E-mail from Dr Brack, Department of Psychology, Magdalen College. Monday.
Dear Mrs Dunwich and family.
Thank you for your e-mail, and also for the cheque for £2.50 and for the jars of home-made "Death Pickle". It caused quite a stir at the Departmental Christmas dinner!
You clearly have taken the subject of schizotypy to heart and you have many interesting questions about it. What a pity you were not able to come up to Oxford to visit the college with your husband and son on the day of the study.
Would you like to come up to look around the college and meet some of the staff? We can answer your questions and perhaps give you some further reading material on our schizotypy research. You can also look around the grounds and the Deer Park for traces of Dodgson yourself, and satisfy yourself that everything possible is being done to find him. Would you, your husband and your children all be free for 12pm on Monday 22nd? Your husband should remember where to find us. Perhaps you could invite Harry too?
Your sincerely,
Dr Roisin Brack.
Showing posts with label dodo Oxford Claridge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dodo Oxford Claridge. Show all posts
Tuesday, 16 December 2008
Friday, 5 December 2008
Mary writes an e-mail
Mary Dunwich writes:
I see that James has been writing e-mails from my account again. At least this time he's not channelling dead scientists who then pretend they are me. Still, I suppose I should write myself. I can't have Professor Claridge and this lady doctor thinking we're all a bunch of loonies.
E-mail from Mary Dunwich to the Psychology Department, Oxford University. Monday.
Dear Professor Claridge and Dr Brack,
Thank you for showing such kindness to my son and his friends on Saturday. I do apologise if they were any bother. Caffeine, sugar and Oxford's dreaming spires are a heady combination for my son's brain and I fear his imagination may have become a little overheated.
Of course our family pet is not a dodo, they are extinct as we all know. Dodgson is a Madagascan Racing Turkey, a breed much admired in the turkey fancy as they are extremely fast on their toes. They have to be in Madagascar to avoid being eaten. Racing turkeys are not often seen in this country, however they not at all wild, endangered or extinct. Far from it. We are all very fond of him and the children miss him terribly.
By the way, I have been reading up with great interest on your work on healthy or sane schizotypy. I had never before realised that it was possible for a person to be as mad as pants without actually being mad. Unfortunately there is very little material available to the layperson. Have you written any books on the subject? In particular I would like to know how you can tell if a person is a healthy schizotype. Is there some sort of test you can do? Does it involve needles or electricity? Our friend Harry, who took part in your study on Saturday, says that you just asked him to fill in a questionnaire. I don't hold with science that uses questionnaires to measure things. I studied proper science and we used lasers and thermometers and such like. But I suppose it's a bit harder with brains.
If you do find Dodgson, please give us a ring (the number is on his collar) and my husband will come up to collect him. He can be fed pigeon food or most kinds of cereals but I really don't approve of him having chocolate because I'm sure all that sugar must be bad for his beak.
Thank you once again,
Yours sincerely,
Mary Dunwich.
I see that James has been writing e-mails from my account again. At least this time he's not channelling dead scientists who then pretend they are me. Still, I suppose I should write myself. I can't have Professor Claridge and this lady doctor thinking we're all a bunch of loonies.
E-mail from Mary Dunwich to the Psychology Department, Oxford University. Monday.
Dear Professor Claridge and Dr Brack,
Thank you for showing such kindness to my son and his friends on Saturday. I do apologise if they were any bother. Caffeine, sugar and Oxford's dreaming spires are a heady combination for my son's brain and I fear his imagination may have become a little overheated.
Of course our family pet is not a dodo, they are extinct as we all know. Dodgson is a Madagascan Racing Turkey, a breed much admired in the turkey fancy as they are extremely fast on their toes. They have to be in Madagascar to avoid being eaten. Racing turkeys are not often seen in this country, however they not at all wild, endangered or extinct. Far from it. We are all very fond of him and the children miss him terribly.
By the way, I have been reading up with great interest on your work on healthy or sane schizotypy. I had never before realised that it was possible for a person to be as mad as pants without actually being mad. Unfortunately there is very little material available to the layperson. Have you written any books on the subject? In particular I would like to know how you can tell if a person is a healthy schizotype. Is there some sort of test you can do? Does it involve needles or electricity? Our friend Harry, who took part in your study on Saturday, says that you just asked him to fill in a questionnaire. I don't hold with science that uses questionnaires to measure things. I studied proper science and we used lasers and thermometers and such like. But I suppose it's a bit harder with brains.
