Light to Intermittent

I shall endeavour to keep updating you on the details and minutiae of Ball preparation as we work our ways towards Ball week and zero-hour. Things are, as you might expect, rather hectic. Should you find site updates becoming intermittent, don’t worry, regular service should return after the big party.

Checking in several hundred people as they enter the tightly secured Ball compound is no small task, and no one likes queuing outside so if the system is slow I’m responsible. I’ve just finished installing a WAMP server (that’s Windows, Apache, MySQL and PHP) onto my laptop so that I can run an independant snapshot of the online Ball database for ticket entry on the night. I’m currently sourcing a hub/router that will allow another three laptops to be connected to mine, which will act as the central machine serving the database and admin software to each of the others. Provided a midweek test goes smoothly, things should be ready for swift entry on the night.

In the last round of JCR elections, Philly J emerged as the new Griffin editor. Hopefully he will be more dedicated to ensuring regular releases than his predecessor, under whom I worked (producing only one issue). Though her communication was somewhat limited, it’s easy to criticise without having helped. Many were quick to complain about the non-arrival of later issues without even considering writing for the magazine, and while I placed my web skills at the ready, I did not actually produce any articles. Philly J has actually asked me to submit something for the issue due at the end of term, and I’m keen to help him out despite the deadline falling on the same weekend as the Ball. You should all think about contributing too. He seems interested in using one of P-2006’s illustrated poems, so perhaps we’ll be seeing one in print before long, which would be a decidedly odd experience. It also made me realise that it’s been a while since I’ve written anything meaningful, giving me the urge to start again.

The inside of a Catholic church holds a solemn atmosphere that no other denomination has quite managed to replicate. Sure, there’s the indulgent opulence but that’s mirrored in a myriad of aristocratic stately homes and gaudy mansions. I think it’s the guilt. It hangs weightily in the air, not oppressively, but with the scent of communal sorrow and the sense of joint failure. It reminds me of the German war cemeteries I visited as a child, always shocked by the mass graves they were forced to use in the small plots granted them in Allied territory. And I sometimes wonder whether the spiritual decline of the modern world is because man stopped believing in God, or because God no longer believes in man.