In preparation for a family party, I got this pizza recipe from an Italian post-doc in the group. I haven't tried it yet, but he is very into his pizze so it should be good. I'm putting it here for my own reference as much as anything, but clearly if you're up for a pizza give it a go!

( Recipe below )

I am perennially rubbish at keeping up with addresses, with the consequence that I have very few addresses of friends. I would like to remedy this - and thus the poll below, with results viewable only to me. (I hope! Do check before you submit your answers..) If you'd like to give me your address but don't like putting such information on LJ, feel free to e-mail me at ben.fletcher@sjc.ox.ac.uk

[Poll #1052524]

Just a quick note to say that I'll have very limited internet access for the next week or so. On the plus side, when I come back I will finally have read Deathly Hallows!

So there have been a few disconcerting revelations recently.
- Any children I have will not be American citizens unless and until I spend another two years in the US. This is surprisingly sensible - clearly if I continue living outside the US, I'm not really strongly into the American things - but it was not how I assumed things worked. I found it more of a shock than I would have predicted.
- I logged into Pern this morning and discovered that Conn has been de-knotted as a Harper. Again: it's entirely fair. I've not really been playing properly since I started grad school, nigh on three years ago! I guess in much the same way the citizenship thing made me realize that I've come a long way from being just an American, this makes me realize that I've moved on from MUSHing. But it makes me sad, as I had a lot of fun RPing Conn over the years.

And less introspectively:
- There are pots and pans in Boswells that cost over £100 each. Now, I know Le Creuset is meant to be really good, but for that much money I'm rather expecting the pan to stir itself!
- Someone in Oxford is weird and twisted enough to produce a musical version of the Aeneid. And they proudly boast that it features songs from Robbie Williams, Michael Jackson and Abba.

The Oxford Folk Festival is coming up, scheduled for the 30th March to 1st April. Excitingly (for me, at least!) June Tabor is playing at the Holywell Music Room on the 22nd March as a warm-up act for this. Would anyone else be interested in one or more of the following?

- June Tabor on 22nd March
- Spiers and Boden at the Town Hall on 31st March, 4 PM
- Eliza Carthy at the Town Hall on 1st April, 4 PM
- Ceilidh on 31st March at 8 PM (Brookes)

I suspect that the first three of the above will sell out rather quickly, so if anyone else wants to join me for those please let me know ASAP!

I just received an e-mail from the European Science Foundation. To wit:

Please find below information on an ESF Conference which may be of particular interest to you:

Integrity in Research

Because I'm an optimist, I'm going to assume that they think I'll be interested because of my vast reserves of integrity rather than a lack thereof!

I've just been glancing over the ICQ results so far, and I notice that it's not at all impossible for all three of St. John's teams to make it into the second round! Not _likely_, necessarily - it's hard to tell until all the results are in - but definitely possible. Has that ever happened before? I know I've managed two SJC teams into the second round before, but never three.

Some of you may remember SJC A's inglorious exit from last year's Oxford Inter-Collegiate Quiz - a second round defeat to St. Peter's B team, playing with only three players. Who, to add insult to injury, then sent only a single representative to their quarter-final match.

( This year's situation and tonight's result )

Outside of quizzing my life has been pretty quiet, mostly slogging away at lab work. I did manage to - by the skin of my teeth! - acquire a shiny new blue belt in Sul-Ki-Do. Other than that, I've been putting a lot of time into preparing for the Open University teaching. I even had an anxiety dream about it.

( What Ben's subconscious gets up to )

Sigh. It's all one word again, it appears - it's like now that the bowlers are ticking over again, the batsmen are insisting on their turn at being rubbish! Most depressing statistic for the day - Harmison and Panesar put on more runs for the tenth wicket than any other partnership during the innings. Jones is out for a duck again. Bell is apparently feeling nostalgic for the 2005 series, so has decided to reprise his much-admired bunny role. I wish there was some conclusion to be drawn, but I'm not sure there is - just that England seem to panic when they start doing well, and so stop doing well very quickly. At least they're back in their comfort zone..

I got rejected from both of the internships at the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology - one without even an interview. This is particularly puzzling, as the writing sample that I prepared was actually for the requirements of the one that I _didn't_ get invited to interview for; I kind of kludged it into the requirements of the other one just on the off chance I might succeed. But apparently not.

In more positive news, the Open University _does_ want me - to teach the course about atomic and quantum physics that I mentioned previously. So hurrah! This was celebrated on Friday evening with Belgian chocolate truffle cheesecake and dessert wine.

In other news, I've been continuing to enjoy Launchcast for its ability to provide background music somewhat suited to my tastes. Thus, five songs that I really like and would never have known about except for Launchcast:
1) 'I Don't Believe You', by The Magnetic Fields
2) 'God of Wine', by Third Eye Blind
3) 'Perfect World' by Simple Plan
4) 'City of New Orleans', by Arlo Guthrie
5) 'Zoe Jane' by Staind