catholiclefty

Harry Potter, therefore, is over. Except for the last two films, and the merchandise, and the theme park, and... but anyway, the actual focus, the books, are over.

The last book - The Deathly Hallows - is actually, for the most part, very enjoyable. It drives the story along well, bar a couple of slight longeurs, and somewhat inevitably, though pleasantly, sets up a final massive set-piece battle at Hogwarts with just about everyone of any importance involved. Most loose ends are competently tied up and all seven books end up linking together very nicely. I was surprisingly impressed by that. Snape was revealed as being decent all along, and in a reasonably clever way (it managed to avoid obvious appeals to consequentialism, which I expected to be brought up and was happy to see avoided). None of the really important characters died (bar Harry, in a way) - which in a way was a bit of a cop-out, but I was also pleased, as I'd actually have been annoyed if Ron or Hermione had died.

So, there we are. A book series that I came to late (either late 2001 or sometime in 2002) comes to an end. I clearly remember reading book 3 in Redmond in the Brewhouse, buying book 5 in Heffers on 21st June 2003 (and giving it away the following evening!), and trying (and succeeding) to finish book 6 before I went to Boston for the first time. Unlike a generation of children, I can't say I *grew up* with the series (!), but it links together various events of the last 5 years or so, which is somewhat interesting in itself.

Cambridge on Friday night was, like 2 years ago, interesting, though slightly less pleasant. Lots of families, which changes the atmosphere significantly, but a few more people trying to be annoying too. It still comes to something though, when you've got people standing around the middle of Cambridge reading books at 12.30am on a Saturday morning! It's good to see, and it's a shame it couldn't happen more often. There is still surprising power in communal events, perhaps even more so now we live in such an individualistic, selfish world.

It's that time of the year again, when people wear too many clothes, hold up traffic, and get to hold fingers and kneel before old people. Yes, it's General Admissions here - 8 years on from my own. The weird thing this year is that I feel entirely indifferent towards it - not depressed, not envious, not reminiscent. It's just happening. Rather a difference from 2003, for example, when it just seemed utterly depressing and symbolic of an 'it's all downhill from then on' point.

There are two other odd things about this one. Firstly, the people graduating over these three days are mostly the people who were freshers arriving almost precisely when I came back to Cambridge in early October 2004. The nearly-three-years goes awfully quickly, doesn't it?! And secondly, because the weather has been so downright awful for the last two months, it doesn't seem like we are here anyway. I'm glad we're not repeating last year's heatwave so far, but something closer to that than this is would be appreciated.

Well, I went to watch the May Bumps. And got rained on. A lot. But it wasn't quite as bad as I feared, I suppose. The rain was darn heavy when it came but it tended to pass quite quickly. We got a bit of sun, and the first day was largely dry.

It was basically good fun, lots more fresh air than usual, and the usual trips to Fen Ditton, Milton, Horningsea on the Saturday, and even the Penny Ferry wasn't too bad this year (until Saturday, when for a time they had precisely one person behind the bar trying to serve the masses). The Plough in Fen Ditton has been refurb'ed and is all All Bar One-esque, which oddly enough I find less annoying in this one case than the tedious and irritating Hungry Horse-esque place it used to be. The Crown and Punchbowl in Horningsea was fortunately not in the middle of changing management this year and was actually open, though isn't too interesting.

Fitz did quite well overall. Jesus went top of the ladies once more.

I'm not too sure at the moment if God is trying to annoy me, tell me something, or neither of the above. After missing out on Strawberry Fair this year, the weather forecast for the rest of this week is pretty miserable - which should make for a pretty miserable May Bumps. Bah.

Conversely, when walking to Grantchester yesterday (first time in at least a year, possibly two) I was overtaken by the fittest jogger I've seen in rather a long time wearing about as little as possible that you can go jogging in without, err, problems. Nice! And then later when eating dinner outside at the local pub, I accidentally sat at the next table to one of the cutest ladies I've seen in a very long time. Like Melissa Joan Hart, but cuter. Also nice! There were not-half-bad people in another pub later, either. Maybe it's just that time of year.

For about the 10th day in a row, it is raining and miserable. I guess that's the price we pay fo having had an excessively nice April.

It's yet another 10th anniversary too - the 10th anniversary of the meal at the Mongolian Barbeque on Regent Street - not the most auspicious-sounding event, but an event I can directly trace back most friends to, past and present - often in a convoluted way, but one usually gets back to here in the end.