If you do find Dodgson, please give us a ring (the number is on his collar) and my husband will come up to collect him. He can be fed pigeon food or most kinds of cereals but I really don't approve of him having chocolate because I'm sure all that sugar must be bad for his beak.
Thank you once again,
Yours sincerely,
Mary Dunwich.
James writes an e-mail
E-mail from James Dunwich to the Department of Psychology, University of Oxford, Sunday.
Dear Mr. Professor Claridge and Lady Doctor Brack (my mate Harry fancies you!)
Thank you for giving me and my friends tea and plum cake it was very nice. I'm sorry I couldn't show you my dodo because he escaped and is in the wild in your shrubbery near the fritillaries. Thank you for promising to send your students out searching for him. Please tell them his name is Dodgson he is wearing a tartan collar with his name on it you can't miss him. He likes to eat pigeon food and Maltesers. When you find him please keep him warm because he is from Mauritius it is a hot place and his little feet feel the cold.
Yours respectfully James "The Ghost Whisperer" Dunwich.
PS I thought you were an Abnormal Professor because you aren't dead yet but Dad says that's not true. I thought you had to be dead to be a professor because all the professors I know died years ago. Albert says he has done his best work post-mortem because he doesn't get students coming up and asking him silly questions any more.
Dear Mr. Professor Claridge and Lady Doctor Brack (my mate Harry fancies you!)
Thank you for giving me and my friends tea and plum cake it was very nice. I'm sorry I couldn't show you my dodo because he escaped and is in the wild in your shrubbery near the fritillaries. Thank you for promising to send your students out searching for him. Please tell them his name is Dodgson he is wearing a tartan collar with his name on it you can't miss him. He likes to eat pigeon food and Maltesers. When you find him please keep him warm because he is from Mauritius it is a hot place and his little feet feel the cold.
Yours respectfully James "The Ghost Whisperer" Dunwich.
PS I thought you were an Abnormal Professor because you aren't dead yet but Dad says that's not true. I thought you had to be dead to be a professor because all the professors I know died years ago. Albert says he has done his best work post-mortem because he doesn't get students coming up and asking him silly questions any more.
Dodgson unbound
Mary Dunwich writes:
Saturday.
Charlie and James set off bright and early for Oxford, with Dodgson sulking in his dodo carry-box in the car boot. Minne went to the Higgs-Bosons to bake mince pies with Olivia. I was left on my own to explore LingQ's Russian library and fill my mp3 player with files of beginners' Russian.
It was tea-time when the travellers returned. Charlie looked exhausted and James was gibbering quietly.
""Did Harry get to Magdalen all right?"" I asked, pouring Charlie a cup of tea.
"Oh, Harry was fine," answered my husband, coming to the table. "We dropped him off for 10 a.m. and went off to the Science Museum to check on Albert's blackboard. He found he'd got his equations right so he was happy. We went back for Harry at 1p.m. and it looked like he'd had a great time. There was this pretty psychologist talking to him and he was staring at her feet. He looked pretty keen on her."
Wow, sounds like my boy's finally discovered girls. What am I saying? I've gone from fancying Harry to thinking I'm his mother. I hastily changed the subject.
"Who was in charge? Did you meet them?" I asked, sitting James down and handing him a scone.
"It was one of their professors. Claridge I think," answered Charlie, sitting down and taking a sip of tea. "He and the boys really hit it off. He spent ages talking to them."
"He's an Abnormal Professor. I suppose it's because he's a professor and he's not dead, " said James, his eyes slightly unfocussed. He was really interesting! He gave us tea. I had three cups with sugar and two slices of cake!"
"No, he's a normal professor of Abnormal Psychology", responded Charlie with the air of a man who has explained this several times already on the drive home.
"Yeah. We told him all about Albert, and building the time machine, and going back to the seventeenth century and trying to meet Guy Fawkes. He was really interested! He said he wanted to see a dodo, so I went to get Dodgson out of the car."
"Good Lord!" I spluttered through a mouthful of tea. "What did he say when he saw him?"
