Listening in
I've been at Lord's quite a bit lately; got given Middlesex membership for Christmas, and have worked it hard.
On Saturday up in the Compton stand (primitive facilities, great view) I was sat in front of three professors - one emeritus, one visiting and one local tenured. They hardly stopped yakking all day, and quite a lot of it was interesting.
The emeritus seems to be a big cheese at UCL law faculty, specialising in family law. "I won't be here tomorrow, I have to give a talk to the Initiation Society".
"Oh, what's that?"
"It's a meeting of mohels (sp? ?) who perform the bris (sp?). I give them a talk in favour of circumcision from the secular point of view of the Rights of the Child".
Puzzlement from the other profs - "I'd like to see your position on that, it looks a bit counter-intuitive to me". etc. He promised to send them his paper, and I was left puzzled too. I suppose there's the hygeine issue and the "not standing out in the community" but I wouldn't say that trumped the medical ethics of performing unnecessary surgery. But to a lawyer perhaps that doesn't apply because the mohels aren't medical personnel so medical ethics aren't applicable? I dunno.
Same day but later - "Of course David Gower took law for a year at UCL. His first year exam results were two 19s and three 18s. I was the only lecturer who even knew he was a cricketer, he'd played a few games for Leicestershire, so I gave him a pep-talk saying that if he knuckled down and passed his resits he could get a position with a solicitor's in Leicester and they'd give him every summer off to play; they'd enjoy the cachet. He replied that by the time he was 23 he'd be captain of England."
The next day emeritus was absent mohelling, but the others rabbitted on, one about his last week in Paris - " You wouldn't find a street in London named after a sociologist.."
I held my tongue for about a second, then turned round and said "There's a street in Thamesmead named after Richard Titmuss", as indeed there is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Titmuss
Give the guy his due he laughed.
On Saturday up in the Compton stand (primitive facilities, great view) I was sat in front of three professors - one emeritus, one visiting and one local tenured. They hardly stopped yakking all day, and quite a lot of it was interesting.
The emeritus seems to be a big cheese at UCL law faculty, specialising in family law. "I won't be here tomorrow, I have to give a talk to the Initiation Society".
"Oh, what's that?"
"It's a meeting of mohels (sp? ?) who perform the bris (sp?). I give them a talk in favour of circumcision from the secular point of view of the Rights of the Child".
Puzzlement from the other profs - "I'd like to see your position on that, it looks a bit counter-intuitive to me". etc. He promised to send them his paper, and I was left puzzled too. I suppose there's the hygeine issue and the "not standing out in the community" but I wouldn't say that trumped the medical ethics of performing unnecessary surgery. But to a lawyer perhaps that doesn't apply because the mohels aren't medical personnel so medical ethics aren't applicable? I dunno.
Same day but later - "Of course David Gower took law for a year at UCL. His first year exam results were two 19s and three 18s. I was the only lecturer who even knew he was a cricketer, he'd played a few games for Leicestershire, so I gave him a pep-talk saying that if he knuckled down and passed his resits he could get a position with a solicitor's in Leicester and they'd give him every summer off to play; they'd enjoy the cachet. He replied that by the time he was 23 he'd be captain of England."
The next day emeritus was absent mohelling, but the others rabbitted on, one about his last week in Paris - " You wouldn't find a street in London named after a sociologist.."
I held my tongue for about a second, then turned round and said "There's a street in Thamesmead named after Richard Titmuss", as indeed there is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Titmuss
Give the guy his due he laughed.