A Liberal Education

This summer, A.C. Grayling visited Gladstone's Library and delivered the Founder's Day address entitled 'The Necessity of a Liberal Education'.

For a taste of academia as it should be, watch the following video (at YouTube):


Follow this link: Gladstone's Library Founder's Day July 2013
NB The video is unlisted and can be linked to but not embedded.

Like Joseph Farquharson

It will soon be Christmas. Indeed, the supermarket I walked through yesterday already had on display cakes, puddings and tins of chocolates and biscuits in preparation. (Perhaps because Christmas is more affordable when its cost is spread out over a few months.)

Over many years I have seen (and received) Christmas cards with paintings of winter scenes made by the Scottish painter Joseph Farquharson (1846-1935). His paintings of sheep - done, I understand from hides he constructed not to disturb the animals - are particularly popular and I particularly like these. The emotions they evoke are deep and have a poignancy that befits the time of year. (A collection of his paintings can be seen online at the BBC's Your Paintings site.)

Here is a photograph I took last winter that is in a similar vein to (but nowhere near as good as any of) Farquharson's sheep pictures.

A Long Equation

I have previously used barcodes to spell out the name of this blog. Below is an equation that does the same. I go it from the Inverse Graphing Calculator website.

Birthday Suit

I found this in my files. I think it was from a book cover I saw in a bookshop in Oxford some years ago.

For me, this image depicts the notion that there is somebody - or something - inside that which can be seen from the outside. Revealing who or what that is, is another matter.

Wet by Definition

Baptisms are wet by definition.


(See in Rochester Cathedral some years ago.)

The cones do not, I hasten to add, relate to concerns about 'Health and Safety' except with respect to the building work that was going on at the time when the picture was taken. However, it may only be a matter of time before somebody raises a concern about water temperature, slipping on splashes, getting chapped etc. and causes a working party to issue guidelines.