Miscelaenies

First: everyone read Alex's very apt criticisms of Miranda Devine: http://www.batrock.net/?p=150

Secondly: Quotes

Tess
I think I have become a caricature of myself!

Tess and Kiki are having lunch with Jackie and assorted others. Keeks informs Tess that someone looks "just like Lord Voldemort". Much amusement.
Jackie: Lord who?
*entire table kill themselves laughing*
Jackie: Just because I'm not a history nerd like all of you!
*table dies again*
Tess: Oh that Lord Voldemort! Slaughtered the Saxons in the fourteenth century!

Gaiman and Who

When I was three, making Daleks outof the little school milk bottles, with the rest of the kids at Mrs Pepper’s Nursery School, I was in trouble and I didn’t know it. The virus was already at work.

Yes,I was scared of the Daleks and the Zarbi and the rest. But I was taking other, stranger, more important lessons away from my Saturday tea-time serial.

For a start, I had become infected by the idea that there are an infinite number of worlds, only a footstep away.

Andanother part of the meme was this: some things are bigger on the inside than they are on the outside. And, perhaps, some people are bigger on the inside than they are on the outside, as well.
-Neil Gaiman

The Tale of Heloise and Abelard, somewhat sensationalised- Part One

There once was an up-and-coming scholar named Peter Abelard. So smart was he, and so outrageously arrogant, that wherever he went he could not stand to learn from the masters of the universities of France, but instead set himself up across the road as their rival. The darling of the Paris intelligentsia, he thought he was. And then one day he woke up and it occured to him:

I, Peter Abelard, am a very chaste man. Which is the ideal thing in a cleric and philospher, even one who isn't a priest. Yes, I, Peter Abelard, am extraordinarily virtuous. I don't visit paid ladies. I don't even talk to women- I spend my time in philosophical contemplation, I don't go to the kind of social gatherings where you meet women.

However, it occurs to me that I would like a girlfriend. A little hanky-panky on the side. I'm so amazingly smart that it could hardly destroy my ability to teach or learn.

I wonder what kind of woman I could cavort with? She'd have to be smart, to keep up with me. But not too old- young enough to be impressed by my superior wisdom.

Heloise, the neice of Fulbert. She'd be perfect. I hear she exceeds all other women in Latin literacy- so naturally she'd exceed all other women in appreciating my philosophical discourse.

So having set his sights upon 'that child', Peter Abelard goes to pay a call upon Fulbert. He's sick of paying people to keep house for him, he tells Fulbert. And it's well known in Paris that Fulbert likes to make a little money here and there. And then there's Heloise- surely the girl could benefit from such an esteemed tutor.
Yes, indeed, thinks Fulbert. A little extra cash could always come in handy, and Heloise is getting to that age where she'll be starting to think of men and fripperies and how is a bachelor supposed to keep her under control? A serious tutor might be just the thing to keep her occupied. And this Abelard fellow is known to be extremely chaste, there should be no problem with trusting him. Absolutely, Mr Abelard. Heloise is a good girl, but you know how young people are. Don't be afraid to chastise her- she thinks she's the smartest girl around. Needs a firm masculine hand, someone who'll bend her to his will. When can you move in?

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What will happen next? Tune in to Highly TV next week to find out!