Wednesday, April 18, 2012

List of Things I'd Rather Be Doing Instead of Revising for Finals

1. Learning Italian, Latin or German.
2. Reading any of these books on my reading list: a biography of Dante; Ellman's biography of Joyce; a biography of LBJ (by the acclaimed Robert Caro); a biography of Stephen Tennant, Money, by Martin Amis; a study of the American presidency; Hart Crane; Walt Whitman; Robert Graves's collection of the Greek myths; a history of Jesuit missionaries in China; novels by Christopher Isherwood; novels by Gilbert Adair; novels by Alan Hollinghurst; writings of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola; a monograph on Pico; essays of Francis Bacon.
3. Pub on a sunny summer day, or a long, long lunch. The Trout comes to mind.
4. Using up that £20 drink tab at the Union a team of friends and I won at the Union pub quiz
5. Visiting parts of this country that I've not been to (which is everywhere outside of London, Oxford, Cambridge and bits of Lancashire and the Lake District). Devon/Cornwall, Manchester, Scotland (soon not to be, perhaps) in particular.
6. Punting.
7. Shouting poetry at passers-by
8. Having a cocktail, at the Duke of Cambridge. Or Brown's.
9. Going for a long country walk.
10. Cooking, and baking a bread and butter pud.

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