Although I took my laptop with me on a recent holiday in the Canary Islands, I found it surprisingly easy not to take it out of its case for a whole week. That meant no blogging, no tweeting and getting out of habit if doing either.
A further incentive to do neither came from the curious fact that, in spite of no new blog posts during that period, the number of blog hits increased dramatically - and now averages twice as many as usual.
All has now been explained by a bit of rather obvious research.
Three years ago, I posted The Office Christmas Party: roads to failure and success.
Two years ago, I posted Christmas competition:What did Santa say before 'Ho-ho-ho'?.
60% of today's visits landed on one or other of these posts after Google searches for things like 'christmas party speeches' and 'christmas santa'.
The moral of the story for bloggers wanting to attract more visitors seems obvious: go through a calendar of the year and devise 'topical' posts for all seasons that will be come up on search engines year after year after year after year. Whether or not I can be bothered, however, remains to be seen...
Oxford puts degrees (and gowns) from other universities in their place
The annual College Record of the Oxford college where I was a Fellow for twelve enjoyable years has just arrived via snail-mail, revealing that one of the more bizarre manifestations of the university's superiority complex is still very much in evidence.MA, Oxford?
I had arrived there after teaching at 'plate glass' (Lancaster) and 'red brick' (Manchester) universities, having previously acquired a 'red brick' BA and a 'plate glass' PhD. Such qualifications were not, however, enough for me to be allowed to supervise graduate students in as hallowed a place as Oxford. For that, I also had to acquire a locally awarded 'MA'.
For graduates of Oxford University, the normal route is pretty straightforward: all you have to do after your first degree is not to take any more exams, wait around for a few years and pay a fee for your BA to be automatically 'upgraded' to an MA.
For the rest of us to be allowed anywhere near a graduate student, we first had to be elevated to 'MA Status', achieved by the even simpler procedure of signing a form, returning it to the university offices and paying nothing at all.
MA Status, Oxford?
The year before this happened to me, my name in the College Record was followed by 'BA Reading, PhD, Essex'. The following year, the actual degrees were relegated to their proper place, i.e. in brackets after the more important news: 'MA Status (BA, Reading, PhD, Essex)'.
In the latest College Record, the brackets after names are still there, but 'MA Status' has been replaced by 'MA' - thereby implying that the person in question had been a proper Oxford graduate all along and in the first place, even if s/he had had to spend a few years somewhere else to pick up another degree or two.
One name on the current list caught my attention as something that might amuse (or annoy) American readers and/or graduates of Cambridge (England), followed as it is by: 'MA (BA Harvard, MSA George Washington, PhD Cambridge)'.
Q: What to wear for tea on an Oxford college lawn?
Nor was the elevation of fake local 'degrees' above proper degrees from other places the only evidence of Oxford asserting itself. 'MA Status' also entitled you to wear proper dress for formal dinners and other official occasions (i.e. an Oxford MA gown and hood - top right).
Each year, those of us blessed with 'MA Satus' would also get a luxurious-looking invitation, edged in gold leaf, to Encaenia (the honorary degree ceremony), followed by tea and strawberries on the Vice-Chancellor's college lawn.
At the bottom there was another invitation inviting you to turn over the page - where there was a reassuring message that, if my memory serves me correctly, went as follows:
'Graduates of universities other than Oxford and Cambridge may like to know that, on this occasion, they are permitted to wear the academic robes of their originating institutions.'
A: Robes by Essex man
So one year, mainly for my own amusement and education (as I'd never seen them before then), I went to the expense of hiring Essex PhD robes (above left) - designed in the 1960s by Hardy Amies, a local Essex boy who'd become dress-designer to the Queen.
That, you might think, should impress the locals with a real touch of class - except that I'm pretty sure it didn't...
Hugh Grant: more articulate as himself than in the parts he plays
A few weeks ago, after hearing a presentation by Melvyn Bragg, I made the point that effective broadcasters aren't necessarily as effective when it comes to public speaking (HERE).
I've also commented on how famous actors, with the notable exception of Ronald Reagan, aren't always particularly effective at making speeches either:
'But then why should anyone expect actors to be any good at speech-making?
'After all, their skill is to deliver other people’s lines in a way that portrays characters other than themselves, which is a very different business from writing your own lines and coming across as yourself.
'Politically active thespians like Glenda Jackson, M.P., and Vanessa Redgrave may be admired for their successful acting careers, but neither of them is particularly impressive when it comes to making political speeches.
'In fact, the only example of an actor who did become a great public speaker that I can think of is Ronald Reagan, but he’d already been rolling his own speeches on the lecture circuit for General Electric long before he became Governor of California...' (more HERE)
'After all, their skill is to deliver other people’s lines in a way that portrays characters other than themselves, which is a very different business from writing your own lines and coming across as yourself.
'Politically active thespians like Glenda Jackson, M.P., and Vanessa Redgrave may be admired for their successful acting careers, but neither of them is particularly impressive when it comes to making political speeches.
'In fact, the only example of an actor who did become a great public speaker that I can think of is Ronald Reagan, but he’d already been rolling his own speeches on the lecture circuit for General Electric long before he became Governor of California...' (more HERE)
An articulate spokesman
Hugh Grant's appearance at the Leveson Inquiry into phone hacking (e.g. above), as well as some of his earlier performances on Newsnight and Question Time, suggests that he might be another interesting exception that proves a rule, namely that a professional actor can sometimes come across as far more articulate in person than as the stuttering bumbling characters they've become best known for playing in their films.
Hugh Grant's appearance at the Leveson Inquiry into phone hacking (e.g. above), as well as some of his earlier performances on Newsnight and Question Time, suggests that he might be another interesting exception that proves a rule, namely that a professional actor can sometimes come across as far more articulate in person than as the stuttering bumbling characters they've become best known for playing in their films.
In fact, having watched him doing both, I'm beginning to think that he must be a rather better actor than I'd originally thought:
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