Perhaps “fix” was a too stronger inference. I just meant the whole thing
is a bit unwholesome and self-indulgent—a bit like the poet laureate
concept.
On Sun, 21 Feb 2010 06:45:59 -0500, Robin Hamilton
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Jeff wrote:
>
><<
>Yes, I am a bit cynical about the electoral transparency of the
elections
>for the Oxford poetry professorship. Partly because Stevenson seemed
>to let something slip when she said it was an honour “that a poet was
>asked to accept”. This sounds as if she had been privy at some point
in
>the past to the behind-the-scenes machinations that might go on. She
>must be in a position to know what she meant.
>>>
>
>I think the best that can be said about what you say above there,
Jeff, is
>that it's a load of total bollox.
>
>Leaving aside whether Anne Stevenson's remark was correctly quoted
or not,
>I'm inclined to think that she was simply indicating, what is a bit of a
>cliche, that given who has been there before, being elected, or even
>nominated to the Oxford chair, is an honour. Trite maybe but true.
>
>More important is the "there's a fix in already" idea.
>
>There are problems with the Oxford elections, and one is that the
small size
>of the electorate has led to greater or lesser degrees dirty electorial
>politics, hard canvassing, friends tapping friends on the shoulder.
This
>can lead to Bad Things Happening. It's pretty much a disgrace that
James
>Fenton never managed to get elected, but then if he had, would he
have
>written anything he hasn't or wouldn't have published elsewhere? But
it
>also means that the sort of pre-determined electorial fix you're
implying
>above simply isn't possible. Bad things yes, attempts to convince,
>overpersuade, play the old-boys' club card, sure. But not that
particular
>*kind of fix.
>
>But the *real problem with your uninformed and glib remarks above is
that
>they gloss blythely over what happened at the previous election -- you
>remember, the one where Derek Walcott withdrew? That one *wasn't
par for
>the course, since "the behind-the-scenes machinations" were coming
from the
>outside, in the shape of the latest example of a series of attacks on
>Walcott which began shortly after he won the Nobel prize.
>
>What was fascinating about this particular variant was the way it
managed to
>get played out in public, from the first shot in the article in the
>Independent through the Anonymously Circulated Dossier and articles
in the
>Cherwell up to the climactic moment of Walcott's withdrawal. Bingo!
>Mission Over! And Ruth Padel gets triumphantly elected.
>
>Then of course -- did nobody tell these people about electronic data
>trails? -- it all began to unravel. The Walcott Dossier had been
>photocopied page after page from _The Lecherous Professor_ and the
results
>posted by hand, slightly primitive in this day and age, so I suppose it
was
>hardly surprising that elsewhere in the universe, Ruth Padel didn't
seem to
>realise that her various emails -- there were three of them which
finally
>emerged, forming a narrative themselves -- might just possibly reach
the
>public domain. Especially as they were sent to a journalist. Or that
the
>emails would be date-stamped, so that the various not-entirely
consistent
>statements in them could be put together. I mean, the Ruth Padel
Emails
>constituted a comic epic, albeit micro-sized, in themselves.
>
>My favorite moment of electronic ineptitude was the revision made to
Seth
>Abramson's blog, after he, as he would have it, received a letter from
a
>Worried Student at Oxford, and proudly proclaimed that Concerns
Were Being
>Raised. Seth initially received his Oxford Letter forwarded by a
>correspondent with no source and an untraceable name as a comment
to his
>blog. He first posted it there in its entirety, then, after (silently)
>deleting two signatures included at the end of the original letter,
shifted
>it front and centre to his blog, printed in such a way as to conflate the
>"Here you are" introduction with the letter itself, and implied it was
from
>A Real Oxford Student.
>
>Problem was, Seth didn't seem to have realised the original version of
his
>blog was held in a google cache, and as a result, for a period of about
a
>week, showed up in the google search engine and could be retrieved.
And
>read. And compared to the "revised" version he finally settled on.
Not
>very clever, really.
>
>Smugly implying that "all Oxford elections are a bit dubious" profits no
one
>other than the people behind the really quite extraordinary and
>heavily-orchestrated catastrophe that was the previous election.
>
>Robin
|