Celibacy and the City

By the time you do your second master's degree, some world-weariness has inevitably set in. I didn't come to the LSE expecting it to be a temple of learning, a high-tech wonder or an architectural masterpiece. I knew this was no campus university, and didn't necessarily expect to get a room in one of the Halls. I even anticipated that intellectual challenge would be moderate at best. On the other hand, when you leave home to study abroad for the first time, it is impossible to fully do away with the drama of it all.

Of all the things I have seen in London so far, the LSE library is most faithful to the drama. Now I love libraries, though I never got round to actually studying in one, and I love exclusivity. Imagine my satisfaction, then, when I walked in following registration to be greeted by a sign proclaiming this to be "the largest library of the social sciences in the world". More than that, it is a gorgeous building; I could not resist taking the classic "Ivory Tower" photo of its spiralling staircase.

You meet the darndest people in libraries. In one of my early visits, I was delighted to get hold of that rare creature, my old friend Irene (who, I am assured, is a fan of the media blog), and even take a photo. Some people take pictures and ghosts appear. Some people take pictures and aliens appear. I took a photo of Irene and Panos Spiliotis appeared in the background (right), wearing a face so characteristic he could do the Cheshire Cat trick.

After about an hour of checking email, browsing bushspeaks.com and generally keeping valuable IT resources from serious students, I made my way back to the (sur)real world and the fancifully lit-up buildings of the LSE. Magic and mystery hover around ivory towers and the LSE has been getting its share lately. The Ecumenical Patriarch visited this most secular of universities the other day, an occasion I thought I should not miss. There was a running joke amongst the Greeks in the programme:

- Father, I have a problem...
- Tell me, my child.
- I feel so lonely here in London.
- Yes.
- I'm too embarrassed to talk to the girls.
- Yes.
- And they are all Chinese.
- My child, do you masturbate?
- Father, I masturbate...

This is, of course, all fiction. At the LSE, we are equal opportunity lovers and we are very fond of Asians, especially the saucier ones. Besides, no one seems to have the time or energy for coffee, let alone masturbation. Which is probably safest, too. We're so malnourished our teeth would fall off.

Anyways, his All Holiness did come and give a most enjoyable lecture. He has an excellent voice and is probably a theologian of incredible depth, though even he could not quite make the connection between the Triadic principle of perichorisis and the need for further European enlargement. But I am intrigued by such matters and tend to take them home with me. How fortunate then, that literally a stone's throw from my home rise the spires of St. Cuthbert's, one of London's most beautiful and renowned churches and an Anglo-Catholic one, at that. I have often taken little walks round the Philbeach Gardens and spent time looking up at this gorgeous building, if only because it provides a much-needed counterpoint to Tesco Kensington, open 24 hours.

In case you were wondering, craning my neck to photograph the tip of a spire did not convey some mystic message of enlightenment. I am pretty much as hopelessly astray as I was when I first got here. Living on one's own does not qualify as monasticism. Being unable to cook worth shit does not qualify as fasting. Not getting any does not qualify as celibacy. The world's end is always nigh at Earl's Court. I'll know because Tesco will be closed.