Caleb Woodbridge's Blog, page 8

Slytherin, Saint Paul and the dangers of ambition?

Over the summer, I signed up for early access to Pottermore, the new Harry Potter website, and a few weeks ago I got the email granting me beta access. One of the activities on the site is completing a quiz in order for the Sorting Hat to put you into one of the four houses of Hogwarts, the wizarding school, according to your character.



As you'll know if you're a Harry Potter fan like myself, the House of Gryffindor, Harry's house, is famed for its courage; Ravenclaw, for intelligence; Huffl...

There's Probably No Dawkins

American philosopher, debater and Christian apologist William Lane Craig has been getting attention for Richard Dawkins' refusal to debate him. Craig's Oxford debate has been publicised with a bus campaign stating 'There's probably no Dawkins'.



It's a funny and clever riff on the atheist bus campaign, and good publicity for William Lane Craig's Reasonable Faith debate tour. Dawkins is in a bit of a lose-lose situation - Dawkins would be hard-pressed to match Craig in the...

The Joys of Rereading

So many books, so little time! I'm enjoying having more time for reading for pleasure now I've finished my MA. It's sometimes possible to feel guilty about going back to reread books, when I've got so many unread books waiting for me.



But you never actually read the same book twice. You never have the same experience of a book twice, because you will have changed. At different times in your life, you bring different experiences and knowledge with you to a book - you'll pick up on different...

Life, Death, Steve Jobs and Success: The Richest Man in the Cemetery?

By any human measure, Steve Jobs' life was an incredible success. Co-founder of Apple, former owner of Pixar, a visionary who transformed computing, the music industry, mobile phones and much more.



And then he died, aged only 56.



Jobs was suffering from pancreatic cancer, and his death at such a relatively early age is deeply sad. And yet in Steve Jobs' Stamford University commencement address in 2005, he was able to say:

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ev...

Throes, and a couple of pages

I'm in the last throes of finishing my dissertation, which is due in next week - I might resume somewhat more regular blogging once it's handed in!



"Throe" is a great word, by the way. The OED defines it as:

1. A violent spasm or pang, such as convulses the body, limbs, or face. Also, a spasm of feeling; a paroxysm; agony of mind; anguish.

b. spec. The pain and struggle of childbirth; pl. labour-pangs.

c. The agony of death; the death-struggle, death-throe (Sc. deid-thraw).

2. transf. and fi...

Makes a change from Hobbits

I'm still very busy with my dissertation, but I've got an exciting break today: I'm off to London to the BFI preview screening of 'Let's Kill Hitler', the first episode of the autumn series of Doctor Who! I'll be reporting on it over on the Impossible Podcasts blog and Twitter account.

Thoughts on my MA

Well, it's been a while since I updated my blog, mainly because I've been keeping very busy with my English Literature masters. I handed in my second set of essays a few weeks ago, which were titled "Childhood, colonialism and Christianity in Swiss Family Robinson and The Coral Island" and "Faërie, art and magic in Sir Orfeo and Tolkien’s fiction".



At Easter, I heard that my application for PhD funding wasn't successful, so my plans to research religion in children's literature, 1950 to...