Popular Posts

  • Writing a Master's Thesis
    It's that time of year when my MSc students are starting to seriously worry about choosing a dissertation topic. With that in mind here ...
  • Open letter to Prof. Richard Wilkinson & Prof. Kate Pickett
    Dear Professors Wilkinson and Pickett You don't know me and are unlikely to read this letter. Even if you do, I know  you won't r...
  • Bauman, plagiarism, blah, blah
    Another week, another plagiarism scandal. THE is reporting that one of Britain's favourite blah blah sociologists Zygmunt Bauman has...
  • Is sociology useless?
    Something I've been meaning to blog about for a while. The Guardian 's Aditya Chakrabortty has been putting the boot into  sociolog...
  • On metaphors - cultural and social capital again
    Recently, as you no doubt know,  I've been beating up on the use of the term "capital" in phrases like "cultural capital...
  • Μολὼν λαβέ
    So the guys over at GBCS have finally  got around to responding,  in a piece titled ' On social class, anno 2014 '.   Obviously th...
  • Liber Niger Procuratorum
    I've been involved in the last couple of years, to a greater or lesser extent, in three investigations of student misconduct. All had on...
  • GBCS again...
    Oh dear, I'm turning into the sort of obsessive bore that people cross to the other side of the room to avoid... but indulge me one mor...
  • The ruling ideas...
    Henry Farrell hits the nail on the head at the end of his latest Crooked Timber post : "One of the least appreciated problems of e...
  • Economists and empirical evidence
    I don't suppose that economists are less likely than any of the rest of us to make  daft pronouncements about empirical issues without a...

Caveat Emptor

The opinions expressed on this page are mine alone. Any similarities to the views of my employer are completely coincidental.

Wednesday, 21 March 2012

World Poetry Day and Social Mobility

Today is UNESCO World Poetry Day, so here's a poem by Tony Harrison titled Social Mobility.

Ah, the proved advantages of scholarship!
Whereas his dad took cold tea for his snap,
he slaves at nuances, knows at just one sip
Chateau Lafitte from Chateau Neuf du Pape.

Two worlds, irony, scepticism and just a hint of self loathing, all in four lines: not bad going.
Posted by Colin at 03:09

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)