamming companies were starting to incorporate literature and other texts into their messages just to try and fool spam filters into thinking it was a legitimate e-mail:

It in my wallet. Sir george looked up at me with in the senate,
and perhaps in the house of representatives feelest the
influence of sexual desire. I am a when finished would be
on a level with an adjacent and narada and parvata and sudhanwa
and ekata priest to pray for them in a dead language which
biojibjiboos to heaven he lives in the company of soma’s daughters.
there being no jantleman resident in it, nor near and daughters
he possessed, with inevitable questioning purity and exquisite
delicacy. Finding in me no hari, the lord of the universe,
brahma said these apologies, and the sketch from thimble
island, areaaabkhjml cutting down a forest with an axe. If the
king sabha is unquestionably the foremost in the world subjects
to bear. Wherefore the five periods set.

I especially like the first two and last two sentences.

I was quite late to meeting on Sunday and didn’t get to enjoy worship as much I would’ve liked (blame it on the snowy roads). So I decided to try coming to Wednesday meeting. I cycled over after coming back from working in the library. Initially it was just three of us, later a fourth member came. Worship was very nice though. We met in the small library with a candle in the middle, the character of the light changed dramatically and by the end we were all illuminated by the single candle. I fell asleep a bit, worshiped a bit, thought about my essays a bit and just enjoyed the silence. Afterwards we went to a pub for a drink and had some really great conversation.

Last weekend it snowed and before that Anna and I went to Borough Market. I’m waiting till I have a house and income and then I’ll shop at Borough Market; it’s all too expensive and tasty.

The Oven

Three weeks ago was Easter. I went up to Peter’s for Easter Sunday and had a very nice time with his family. Later I met up with Anna in Long Hanborough to see where her sister and her boyfriend are working at a pub. We then took the train back to Birmingham and then two days later on to Pembrokshire. We stayed in Wales till Saturday hiking everyday and eating big meals with family. I did some more work on my underground oven. I started building a woven fence from saplings around the edge of the pit. Saturday we drove back to Birmingham with her parents. And Sunday we took the train back to London.

The Welsh Sea was not happy on Saturday

I guess I never wrote about my previous trip down to Wales in February. It was very nice as well; that’s when I started this oven project. There is a very nice coastal hiking path (called the Coast Path) It’s very beautiful.

Dotted along the coast are remains of old Iron Age forts. I’ve been meaning to go to the Institute of Archaeology and dig out some field reports on Pembrokeshire archaeological digs and read more about the forts. Apparently the dean of St. Davids is quite an archaeology buff.

Here’s some shopping I did this past week at Yaşar Halim. I’m quite busy at the moment writing two essays for Monday. One is on the Anitta Text and the other is on an Old Assyrian diplomatic letter between pre-Hittite rulers of Anatolia (see Kültepe). After finishing these two essay I’ll be much more relaxed.

Saturday morning Anna and I cycled down to Harringey train station and got on a train to Hampstead Heat (cost one pound!) and cycled around the Heath. We stopped at the Kenwood house for a packed lunch and some tea at the cafe (coffee was one pound!). Then cycled back through the Heath back to Gospel Oak train station and took the train back to Harringey. Hampstead Heath was very nice as always. Lots of people out walking around with their dogs and kids.

It’s really nice having the train so close. At the base of Green Lanes is a little unmanned train stop with train every half hour to Hampstead Heath, the journey takes about ten minutes and costs one pound on an oyster card. I liked this sign on the train specifically because it looked sort of like the murder weapons in Clue. I guess it means that there is a first-aid kit, saw, rope and crowbar to the left.

Saturday night we had a little dinner party at our flat. I made way too much pasta which we just finished last night. It was good fun I spent a lot of money on nice cheese and crackers which were well worth it.

I like getting in to soas right when it opens in the morning and sitting in the bar for a while doing work at my favorite tables. Chris the barman is in as well getting the bar ready for opening and he always puts on really interesting nice music in the morning.

Good quiz tonight I wasn’t so hot on the questions when I was writing them but they turned out ok. Anna and I are going out for dinner tomorrow night and seeing a play, yet to be determined.

I just noticed this building cycling in yesterday. Strange sort of abandoned Chinese warehouse type thing right next to the Arsenal stadium. When I went to unlock my bike yesterday evening to head home I realized my back tire was a bit flat so I started to pump it up and the nozzle of inner tube actually snapped off of the tube. I’ve never had that happen before and it was a bit annoying. So I locked up my bike again and walked to the tube. I’ll buy a new inner tube this morning and put it on my bike.

I bought some cds recently that are all very good

• A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory
• A Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders
• The Fugees - The Score
• Junior Senior - D-D-Don’t Don’t Stop the Beat
• Luscious Jackson - Fever in Fever out

Anna and I left Friday night to head up to Birmingham to stay at her parents. We had a nice and relaxing weekend. Went for a few walks sat around the house. I did some work in their garden and read the paper a lot. It was really cool to see her sister’s photos from her and her boyfriend’s year long expedition in Australia, New Zealand and southern bits of Africa.

I read an interesting piece in the Independent about an old recluse who was murdered in Hampstead. Now the Home Office has said the the trial must be held behind closed doors (the first murder trial to be deemed so) due to interests of national security. Here’s a link to the article and the wikipedia page. It’s really fascinating. He published a few books in the 1960s and was a freelance photographer but basically hand’t done anything since then and just lived alone in a huge Hampstead house. Except he sent a postcard to his neighbor from America once. Curious.

I handed in my last essay in on Friday as well. Not entirely happy with the end result for them but I’m glad they’re in and done.

I’ve been incredibly busy these past two weeks writing essay after essay and dealing with the everyday work of preparing for classes as well. I’m nearly done with my final essay. Hopefully I’ll be able to hand it in tomorrow or at the latest on Thursday. After that I should be done for a while.

Anna’s sister and her boyfriend got back on Monday. They left a year ago to live in Australia for a little more than half the year and then they went traveling to New Zealand and then through Africa for the rest. I had never met them so it was really nice to finally get a chance. Anna and I are going up to Birmingham this weekend as well. Oh and we’re going to Wales in reading week.

Other than that not much is going on still working round the clock. I’ve got my dissertation topic confirmed with Andrew George for the most part, “Literary History of Šumma ālu“. Should be very interesting and I’m excited to be working on it. Oh and the photo is of a cup of coffee from these vending machines scattered around UCL and SOAS. It costs 40p and tastes like sweet milky coffee water but it’s surprisingly good and helps me get through long lectures.

Oh just as an aside I’ve been browsing the Klix website with the goal of trying to find nutritional information on its drinks and I came across this great quote:

KLIX machines boast 18 months between breakdowns… and that’s just the average!

You can find it here. I’m not sure if they’re marketing to people who don’t understand averages or they don’t understand averages themselves. But I guess the phrase does sort of make sense, yes 18 months is “just” the average (your mileage may vary).