Enron, Borat, and Me

I was impressed to just read about the Enron boss, Jeffrey Skilling, getting 24 years. It's good to see there isn't complete immunity for those at the top who, let's face it, have powerful friends. The main reason for this note however, is that I was most amused by the following quote from Skilling:

"In terms of remorse your honour, I can't imagine more remorse," Skilling told the court before he was sentenced. "That being said your honour, I am innocent of these charges." [The full BBC article is here].

I also came across an article interviewing the victims of Borat (Ali G creator, Sacha Baron Cohen's character from Kazakhstan). They mainly to have taken it pretty well, but I'm most grateful to the article for the link to "Borat's Home page". There's plenty to amuse, in particular the trailer for his upcoming movie and some clips of his work.

Otherwise, life in Oxford is the usual. I'm very busy with teaching, MCR committee work, and occasionally research. The weekends are flying by, but it'll be Christmas soon... :) (BTW each time I post on my blog it gets made a note in my facebook profile, in case you are on the facebook and wondering why I'm writing seemingly random notes.)

Ali

The Cotswolds and back to work

Kate and co. have returned to Australia now, it was sad to say goodbye but they should be back in the UK for good in 2008. :) I'm still trying to think of a career that would let me spend six months a year in Oz and six months in the UK - thereby not being away from family and friends too much and it always being summer time. After Kate, Obi and Thea left I went away with Hilary and her parents for a week's break based in the Cotswolds. Hilary's parents had flown over for her graduation. The break was good fun, and was a chance for me to see some of the touristy stuff that I've never managed to see - including Stonehenge, Salisbury Cathedral and Stratford-on-Avon. It's a strange thing how one sees more things as a tourist overseas than in one's own country.

A very cool feature of our hire car was sat-nav. I have never driven using it before and it really made life easy. We just keyed in where we wanted to go and it gave clear directions and knew all the tiny country roads which it would have been a pain to navigate otherwise. I had been a passenger in a car with such a system in the past but the problem was it nagging when false turns were made and giving misleading instructions. This system simply re-routed if I made a mistake and didn't complain at all which makes for a much more peaceful journey. I would definitely buy one, if I had a car. In the meantime I think it might be a bit over the top having one mounted on my handle bars.

The weather stayed good for us although it did bucket with rain during the morning of Hilary's graduation. Last week I took part in a biotechnology business plan competition with a great team of people from Oxford. Our hypothetical business was producing test strips to enable consumers to test for the presence of allergens in their own food (e.g. nut traces, lactose, gluten) . This was to give people comfort and an extra line of security at buffets, pot-luck dinners, and restaurants overseas. We didn't come in first place unfortunately, but it was still a really fun experience and the workshops they ran during the course were really interesting.

Otherwise I've been very busy with Freshers Fortnight activities and MCR IT stuff. I have completely made over the New College MCR website , which was long overdue. Term officially starts today and the first tutorial of term will be some time this week.


Cheers,


Ali