I'm back
Oh how I wish I wasn't.
Actually, I nearly wasn't back today at all. If I hadn't checked the date on yesterday's paper, I would've been trying to come back tomorrow only to find I was a day late. But I had the misfortune to note the date instead.
I managed to spend a whole week doing none of those things that you'd traditionally associate with a holiday. I didn't go to a single museum which is a little unusual for me. Nor did I go anywhere special per se, unless you count Tai Wo and Discovery Bay; but I had good reason on both occasions. In fact, apart from buying 17 books altogether, I'm not sure what I did to fill in the time. There was at least one day when it rained and I sat round in Alison's flat reading until I felt that I needed to go on my adventures. I had intended to buy books and read them throughout the week, although I did no such thing most of the time. This is why I'm baffled about how the past seven flew by with such celerity.
And in spite of buying so many books, most of them ended up being about philosophy rather than books I'd read for pleasure. There were quite a few of the latter I thought about buying, but there was the little matter of having enough space. It wasn't all philosophy books, though. I bought The Children of Húrin; the second edition of Chinese: An Essential Grammar, which now has Chinese characters beside the pinyin; Italian Stories (a dual language book published by Dover); Candide, which I was reading on the plane. As for the rest, I bought VSI books on Spinoza and Buddhism; Martin Cohen's 101 Philosophy Problems and 101 Ethical Dilemmas; a guide to classical philosophy texts by Nigel Warburton; Rousseau's Dog, the story of the spat that arose when Hume came to Rousseau's rescue; Do you think what you think you think? by Julian Baggini and Jeremy Stangroom (in my case, I don't think what I think I think, although I have to take issue with what they think I thought); and volumes 10 to 12 of FMA (I also bought 9, having forgotten that I already had it).
I was a bit annoyed with Rousseau's Dog because of the bias against David Hume. Perhaps he was being devious, but it was presented in such a way as to make him seem like the villain. The real problem was that Rousseau was as mad as a box of clocks that are never right. I wonder whether Hume just pretended to ignore d'Holbach's warning, or whether he felt that as a good chap he had to do the decent thing in spite of misgivings he might've had from the start. The book seemed to try too hard to make Hume seem to be a complete scoundrel. Rousseau wasn't exactly portrayed as a victim, but it was as if the whole affair needed some spin. Who better to do that than a couple of BBC hacks?
I got about a third of the way through Candide on the plane. I'm sorry I never tried reading the book sooner because Voltaire is very funny and entertaining as he skewers the best of all worlds. I've just got to the part where the old woman is recounting her misfortunes.
I think FMA is definitely proving to be more interesting and more imaginative than the anime series. Lt Ross didn't get char-grilled by Roy Mustang; Al's body is still alive because, as the boys have discovered, they never brought their mother back; but Lust gets killed. Ed has an encounter with his father, but it doesn't begin well; the middle is a little rocky; and the end is, yeah, rocky as well.
Actually, I nearly wasn't back today at all. If I hadn't checked the date on yesterday's paper, I would've been trying to come back tomorrow only to find I was a day late. But I had the misfortune to note the date instead.
I managed to spend a whole week doing none of those things that you'd traditionally associate with a holiday. I didn't go to a single museum which is a little unusual for me. Nor did I go anywhere special per se, unless you count Tai Wo and Discovery Bay; but I had good reason on both occasions. In fact, apart from buying 17 books altogether, I'm not sure what I did to fill in the time. There was at least one day when it rained and I sat round in Alison's flat reading until I felt that I needed to go on my adventures. I had intended to buy books and read them throughout the week, although I did no such thing most of the time. This is why I'm baffled about how the past seven flew by with such celerity.
And in spite of buying so many books, most of them ended up being about philosophy rather than books I'd read for pleasure. There were quite a few of the latter I thought about buying, but there was the little matter of having enough space. It wasn't all philosophy books, though. I bought The Children of Húrin; the second edition of Chinese: An Essential Grammar, which now has Chinese characters beside the pinyin; Italian Stories (a dual language book published by Dover); Candide, which I was reading on the plane. As for the rest, I bought VSI books on Spinoza and Buddhism; Martin Cohen's 101 Philosophy Problems and 101 Ethical Dilemmas; a guide to classical philosophy texts by Nigel Warburton; Rousseau's Dog, the story of the spat that arose when Hume came to Rousseau's rescue; Do you think what you think you think? by Julian Baggini and Jeremy Stangroom (in my case, I don't think what I think I think, although I have to take issue with what they think I thought); and volumes 10 to 12 of FMA (I also bought 9, having forgotten that I already had it).
I was a bit annoyed with Rousseau's Dog because of the bias against David Hume. Perhaps he was being devious, but it was presented in such a way as to make him seem like the villain. The real problem was that Rousseau was as mad as a box of clocks that are never right. I wonder whether Hume just pretended to ignore d'Holbach's warning, or whether he felt that as a good chap he had to do the decent thing in spite of misgivings he might've had from the start. The book seemed to try too hard to make Hume seem to be a complete scoundrel. Rousseau wasn't exactly portrayed as a victim, but it was as if the whole affair needed some spin. Who better to do that than a couple of BBC hacks?
I got about a third of the way through Candide on the plane. I'm sorry I never tried reading the book sooner because Voltaire is very funny and entertaining as he skewers the best of all worlds. I've just got to the part where the old woman is recounting her misfortunes.
I think FMA is definitely proving to be more interesting and more imaginative than the anime series. Lt Ross didn't get char-grilled by Roy Mustang; Al's body is still alive because, as the boys have discovered, they never brought their mother back; but Lust gets killed. Ed has an encounter with his father, but it doesn't begin well; the middle is a little rocky; and the end is, yeah, rocky as well.
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