Month: March 2026

Yesterday was packed. I ran, not a good pace but a run. Finished up marking and reporting, cleaned up, checked for messages, went to Morning Prayer, hurried to Oxford, tutorials for the rest of the morning, lunch, another tute, hurried to Dr Christine Joynes’s talk at the New Testament Seminar, hurried to the bus stop, and home. My students are great, but four sessions is just not enough time in a term; I’m sure my Hebrew Bible colleague Rachel has done great work with them, and I’m building on her foundation, but four weeks (with a change of subject, subtle but real, between the two halves) is the blink of an eye.

Today we did very little except to rest and make a list of houses to examine. I walked in the morning rather than ran. The day passed. Pippa checked in from the last day of her art teachers’ conference and we chatted about comics and fountain pens. A much-needed, no stress day.

You may remember that last Friday my MacBook Air’s screen gave up the ghost — or, more precisely, generated ghostly lines and shapes where the screen’s images and interface ought to have been; so I somewhat reluctantly ordered a replacement. I’m not ordinarily reluctant about new computers, mind you, but just last autumn I’d had a catastrophic charging port failure that required replacing the whole internal assembly, which for some reason Apple did not beneficently offer me as a favour for decades of customer loyalty. Having put a not-inconsiderable sum into repairs just six months ago, I was nettled that one of the few parts that wasn’t new on the internals that were replaced was now failing. Ah, well, such is life, and I would after all have a snazzy new MBA* out of it.

So on Tuesday — four days after my purchase — Apple announced new MacBook Air models. They don’t constitute a revolutionary change over the generation I bought, but the timing (and especially the timing relative to having repaired a five- or six-year-old MBA* relatively recently) impels me to return my fresh MBA and order an instance of the new model. That model, however, won’t be available till Wednesday, so for the interim I’m forging ahead boldly with the current new unit.

Ran this morning at a good pace, got home and did some marking, coffee and fruit, shower, Morning Prayer, coffee and toast, more marking, and so on.

---

* ‘MBA’ neither in the sense of a Masters in Business Administration nor in the sense of ‘Margaret B. Adam’ (the current model of which, whom, I’m quite attached to) but MacBook Air.

I woke up this morning at about 5:00, rolled out of bed and gradually loosened up for my morning run. It didn’t feel like anything special — I just pushed ahead, thought I was going at about yesterday’s pace, and suspected that I was (as usual) clueless about my actual pace. As it turns out, I was: my pace came in at the best result since early November. Go figure.

Hot breakfast, I’ll shower in a minute or two, then Morning Prayer, then home. Back to church for Chapter Meeting, then home till I go in for Marriage Preparation class, session one.

The other day, Kottke linked to a post by Jon Hicks (a fellow inhabitant of Oxfordshire) entitled ‘My Perfect Music Player Doesn’t Exist’. This was catnip to a music listener such as I, since I have fulminated before about desiderata and disappointments among music apps.

---

…I almost always listen to iTunes on a semi-random shuffle, because I love so much music, and I want to hear unexpected things mingled with the cuts I know and cherish, so Shuffle is my favoured solution. I wish iTunes offered a better solution for weighted shuffle; my usual playlist involves an arcane combination of nested playlists that give extra prominence to women, to tracks I haven’t heard as recently, and to favourites of mine (since I do actually enjoy listening to my favourites). It would not be rocket science for a music player to offer this functionality — but since Apple will not let go of iTunes (presumably as a feeder to their music store), and alternatives don’t suit me for other reasons, there we are.…

…I’m mightily exasperated, though, that Apple has eliminated iTunes DJ (formerly ‘Party Shuffle’) from the application.…

…It’s no secret that pretty much everyone thinks Apple’s Ping feature in iTunes 10 would take significant improvement in order to qualify as a “disappointment”…

I upgraded to the latest version of iTunes recently, and have been flummoxed by the “Now Playing” cover display function…

Still, one switch that assigns one (undefined) weight to one variable is very far from a twenty-first century solution to the “weighted shuffle” problem.…

---

In short, I agree with Jon about everything he cites: Ethical company (always!), a very large cover image, happy to have magazine-like input on bands and releases I’m interested in, scrobbling simple and effective, some sort of functional rating system, sharing and streaming should cooperate, and (I, not Jon) insist on some form of weighted shuffle. If you build it, whoever you are, they will come to listen!

Morning run went well, hitting my pre-injury, pre-wedding-holiday plateau squarely. Nothing to boast about, but I felt good. Coffee and fruit, shower, finishing a bit of marking, Morning Prayer, bus to Oxford for a tutorial and lunch, home for the afternoon.

I did put in my miles this morning, but at a deliberately lazy pace. I actually came in three full minutes slower than my recent plateau, which I’d have thought would require a specific effort with special steps (like ‘one, two three, twirl’ or summat). But I was indeed trying to take my morning easier, so that was a desired result. Coffee and fruit, shower, Morning Prayer, and now at R&R for public office hours.

Last night’s Evensong at Oriel was lovely. The choir was as glorious as usual, and Margaret’s sermon went very well. I just checked the Oriel Chapel YouTube page, but it’s not there yet — I’ll try to remember to post the link to it when it’s uploaded. Pleasant conversations, a delicious dinner, and a convenient (rapid) bus back to Abingdon for a good night’s sleep.

Not for me, mind you, but for the other doctor in the house. Margaret has been invited to preach on Mary (specifically, the scene at the end of John’s Gospel where, from the cross, Jesus assigns Mary to the care of the Beloved Disciple) at Evensong at Oriel’s chapel. Then, of course, dinner at High Table. I will of course attend, and will fairly glow with pride.

But I began my day with a run, a good time if not quite as rapid as yesterday. Coffee, fruit, shower, coffee, toast, and off to church in a short while. I hope to get some marking done this afternoon before Evensong, to begin my week with a somewhat clean slate. I need to write a cover piece for this coming week’s church newsletter, which will probably involve some of the stuff I will have been saying about liturgy, practice, and meaning in the series of post-service short ‘Spiritual Snacks’ — but I can put that off till tomorrow, I think.