Ethics (of war and eating), O.U.C.C.C. dinner, Cornwall gnar and The Cellar

Now, St. Catz is nice—with a great JCR, incredibly talented yet down-to-earth students, and frequent post-hall darts sessions—but one of this term’s many pleasant surprises has been seeing the other Oxford colleges through my tutorials. Indeed, my secondary, as described below, meets at Trinity College, and my primary, “Ethics of War,” convenes at Keble College, a brick-loving architectural wonder (one student I spoke to told me Keble looks a lot like Cambridge), at which I had my first meeting last Monday. Simply put, the tute can be summed up in two words: think deeper. For instance, after my tutor, an Israeli grad student of law, asked me why there are still moral norms in the international realm beyond just the simple consideration that it does not equate to Hobbes’ state of nature, I replied with the fact that states can grow in disproportionate ways (i.e. we have superpowers), to which he smiled and said, “O.K., but why does that matter?” Then, when I dug a little deeper, he changed his angle: “How does that make a difference?” Needless to say, I can’t wait until our next meeting. The question for this week: “In regular cases of self-defense we normally think that one side at the most can be engaging in self-defense. The other party is surely an aggressor and may not be engaging in causing harm. But in war things seem to be different. Discuss!” (Exclamation point his.) Below are photos of Keble, including our meeting spot at Keble Café and the view out the Café windows.

Midweek, as it is done in Oxford, is time to go out on the town, yet this past Wednesday was unique in that the O.U.C.C.C., O.U.A.C. (Oxford University Athletic Club, a.k.a. the track team), and the Modern Pentathlon team held a “crew date” dinner before heading to the clubs at Park End, west of the city center. The venue for the evening was The Big Bang, a small restaurant slightly to the north which in 2005 was dubbed the “Finest Sausage and Mash in Britain,” and the philosophy behind the place is quite brilliant as well: buying small, fresh quantities from local suppliers on a daily basis at fair prices (rather in bulk from centralized warehouses) so as to aim at “breaking down the carbon footprint of the British restaurant world.” They also let you B.Y.O.B.—although we B.Y.O.W’d with wine—and keep their menus in old dusty books (mine came taped in the pages of a hardcover 1932 edition of Birdwatching in Britain). Alas, after several glasses the evening devolved into “pennying”—throwing pences into one another’s glasses, which if successful necessitates finishing the whole drink—and hearing toasts concerning the wishes of “CXXIV” (that’d be Chris, the 124th XC captain at Oxford), who was unfortunately not present to make his own. Below is my ethical meal, the British staple of sausage, mash, and red cabbage, all locally bought, with some 3 quid wine to top it off. The other photos are shots from the walk back later—Oxford is too cool at night.

Side note: speaking of ethics—and in addition to the realm of war and food—my Tuesday lecture “The Ethics of Climate Change” has been especially stimulating these past two weeks. Today we approached the problem of climate change as a problem of externalities, thus framing a solution not in terms of sacrifice (or a Clintonian “future preference”) but rather in terms of correcting (to some degree) market inefficiencies such that our actions work for the good of all. The week before, a research fellow from the Environmental Change Institute spoke about the politics of climate change and we got to see first-hand the documents written at Kyoto and Copenhagen. Now, there’s too much swirling in my head to write on the topic here and do it justice, but let’s just say there are, sadly, fundamental issues with the process and structure of global climate talks that need to be fixed before we can realistically expect change (example: step 1—set a delegate cap). In the meantime, Mexico City looks to be as disappointing as COP15. Damn you, bureaucracy.

Side note two: modern pentathlon, as I found out, consists of pistol shooting, fencing, running, swimming and horse jumping, yet since handguns are illegal in Britain (see post 1), the Uni teams in the U.K. use air pistols instead of real firearms. Interestingly, however, the British Olympic team does use real pistols, and thus needs to train in Switzerland lest the athletes be thrown in jail. Still, despite this apparent hurdle, the U.K. has done quite well recently, and especially on the women’s side, having won 4 out of the last 9 medals in the women’s events at Beijing, Athens and Sydney combined.

