Last Summer, my friend Katy and I went down to the Natural History Museum in London and made a stupid video, where I pretended to be a creationist, and went around, “debunking the science”. If you didn’t catch it, take a look:
I thought that my video was far too ridiculous – but remarkably, some commentators on YouTube (and indeed GodTube) took it seriously. As if this isn’t mad enough, it turns out that some creationists have stolen my idea. Check out this video below – they’re totally ripping me off – but unlike me, they’re totally sincere:
The horrible thing is that its better than my video. There’s so many great lines – I wish I’d thought of them…
“How do you know?”
“I come here for facts, not somebody’s fantasyâ€
Warning: If you thought James O’Malley wasn’t an elitist twat, and want to retain this delusion, you might want to skip this one. May I recommend watching this video (again?) instead?
I’ve been having a look around Facebook again. One of the best features is that it splits users into different university networks, so you can see other people at your university and so on. What makes this interesting is that it makes it possible to generate statistics about the most popular TV shows/activities/etc at each university based on what people have put into their profiles. What makes this interesting is that I’ve figured out that it is possible to compare these statistics with those from other universities.
So I’ve decided to compare the Top 10 books from my university, a former polytechnic, with those from the university where I’m going to apply to do an MA next year, a “proper university” in London (whether I’ll get in there is a question for another blog entry). See if you can guess which list goes with which university.
List #1
1984
Lord Of The Rings
Pride And Prejudice
Memoirs Of A Geisha
Wuthering Heights
Lolita
Harry Potter
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Picture Of Dorian Gray
Rebecca
There’s loads of “classics” listed there. Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights and so on- the sort of thing I wouldn’t read but would like to create the impression that I would tolerate, as it’s a high culture thing. It has 1984 at number one. People at this university must be excellent.
Have you guessed yet? The first list in the uni in London, and the second is my university. The disparity in… high culture… really is that clear.
What makes this more depressing is that I have not made a mistake on the second list above – there really is only nine entries in my university’s top ten books.
I’m not trying to slag off my university here, as it’s alright really. I just think its an interesting comparison – almost as if there is still a class divide between universities and polytechnics. If I were a better elite hacker, I’d write something that compares every university. But alas, I’m not.