After posting on Monday night, I watched my video of the 1997 election. It's good to remember once in a while just how cathartic the whole evening was, even if the jubilation and hopes for the following ten years were highly over-optimistic. Still, not that optimistic. I said myself in my diary that night that I 'hoped Tony Blair would be more left-wing in power than he had been in the campaign' - no doubt suspected that he really wouldn't be, at all. I think it is probably easy to over-mythologise that night, something I am guilty of too, but it was so much more about 'getting rid of them' than 'welcoming these others' - I don't think we expected anything as downright awful as Iraq or the repeated, mendacious attacks on our civil liberties, but we didn't expect a socialist paradise to break out either.

On a lighter note, it's still fun to see Portillo lose (although his 'rehabilitation' has lasted long enough now for me to believe that it is entirely genuine. I still wouldn't want to see him in government again, but he's much more reasonable now than then. And he is effectively the popular British face of Wagnerism now, so I suppose I have to like him!) - and it is still hilarious seeing James Goldsmith and David Mellor abuse one another, and Paxman asking Cecil Parkinson about being chair of a fertiliser factory :-)

So, local elections today (not quite as fun as 1997, but still the important exercise of democracy, for all the use that is nowadays when all the parties with a realistic chance of getting anywhere are almost all the same neo-liberal nonsense). I'll be voting either Lib Dem or Green, with a bias towards Green, though the Green guy has said some odd things about cycling on pavements not always necessarily being bad, which puts me off considerably! It'll be the first time I vote at the Castle End Mission at St Peters since I was at Fitz, which should be a blast from the past.

More anniversaries : today is the 10th anniversary of my trip to Southend and thus, I believe by extension, the 10th anniversary of having rocks thrown at me while walking along the street by some young thugs in Shoeburyness! (At least I think so. It's not in my diary, but I don't think I went to Southend any other time). I've not been back to Shoeburyness, oddly enough. And then the 10th anniversary of winning the Eurovision with Katrina and the Waves (a rather bad name after Hurricane Katrina, actually!), and then later being locked in Trinity Gardens a bit after midnight with champagne, and then trying to get out. A more interesting evening than it sounds, for various complex reasons. Good fun!

I went to the University Library over lunch and got some more Wagner books. This is very useful! It's a shame it took me so long to start using the place properly. I guess I'll survive the closure of the central library - though it might be a lot more annoying if I wasn't still a member of the university.

One more though : it's very good to see the County Arms back in the hands of decent landlords who I like and am happy to go back in there again. Excellent! Now if they could do a barmaid reunion from 8 or 9 years ago, I'd be very happy...... :-)

Also watched Star Trek:DS9 'Rapture' last night, possibly my single favourite episode of DS9. It treats spiritual matters with the respect they deserve, rather unusual for Star Trek, and it is an excellent and even beautifully crafted episode. I can watch this over and over and not get tired of it. I'll possibly deconstruct this in more detail in a future entry (assuming I continue blogging, of course!) I'm glad I chose to buy the fifth season on Monday in preference to others, because on balance it is probably the strongest.

Now, I've got to get into Battlestar Galactica beyond the mini-series. I hear nothing but good things about this from everyone, so...

I couldn't really let the 10th anniversary of my arrival in Cambridge pass without comment, and hopefully it will spur me on to writing in this blog again...

So, 10 years since I arrived on a train to live in this city. Very, very scary. Ok, I've left a couple of times, but I've come back (the last time exactly 2 years to the day).

It's been quite eventful, really. Did I expect to be here 10 years from then? Well, no, but I had no idea where I would be, so...!

I don't think anything interesting has happened in the last few days, here at least. The weather has reached a more sensible and pleasant temperature, Judge Joe Brown is new (to me at least - it's from 2005 - hurray!) and I finally lost a dying IRC channel that I'd been helping hold onto for over a year - for some reason, someone wanted it and went to the trouble of aggressively taking it over.

This weekend is 'The Big Weekend' on Parker's Piece. No more Doctor Who, and various things are going into 'summer holiday' mode. Soon there will be far too many children around, free from school for six weeks. Ack!

I heard rumours, and looked into them today, and unfortunately they are true.

Cambridge Central Library is going to be shut for the whole of next year and some of 2008, for 'refurbishment'. It seems there will no alternative provision in the city center during those 15 months.

