The oracle speaks

I keep trying to explain to students that 'reality' is a narrative constructed by the individual, influenced by his or her cultural context to explain events. It rarely goes in. Now I find that Terry Pratchett made the same point much more clearly in Moving Pictures:

What was it they said about gods? They wouldn't exist if there weren't people to believe in them? And that applied to everything. Reality was what went on inside people's heads.

We have a winner

Mr and Mrs Caswell were on Radio 4 just now. They've just won £25 million and say they don't want it to change their lives. Why the hell would you try to win multiple millions of pounds if you're happy with the life you've got? If I won that (I don't play the lottery), I'd spend most of it on levelling Stoke, and then buy some books. Oh, and give some to really extreme leftwing political groups just to annoy the Daily Mail.

Meanwhile, I've added Lecturer Notes to my bloglist - she's an interesting academic blogger. Wonder how she copes with her institution…