"That Mi6 Place"
As I walked back from lectures the other day and turned to go through the small door in to the All Souls library the girl I was with referred to it as "that Mi6 place".
There may or may not be any truth to that whatsoever, but there is no doubt that All Souls is shrouded in mystery. It has no students - only research fellows - and it is not usually possible to see much of the college at all. The library is accessed through a special 'reader's entrance' - the gate to the quad is locked and the adjoining staircase is clearly marked 'private'. And does anyone actually know any of the 'research fellows' who inhabit this strange Oxford establishment?
I very much enjoyed dinner in Teddy Hall again on Sunday night (including dessert in the SCR :)) and had an interesting conversation with my supervisor about apparently secretive organisations such as Opus Dei. His theory was that a lot of these organisations actually have nothing to hide, but because they never talk about what they do people consequentially know very little and are naturally inclined to be suspicious.
There may well be a lot to be said for that, and on that basis there might be nothing suspicious about All Souls at all. Conceivably it could just be full of intelligent people investigating obscure literary figures and minding their own business. But because there is so much which is unknown, it is tempting to view things as being a little more mysterious. It is certainly a more exciting option.
And on that note, I am very intruiged by the guy who works on the same desk as me. His end of the desk is covered in maps and he has been gathering an ever increasing pile of books, at least one of which has a non-latin script on the spine (I think it's Russian, but it's upside down and my eyesight means that I would have to stare in a rather conspicuous manner to be sure). Usually he spends his time tapping away on a laptop, but when he left on one of his rather frequent breaks the other day I noted that the folder he'd been leafing through appeared to contain music manuscript (though again, I don't trust my eyesight 100%). I shall name the guy 'Da Vinci Code Man' after one of my friends suggested he sounded like a character from Dan Brown's book, and he is I would guess in his late 20s. He's definitely an All Souls fellow because he uses the 'forbidden' doors in and out of the library and doesn't get chucked out when the librarian announces that it's closing time. He also has a companion who sometimes appears and it's so hard not to strain my ears when they have whispered conversations. I doubt that Da Vinci Code Man is investigating something of huge international importance, but I do feel as though I'm sat by some conspiracy plot and I'd love to know what - or who - he is investigating. Aside from the Russian script, all I have to go on is a snippet from a whispered conversation which told me that "there is a copy of the book in the British Library, published in 1950 and it would have been the only source available to him at the time".
And now I have to go back to my physics.
There may or may not be any truth to that whatsoever, but there is no doubt that All Souls is shrouded in mystery. It has no students - only research fellows - and it is not usually possible to see much of the college at all. The library is accessed through a special 'reader's entrance' - the gate to the quad is locked and the adjoining staircase is clearly marked 'private'. And does anyone actually know any of the 'research fellows' who inhabit this strange Oxford establishment?
I very much enjoyed dinner in Teddy Hall again on Sunday night (including dessert in the SCR :)) and had an interesting conversation with my supervisor about apparently secretive organisations such as Opus Dei. His theory was that a lot of these organisations actually have nothing to hide, but because they never talk about what they do people consequentially know very little and are naturally inclined to be suspicious.
There may well be a lot to be said for that, and on that basis there might be nothing suspicious about All Souls at all. Conceivably it could just be full of intelligent people investigating obscure literary figures and minding their own business. But because there is so much which is unknown, it is tempting to view things as being a little more mysterious. It is certainly a more exciting option.
And on that note, I am very intruiged by the guy who works on the same desk as me. His end of the desk is covered in maps and he has been gathering an ever increasing pile of books, at least one of which has a non-latin script on the spine (I think it's Russian, but it's upside down and my eyesight means that I would have to stare in a rather conspicuous manner to be sure). Usually he spends his time tapping away on a laptop, but when he left on one of his rather frequent breaks the other day I noted that the folder he'd been leafing through appeared to contain music manuscript (though again, I don't trust my eyesight 100%). I shall name the guy 'Da Vinci Code Man' after one of my friends suggested he sounded like a character from Dan Brown's book, and he is I would guess in his late 20s. He's definitely an All Souls fellow because he uses the 'forbidden' doors in and out of the library and doesn't get chucked out when the librarian announces that it's closing time. He also has a companion who sometimes appears and it's so hard not to strain my ears when they have whispered conversations. I doubt that Da Vinci Code Man is investigating something of huge international importance, but I do feel as though I'm sat by some conspiracy plot and I'd love to know what - or who - he is investigating. Aside from the Russian script, all I have to go on is a snippet from a whispered conversation which told me that "there is a copy of the book in the British Library, published in 1950 and it would have been the only source available to him at the time".
And now I have to go back to my physics.
Comments
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Souls_College,_Oxford
Robert B