Nothing particularly interesting

My letter to MP Dame Angela Watkinson

My friend Ellie doesn't have a telly, So to talk to her is rather tough. Because we can't have a chat about Nigella's Jack-Fruit Jelly Or the BBC 2 coverage of Crufts. She doesn't know the show where they buy antiques on the cheap, Or the merits of Bo Derrick's cha-cha-cha. And we cannot really natter about Veep or Shawn the Sheep Or that she looks a little bit like She-Rah. I guess I'll have to focus on some other conversation; Something that we both might care about. Like our feelings, health, religion, or some corrupt politician, Or if the referendum's in or out. So to be more amenable, we talk of things more meaningful, And overall it's working quite well. We know more about each other, and less about Big Brother. Do I miss it? Do I hell.

Just a wee detour - a small coffee-break from my current obsession with marking, moderating and doing endless piles of paperwork - to flag up Jo Johnson's speech in which he outlined his plans for the future of higher education . I don't think this necessarily contained many surprises - except a personal one for me, in that I am struggling to find anything that I particularly disagree with.  Perhaps I am just not informed enough, but from what I can see these are the highlights:

We understand that these are trying times: The money's tight, and profit margins low. We've lost, investing product on sub-primes. So painful as it is, you'll have to go. We'd like to thank you for the work you've done, But can't because your research isn't great. And even though this benefits no one, It's a sacrifice that we're willing to make. http://wlv.web.ucu.org.uk/2015/06/16/ucu-at-the-university-of-wolverhampton-denounce-the-threat-of-compulsory-redundancy/

Just because of an interesting point raised on a discussion forum, I thought I would post some of my notes on Condillac's ideas about the importance of sensations in human language.  A much fuller and better explanation can be found on the fantastic Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy - but for what it's worth... Like Locke, Condillac founded his ideas on language on an attempt to understand the natural state of humanity. Locke determined that human understanding was an 'empty closet' or a 'blank slate'. This means that language is something which is developed through experience, and that the formation of words can only be through convention just as Hermogenes argued. As Condillac's ideas developed throughout his career, he came to disagree with this notion. For him, the nature of human understanding was to be found in sensations. Some of these sensations arrives to us through the faculty of attention – which means that they are sensations ...

I'm not sure whether it is because writing essays is clearly like making a cake, or whether it is simply that marking essays makes me hungry for cake - either way, I do seem to refer to cake an awful lot while marking. Here are some of the cake-related criticism I have made so far...