papyrology
Jun. 10th, 2009 10:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lobelia321Margaret Mountford from The Apprentice truly rocks.
It is so refreshing and so unusual to hear a serious intellectual topic being broached on prime time reality television. I nearly fell off my chair when Margaret announced she was leaving The Apprentice to finish her Ph.D. in papyrology! Papyrology!! I want to sing!
Two things about that:
1) It is very annoying and tediously symptomatic how intellectual topics get mocked and derided on TV. Both Alan Sugar and the host whose name I forget professed not to know what Margaret was talking about or not to know how even to spell or pronounce it in a kind of faux display of ignorance. On the part of Sugar, it is most doubtlessly 100 per cent faux because I refuse to believe that in the five years that he's known about this, Alan and Margaret have not once sat down over a cup of tea or a glass of beer to talk about this Ph.D. plan of hers!! I was very impressed with Margaret how she didn't take the bait and demean herself but patiently and seriously and even somewhat boringly explained what papyrology entails!
2) I am reminded of the Chinese poem: 'Businessmen boast of their skill and cunning / But in philosophy they are as little children / etc.' A person may be a successful business tycoon for 30, 40 years but what happens when their hair silvers and retirement looms? They seek refuge in the humanities to give real meaning to their lives. Yay!
It is so refreshing and so unusual to hear a serious intellectual topic being broached on prime time reality television. I nearly fell off my chair when Margaret announced she was leaving The Apprentice to finish her Ph.D. in papyrology! Papyrology!! I want to sing!
Two things about that:
1) It is very annoying and tediously symptomatic how intellectual topics get mocked and derided on TV. Both Alan Sugar and the host whose name I forget professed not to know what Margaret was talking about or not to know how even to spell or pronounce it in a kind of faux display of ignorance. On the part of Sugar, it is most doubtlessly 100 per cent faux because I refuse to believe that in the five years that he's known about this, Alan and Margaret have not once sat down over a cup of tea or a glass of beer to talk about this Ph.D. plan of hers!! I was very impressed with Margaret how she didn't take the bait and demean herself but patiently and seriously and even somewhat boringly explained what papyrology entails!
2) I am reminded of the Chinese poem: 'Businessmen boast of their skill and cunning / But in philosophy they are as little children / etc.' A person may be a successful business tycoon for 30, 40 years but what happens when their hair silvers and retirement looms? They seek refuge in the humanities to give real meaning to their lives. Yay!
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-10 10:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-10 10:40 pm (UTC)I was already pondering (in an idle sort of fashion) Margaret/Nick but Margaret/Alan...
You are so EVOL. I will go to sleep with that image in my head now.
"Some of the papyrus scrolls contain quite delicate material, of course. Like the Erotica Alexandrica incunabulae. It really does require some specialised knowledge."
"Ancient porn, you mean? Is that what you was talking about just now?"
"Well, yes."
"I'll need a demonstration of this!"
*runs away*
(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-10 10:43 pm (UTC)*rubs hands together evilly*
Oh dear, I keep being led astray down the paths of het. I even have a het OTP on Springwatch this year.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-10 10:49 pm (UTC)--
"Oh apprentice, why do you have such big teeth?"
"So that I can dazzle you better with my smile, Margaret!"
"Oh apprentice, why do you have such big hazel eyes?"
"So that I can drink in the sight of you, Margaret!"
"Oh apprentice, why do you have such big lush lips?"
"So that I can kiss you better, M...."
Door opens: "Kate? You're fired!"
(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-10 10:54 pm (UTC)Phil knew he should be thinking about Kate. He willed himself to think about Kate. He lay in the narrow bed in Sir Alan's London penthouse. Goldfish circled in the neon-lit aquarium. Thoughts circled in Phil's head.
Lush lips! Big eager eyes! Teeth to die for!
Phil tossed. He turned. He hung onto those lips and eyes and teeth.
"Oh fuck it," he finally groaned, grabbed his dick and redirected his mind.
He came with the pursed mouth of Nick hovering before his inner vision.
"Oh shit, oh Nick." He bit his lip, hard. "Oh pants."
(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-10 11:01 pm (UTC)Let's not stray too much onto the paths of het.
But... there was a very romantic moment with a wasps' nest!
Ok, I must go to bed now, before things get out of hand.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-11 05:48 pm (UTC)Kate and Phil were two Apprentice love birds!! The nation quivered as Kate callously threw Phil to the lions in order not to get fired herself! Kate made it to the final!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-11 05:48 pm (UTC)This is all you need to know in order to participate fully and authoritatively in any Apprentice conversation.
I waive the consultation fee for now.