Joke told by the Principal over second desserts in the SCR this evening:

A young man recently returned from World War I came back to his College in Oxford. As he walked across the quad, he was delighted to see his former tutor and rushed over to greet him.

"Hello Sir! I hope you remember me?" said the young man.

The old Fellow peered at him. "Ah yes! Biggins, isn't it?"

"Yes," replied the young man excitedly, "What a great memory!"

"Now tell me," continued the old Professor absent-mindedly, "Was it you or your brother who was killed in the Somme?"

Even funnier, the Principal had told the joke to an Emeritus Fellow. She showed him a copy of one of the oldest jokebooks known to exist, from around the 5th century, and that same joke was in there. The only difference was that the punchline was, "Was it you or your brother who was killed in the war with the Persians?"

" Friends and Comrades, the light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere. I do not know what to tell you and how to say it. Our beloved leader, Bapu as we call him, the Father of the Nation, is no more.
Perhaps I am wrong to say that. Nevertheless, we will not see him again as we have seen him for these many years. We will not run to him for advice and seek solace from him, and that is a terrible blow, not to me only but to millions and millions of this country. And it is a little more difficult to soften the blow by any other advice that I or anyone else can give you.

"The light has gone out, I said, and yet I was wrong. For the light that shone in our country was no ordinary light. The light that has illumined this country for these many many years will illumine this country for many more years, and a thousand years later that light will still be seen in this country and the world will see it and it will give solace to innumerable hearts. For that light represented something more than the immediate present; it represented the living, the eternal truths, reminding us of the right path, drawing us from error, taking this ancient country to freedom.

"All this has happened when there was so much more for him to do. We could never think that he was unnecessary or that he had done his task. But now, particularly, when we are faced with so many difficulties, his not being with us is a blow most terrible to bear.

A madman has put an end to his life, for I can only call him mad who did it and yet there has been enough poison spread in this country during the past years and months, and this poison has had an effect on people's minds. We must face this poison, we must root out this poison, and we must face all the perils that encompass us, and face them not madly or badly, but rather in a way that our beloved teacher taught us to face them.

"The first thing to remember now is that none of us dare misbehave because he is angry. We have to behave like strong and determined people, determined to face all the perils that surround us, determined to carry out the mandate that our great teacher has given us, remembering always that if, as I believe, his spirit looks upon us and sees us, nothing would displease his soul so much as to see that we have indulged in any small behaviour or any violence.

"So we must not do that. But that does not mean that we should be weak, but rather that we should, in strength and in unity, face all the troubles that are in front of us. We must hold together, and all our petty troubles and difficulties and conflicts must be ended in the face of its great disaster. A great disaster is a symbol to us to remember all the big things of life and forget the small things of which we have thought too much. In his death he has reminded us of the big things of life, the living truth, and if we remember that, then it will be well with India.......

-- Jawaharlal Nehru, spoken on the evening of January 30 after the death of the Mahatma.

Our government wants us to marry and procreate- hence, the government-run dating agencies, tax incentives, and regular exhortations about how families are good for us.

Our television stations want to make popular but cheap television shows which the government approves of.

This is an avenue which can be exploited!

Introducing Let's Go Book A HDB Flat Together!: A Singaporean reality TV show about Singaporeans trying to find love in the highly pressurised and materialistic world that is Singapore!

In the first season, we follow 12 men as, over the course of a season spanning 6 months, we observe their desperate attempts to find love in the city and reach that holy grail: their very-own HDB flat!

Watch! As the men get style tips, wardrobe makeovers, and etiquette advice from government-sponsored consultants, none of whom are gay!

Laugh! As they attempt to tiptoe their way through the minefield of kay-poh family, convince suspicious parents, pretend their jobs are better than they actually are and try not to be emasculated by the all-seeing camera!

Cry! As the men break down and confess their fears about women, their macho exteriors slowly breaking away as they plead for help to obey their biological and governmental imperatives!

Cheer! As they find women who actually can see past their social ineptitude, outmoded patriarchal values, debilitating shallowness, and funky body odour!

