B U R N

New Row, Covent Garden.

PS. My Neapolitan colleague tells me that ‘Credito Crunchio’ is not proper Italian.

The Business School is built in such a way that, inevitably, it seems to attract its fair share of performers to the open space in front of it, whether BMX riders, jugglers or animal protesters.

Working in the library today, I have enjoyed watching a budding breakdancer and his accomplice, the camera man.

A really good work space, it certainly does ‘draw people in‘ at so many levels.

[Thanks]

I feel a bit like Renton in Trainspotting who stocked up on baked beans (I think) and pills before barricading the door to overcome his drug addiction.

My door may not be barricaded, but Christmas is cancelled and I am home alone for the next three weeks. My fridge is full of Coke (yes, with a capital ‘C’) and my cupboards are close to bursting with food.

I submit in mid-January and until then I have taken the liberty to put the world on hold. My world, not yours, that is.

For far too long I have neglected writing about my current residence. The house itself is quite famous because it was built and for many years inhabited by a guy who has been described as the “Father of Modern Medicine.”

Sir William Osler was a physician, clinician, pathologist, teacher, diagnostician, bibliophile, historian, classicist, essayist, conversationalist, organiser, manager and author. In short, your average Oxford don.

My mum forwarded me a couple of quotes of his from this week’s Journal of The Danish Medical Association:

Look wise, say nothing, and grunt (on the art of medicine)

Go to bed. Put a hat on the bedpost. Drink whiskey until you see two hats (about the best remedy for the common cold)

He is known for other brilliant pieces of advice:

…listen to your patient, he is telling you the diagnosis.

Remember the abdomen begins at the neck and ends at the knees.

Punctuality is the pure essential of a physician. If invariably on time he will succeed even in the face of professional mediocrity (source).

In addition to my house being steeped in history, I have recently learned that my opposite neighbour is pretty famous, too. Punctuality aside, it is easy to feel mediocre around here - Oxford is a bloody brilliant place to live.

In the course of writing my conclusion, I stumbled upon the following claim:

The word ‘sociology’ itself was recorded in English as early as 1843 to describe what was otherwise known as ‘social ethics’ and by the 1850s seems to have been quite current;

(full piece here, look at page 4).

If this is the case, it provides me with a very convenient entry-point to making an argument about the relevance of studying ethics as practice for sociological theory. My only problem is that I have been unable to confirm the proposition above elsewhere.

Would anyone know where to look or, even better, have an ‘answer’ (and sources at hand)?