But back to the ‘Shire (or better yet the coast). You see, last weekend, Billy, Erin and I went with the Oxford Surf Club down to Newquay in Cornwall for a lil’ taste of the English swell. Newquay, a town known for its rowdy—and I gather, tad dirty—club scene, is supposed to be a 4-hour trek from the libraries and halls of Oxford, and thus our group of ten piled in the Mercedes MPV (multi-person-vehicle) at 5:30 p.m. on Friday to arrive at our lodging by 8:30 p.m. that night. The reason I cite this is because the trip probably should’ve taken longer based on mileage, but our driver Hugh—an anthropology grad student from France who actually applied for a position at Colby **shit the world is small**—made us momentarily doubt the speedometer was in miles per hour. Sample convo: “So, do you guys use miles over here or km? And how far is Cornwall?” Hugh: “Miles. And we’re probably 250 miles away, so be there in 3 hours?” Cue German techno and upshifting.

In addition to Hugh, the rest of the crew was equally great. Tony, a medical student from Egypt, grew up surfing in the Mediterranean and kitesurfs in the Red Sea. Aaron, a physics student and rugby player at Oriel, helped organize the trip with Ryan, a student at Hertford, and was working on a report about insulation in which he featured wetsuits. Heidi, from Finland, had never surfed before (like Erin from Iowa!), and Bex, from London but with Iranian ancestry, had gone only a few times. At Newquay, we did two days of lessons with Simon (who also grew up surfing in Egypt—now there’s a place to go for Easter Break) in water that was quite cold but with some good swell. Out of the water, Saturday also featured the 6 Nations Rugby Tournament, which we watched at a local pub post-session. The game of the afternoon was England vs. Wales (Ireland vs. Italy was earlier that day, the other two teams are France and Scotland), and needless to say most rooting interests were for England—the locals next to me at our table referred to the Welsh as “Sheepshaggers.” Well, England won, and yet despite the near-universal English support at the pub, the same could not be said for the Royal Box. Indeed, each time Wales scored Prince William would cheer, and each time England countered Prince Harry would stand up and clap. I suspect this has something to do with P.R.—“now boys, you each pick a side for those watching on the tele”—and yet considering both men’s full titles are Prince_______ of Wales, I also suspect that the older brother got to pick first. Bummer, Will, ‘cause Harry picked the winner, 30-17.

On Sunday the waves cleaned up nicely and our sesh was productive with a capital P. Heidi stood up within half and hour, Billy got his board groove on in the H20, and Erin was standing by session’s end like a pro surf babe. The tide swings at Newquay are enormous (over 6 meters), so by the time we were out of the water the coastline changed from several small coves to one big beach. Below are photos of Saturday's swell, our lodging (10 people, dorm style, with palm trees?!), Erin perfecting the cat-pounce stance, Billy doing it to it, and the crew in front of the MPV.

Sunday night, after another harrowing trip on the motorway, there was this big game in American football in this league that a surprisingly good number of Brits follow. Alas, "Super Bowl XLIV," as it was called—ridiculous name if you ask me, why not the obviously untaken World Cup of football?— was shown on the JCR TV for all those NFL fans from across the globe. By U.K. law, there cannot be more than 5 mins of commercials for each hour of TV time during games, so while the States was laughing at the latest Bud Light spot, the SkySports feed provided extensive and thorough in-game commentary—"What you're seeing are two great defenses. It's been defensive." In all seriousness, though, great win for the Saints and Nawlins. Who dat?

On Monday night, still stoked from the weekend, Peter and I went to a show at The Cellar—a small venue in the center of town—for some live music from local bands. The first act played mostly covers—“White Room,” “Stormy Monday,” the works—and the second, sounding much like Minus the Bear, played originals. The Cellar also does CD release parties for small local artists, so it’s a place to go back to fo’ sho. Check the pics below.


Well that's it for now, hope all is well!

Cheers,

Nick