Well, yesterday I very rudely had to interrupt Tortoise's performance with that evidence of Yarema's performance at Ashton Ukrainian Club. Now, today I have to rudely interrupt our performance, because today is Wednesday, it's Word of the Week day, I have a bit of nice news regarding my latest TMA (Tutor-Marked Assignment) for my OU course, and Tortoise are going to take to the stage again.

Philosophy and Art History were the topics for TMA05. I studied Jean-Jacques Rousseau's philosophies regarding freedom and social order, and the solution to that problem that he draw up in his Social Contract; and Jacques-Louis David's painting, Lictors Returning to Brutus the Bodies of his Sons, and it's historical significance. After this studying, I was asked, for my TMA, to answer the following questions:

a. How does Rousseau argue that the exercise of force (physical power) cannot provide a legitimate basis for social order? What alternative does he propose?

b. What formal and pictorial devices does David employ to explore the conflict between duty to the family and duty to the state in The Lictors Returning to Brutus the Bodies of his Sons?

and

c. What areas of shared concern can you identify between Rousseau's argument in The Social Contract and David's Brutus?

Which I did, like the good little boy that I am, and I received a very nice (after the previous 46% and 39%) 60%. So I could smile about that.

But time is pressing, and I have six minutes (it's now 23:54) to present you with a performance of Tortoise playing Monica, and write up this week's WoW.

Here's the performance. I can do no more, honestly.

Word of the Week

Perform

perform v. 1 tr. (also absol.) carry into effect; be the agent of; do (a command, promise, task, etc.) 2 tr. (also absol.) go through, execute (a public function, play, piece of music, etc.). 3 intr. act in a play; play music, sing, etc. (likes performing). 4 intr. (of a trained animal) execute tricks etc. at a public show.

Definition courtesy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary

Christ, the rush! What a performance!

Oh, God, it's 00:01. Shall I cheat, and change the time? Argh! 00:02.

[Edit mode on]

Oh, what the hell, it said it was submitted on 'Wednesday, 07. Feb, 2007 @ 22:08:19', when it quite clearly was not. Editing timestamp to...

Hang on a minute! Wednesday, 07. Feb, 2007 @ 22:08:19. That's on time, then! But it still should really have said Thursday, 08 Feb, 2007 @ 00:02:57, or something. Christ, blimey. What's going on? Ah, I'll change it anyway. It wasn't accurate to start with: it won't do any harm to make it equally as inaccurate.

Thinking about it, I might as well go back and write the damn thing properly now, if I'm going to be...

'Miblo!' thunders a terrifyingly deep voice. 'Submit your article! Have the deed done! Forget this pontificating (if I can manage to say 'pontificating' in this remarkably deep voice of mine... On second thoughts, it isn't so cumbersome for me to say it thus) - I say, forget this pontificating you are so wont to embark on, and get the damn thing submitted!'

As the echoes of this voice fade into the darkness...

[Editing timestamp to: Wednesday, 07. Feb, 2007 @ 23:59:59]

...

[Edit mode off]