SOTS: Meditation on a pudding.

Memsec

Welcome to Oxford/Pamplona

Welcome to anyone who has not visited this blog before; think of it as my living room, thrown open for a party. I'd hoped to invite SOTS members to Pimms in my garden a year or two ago when our then president was Lester Grabbe, a mere hop across the Humber via the spectacular suspension bridge, but the Meeting had to be in Lincoln rather than Hull. So I'm happy to welcome you to this virtual party.

I had to think of a way to limit the number of pictures I took at the SOTS Summer Meeting, and decided on a theme of 'hats', and here are most of them, all the ones I was able to include. In celebration of our president John Sawyer and for the sake of some kind of completeness, I also include a pic from last year on the outing to Haddon Hall. A few other pics crept in, one from my journey home via a topical art exhibition in Sheffield, and another showing the use to which the Jacqueline du Pre hall was to be put after we left.

Joseph Blenkinsopp & John Sawyer in 2010

Sr Edmee Kingsmill

For some reason, the theme of puddings comes to mind whenever I think of the SOTS Summer Meeting. I remember one year in Cambridge when the food was particularly good, even served to us as we sat at table (those were the days). Unfortunately, the young waiter had yet much to learn, and what I remember most is the queue of members at the porter's lodge hoping to get some kind of donation towards the cost of dry cleaning their pale linen jackets,  decorated down the back with a splurge of delicious summer pudding juice.

This year at St Hilda's, Oxford, we also had some wonderful puddings, and always a lovely display of fruit for the virtuous; I wish I'd photographed them. I'm always proud to belong to SOTS when I see such a display, given that our subject matter contains perhaps the world's most famous and influential text about fruit. I can never so much as give my husband an apple from one of our trees without thinking of it; and also musing on how it changes once it gets over the threshhold into the kitchen. Context is everything, I know, and when the apple is in the context of pastry, its significance seems to change mightily into 'mom's apple pie' and all that that represents. I once gave a talk called 'Adam and Eve and apple pie', but I think the content might need to be tweaked to make it a suitable offering as a SOTS paper.
But how come fruit is now the 'virtuous' option? And where is chocolate in all this? Can Gen 2-3 be re-written to take this into account?

No hat, but Renato Lings IS wearing an expression.

Joseph has a new hat this year.

After a necessary bow to the KJV, our Meeting began with The Song of Songs and ended with Ruth; not by design, I am told, but who would ever believe this after the passage of a few centuries, should our programmes ever become texts to be studied using methods that have become bread and butter to SOTS scholars? (And yes, we did have a most wonderful bread and butter pudding at St. Hilda's.)

Interesting biblical artist, John Martin

Francis Landy

Andy Lie

Fr Ephrem Lash

The SOTS Meeting has ended, on with the next.....