I'm pretty annoyed about this. I'm almost as annoyed about the fact that it isn't being advertised in any way as about the fact it is happening in the first place. Currently they only have A5 pieces of paper in a rack with other information. No wonder I haven't seen this before!

I think this may become an ongoing saga. At the least I'm going to complain to the relevant people.

I got one of my periodic 'ooh, I really need to go and do more maths, somewhere, somehow, and stop wasting the gift of intuitively *being* a mathematician' earlier today, while leafing through a book about Riemann Geometry (of all things! - not exactly my favourite parts of maths) in Cambridge University Press bookshop earlier.

Of course it quickly passed. I wonder if I'll ever actually do anything *about* these occasional urges to do more maths. Before it is too late. If it isn't already.

We got another tiny bit of thunder, and an awful lot of rain (very quickly). I'm not sure it has helped as much as thunderstorms used to though. This is more like last year - where we get thunder and lots of rain, but it's just as humid and hot afterwards.

Not a very interesting week this one. For the students it was May Week, and they mostly got pretty good weather. I saw various people queueing up for balls, and the main thing I thought was 'I used to do that'! I avoided watching the fireworks, because fireworks are tedious.

Other than that, I suffered terribly slow service at the Waggon and Horses in Milton, got short-changed at the White Horse (also Milton), didn't get served at the Vine because it was past 11 o'clock and they didn't bother to call last orders, got over-charged at Sainsburys, and had to brave lots of In-ger-land fans *and* some irritating rain on Tuesday. Oh well.

This weekend will also be irritating. More In-ger-land fans on Sunday, and Midsummer fair means everywhere will be closed. Bah. I may try to go somewhere on Sunday.

On the positive side, I got my first 2006-minted coin out of circulation yesterday - a Brunel £2. Nice!

...or 'semi-holiday' as I'm calling it. Off work, but not actually going anywhere outside of Cambridge. Still, a weekend and a few holidays spent pleasantly by the river - or rather a few days spent being overheated, sitting by the river. I watched rather more of the May Bumps than I have before, but it was enjoyable, if somewhat tiring.

Fitz didn't manage to win any blades, but the first men were very close. I'd not realised before quite how hopeless a position you are in rowing third in a division when the boat rowing first is weak - as boat 2 will bump boat 1, you haven't got much chance of going anywhere that day, as you haven't even got the possibility of overbumping... Shame. Still, a good attempt.

I got to the Jolly Brewers in Milton for only the second time in my life (I think) though it isn't worth shouting about. The Plough in Fen Ditton is as miserable at service and ambience as ever. If not for the Bumps, I'm amazed anyone bothers to go here. The 'Penny Ferry' (ie. the Pike and Eel) seems to have more competent management than in previous years, thank goodness. They didn't decide to close the pub in the afternoon of the busiest day of the year, for once.

Well, that was a mostly pleasant long weekend (I do recommend taking the occasional Monday off work, particularly when it turns out as nice as yesterday). Apart from some irritating rain on Sunday, it was mainly very nice indeed.

Strawberry Fair was very like it always is - though with the lovely weather on Saturday, a lot of people turned out and it was very busy. I did manage to have a brief sit-down and a read of some of Tony Benn's diaries, to satisfy tradition, but it really was busy.

Yesterday I finally managed to do a couple of things I've been meaning to do for years - visit the Whipple Museum of the History of Science (interesting, though would be better named as the Whipple 'room' of the History of Science, right at the moment, as there were renovations going on) - and then I visited the University Library and actually borrowed a couple of books! It does seem a terrific waste that I have this wonderful resource almost on my doorstep that I so rarely use - when some people would give a lot to have a reader's ticket. At least I have now finally used it to some slight degree. I also noted that have reorganised the Official Publications room since I was last there. Is it bigger? It certainly looked more organised.

So, while I didn't achieve as much with my day off work as perhaps I might have done, at least I did a couple of things that I can now cross off the mental 'to do' list - which is probably as good.

Tried to visit the Free Press last night, but it was closed for 'refurbishment'. The note on the door did try to reassure that they weren't going to destroy the character of the place - but after so many horrible refurbishments in Cambridge over the last few years, I'm going to reserve judgement.

I walked through the temporary walkway through what used to be Bradwell's Court the other night. Whatever they do to that has to be an improvement, I suppose. It was a really ugly part of the city.