Shock! As it turns out that the true love they found on the show was a fraud as most of the women were actors and the rest were China-brides!

On second thoughts, never mind.

When one reads the poems and writings of the ancients, can it be right not to know something about them as men? Hence one tries to understand the age in which they lived. This can be described as 'looking for friends in history'. - Mencius 5B:8, Trans. D.C. Lau, London: Penguin Classics, 1970.

I've been watching Andrew Marr's A History of Modern Britain (Tuesday nights, 9pm on BBC2), which is a typically excellent product from the BBC. It's always incredibly difficult to tell an accurate, comprehensive and entertaining story in a television documentary, and I think this documentary does an excellent job. I have much praise and very few gripes with the quality of its presentation, and its use of the medium of television to present footage, photos, audio and especially to re-create the look and feel of an era is very well thought out.

One interesting point which the most recent episode made was in its discussion of a Labour Party Prime Minister who resisted the strong entreaties of a President of the United States of America, from the south, to join the USA in an unpopular war in a distant state. The Prime Minister was Harold Wilson; the President was Lyndon Johnson. Wilson kept British troops out of the war; however, he refused to condemn it and supported the American effort with intelligence and rhetoric. He lost his credibility with the radical left because of his stand and his popularity plummeted. Students demonstrated; riots broke out; and even in his own cabinet, doubts were raised about the wisdom of his stance.

However, he steadfastly held firm, because Britain was a debtor nation, kept afloat only because of American loans. His Labour government had inherited from the previous Tory government a deficit of no less than £8 billion (around £11 billion today) and it needed American credit to keep the hospitals, factories and schools running. As he succinctly put it in a cabinet meeting, "We can't kick our creditors in the balls." Marr argued that his decision to tread the fine line between not supporting the war but not condemning it either was Wilson's finest hour; but it cost him a lot of popularity with the voters.

Wilson's stand is today contrasted with Blair's decision to go to war in Iraq. This leads me to wonder, are we missing a bigger picture? Is there something that Blair sees as vitally important to British interests that we easily dismiss? In 30 years' time, when documentaries are made of the Blair government with the benefit of hindsight and declassified documents, will his decision to stand shoulder to shoulder with the USA in Iraq be vindicated as necessary or even correct?

I believe that Tony Blair has been an excellent Prime Minister, with a very good record in office. He has kept Britain prosperous and has made Britain more relevant on the world stage than any time since before Suez. I am sad to see him go. And I am very sure that in the years to come, with the benefit of hindsight and of declassification, we will (more or less) come to agree that his government was a good one for Britain.

Winner of the 2007 MTV Movie Awards Movie Spoof contest, it's a mash-up of United 93 and 300. You will either finds this hilarious or be deeply offended and disgusted by the idea. I personally loved it.

Dear Sir,

I refer to your article on Confucius and Mr. Tan Boon Tee’s subsequent letter to The Economist. Mr Tan's letter demonstrates a commonly-held misconception about Confucius and his teachings. Confucius lived in a time of great political uncertainty and oppression, when monarchs held absolute power over life and death, and the values and ideas expressed in his philosophy have to be understood in the context of the times in which he lived. His famous ‘five relationships’ emphasize not only obedience by a subject to a ruler, but also the ruler’s responsibility to his people. He believed that if people became conscious of their responsibilities to each other, and followed good practices (‘ritual’) in their behaviour with each other, a harmonious society would result.

Sadly, Confucius’ teachings have been interpreted quite literally, perhaps in the same way that the pro-gun lobby in the USA interprets the second amendment. Confucius’ teachings are now routinely used to justify a strong paternalistic state and obedience to power, not least in places like Singapore. As a fellow Singaporean, I sympathize with Mr. Tan but I fear that Confucius, like many other philosophers and religious figures before him, has had his words interpreted to serve the purposes of those who would use them to justify their actions. As your article showed, Confucius is valued not for his inherent wisdom but as a way to justify the continued rule of the Chinese Communist Party. Rather than seek an inviolable text, I suggest we use it as a starting point for examining our own lives.

Yours Faithfully,

PJ Thum
Oxford