Monday, February 20, 2006

Odds and Ends

To the visitor directed here by Google searching for information on "Simmel" and "Nose Picking": I'm sorry we couldn't help you. You might in any case find that "Elias" and "Nose Picking" yields better results (that's an in-joke for the sociologists among you; for the nonsociologists, Elias wrote a book entitled The Civilizing Process on the development of etiquette and its relationship to modernity.)

Most kids seem to go through a dinosaur craze. Don't know if the explanation is hormonal or Piagetian or something to do with Barney. It gets worrying, however, when your 6-year-old godson asks his mother, "What's the difference between an archaeologist and paleontologist?" She managed to contrive an answer, but I think all she really needed to do was plonk him down in front of Time Team and say, "You see those weird men with beards, Birmingham accents, and the stink of real ale coming off them? They're archaeologists. Ross, from Friends: He's a paleontologist. If you grow up to be like Ross from Friends, I'll kill you."

Manu Chao is playing this year's Oxegen festival at Punchestown Racecourse on July 9th, as well as Franz Ferdinand, the Kaiser Chiefs, and some bunch of unknowns called the Arctic Monkeys. More important, the line-up for this year's Primavera Sound is being announced tomorrow, I believe.

Don't worry. Book reviews and dick jokes are on the way.

2 comments:

Lorcy said...

See I blame my 6-year-old love for dinosaurs for my current academic career, it goes something like this...

Dinosaurs-->Dinosaur Movies-->Monster Movies-->Science Fiction Movies--> Sci-fi books and comics-->superhero comics-->the search for a career that involves reading superhero comics!

John said...

Rest assured I'd rather he grew up to be like you than Ross from Friends, too.

I must introduce you to his parents in Blacklion. You can explain to them his wonderful academic prospects.