"He didn't get to see him," said James sadly. "I had just got Dodgson out of his box and was putting his lead on when he ran away from me. He scooted down the path and hid in a lot of shrubs. I ran after him, but this man ran up and started shouting at me for treading on the fritillaries. I told him I was looking for my dodo but he wouldn't listen. He said I was a yob with no respect for nature or history. By the time he went away Dodgson was nowhere to be found. I left trails of Maltesers over the paths but he wasn't coming for them. I'm never going to see him again!"
His eyes filled with tears. I could feel mine starting to prickle too. Over the last few weeks I've really grown fond of that pudgy little fellow. But I wasn't going to let James see that, and Charlie didn't look like he could handle any more waterworks. I coughed.
"Do you realise what you've done, young man?" I asked sternly. "You have released an extinct wild animal into the grounds of the oldest and most historic university in the world!" (Memo to self, must look Oxford up on Wikipedia some time. I don't know much about Oxford, I'm a Harrogatian myself). "I hope we don't get into trouble for this."
"I hope Dodgson will be alright," muttered Charlie gloomily. "It's getting cold at nights and he's not used to sleeping outdoors."
"I asked the angry man if fritillaries were poisonous to dodos but he didn't answer," added James plaintively.
"Was he wearing his collar?" I asked them. "If anyone finds him they are bound to ring us and let us know." If they don't stuff him, eat him or keep him for themselves, I thought glumly.
"Oh yes," James answered. "And I gave Professor Claridge a full description. He promised to organise a search."
Hunting for a dodo in the grounds of Magdalen College must count as unusual behaviour even by the standards of an Oxford don. Perhaps he is the Abnormal Professor of Psycology after all.
Saturday.
Charlie and James set off bright and early for Oxford, with Dodgson sulking in his dodo carry-box in the car boot. Minne went to the Higgs-Bosons to bake mince pies with Olivia. I was left on my own to explore LingQ's Russian library and fill my mp3 player with files of beginners' Russian.
It was tea-time when the travellers returned. Charlie looked exhausted and James was gibbering quietly.
""Did Harry get to Magdalen all right?"" I asked, pouring Charlie a cup of tea.
"Oh, Harry was fine," answered my husband, coming to the table. "We dropped him off for 10 a.m. and went off to the Science Museum to check on Albert's blackboard. He found he'd got his equations right so he was happy. We went back for Harry at 1p.m. and it looked like he'd had a great time. There was this pretty psychologist talking to him and he was staring at her feet. He looked pretty keen on her."
Wow, sounds like my boy's finally discovered girls. What am I saying? I've gone from fancying Harry to thinking I'm his mother. I hastily changed the subject.
"Who was in charge? Did you meet them?" I asked, sitting James down and handing him a scone.
"It was one of their professors. Claridge I think," answered Charlie, sitting down and taking a sip of tea. "He and the boys really hit it off. He spent ages talking to them."
"He's an Abnormal Professor. I suppose it's because he's a professor and he's not dead, " said James, his eyes slightly unfocussed. He was really interesting! He gave us tea. I had three cups with sugar and two slices of cake!"
"No, he's a normal professor of Abnormal Psychology", responded Charlie with the air of a man who has explained this several times already on the drive home.
"Yeah. We told him all about Albert, and building the time machine, and going back to the seventeenth century and trying to meet Guy Fawkes. He was really interested! He said he wanted to see a dodo, so I went to get Dodgson out of the car."
"Good Lord!" I spluttered through a mouthful of tea. "What did he say when he saw him?"
"He didn't get to see him," said James sadly. "I had just got Dodgson out of his box and was putting his lead on when he ran away from me. He scooted down the path and hid in a lot of shrubs. I ran after him, but this man ran up and started shouting at me for treading on the fritillaries. I told him I was looking for my dodo but he wouldn't listen. He said I was a yob with no respect for nature or history. By the time he went away Dodgson was nowhere to be found. I left trails of Maltesers over the paths but he wasn't coming for them. I'm never going to see him again!"
His eyes filled with tears. I could feel mine starting to prickle too. Over the last few weeks I've really grown fond of that pudgy little fellow. But I wasn't going to let James see that, and Charlie didn't look like he could handle any more waterworks. I coughed.
"Do you realise what you've done, young man?" I asked sternly. "You have released an extinct wild animal into the grounds of the oldest and most historic university in the world!" (Memo to self, must look Oxford up on Wikipedia some time. I don't know much about Oxford, I'm a Harrogatian myself). "I hope we don't get into trouble for this."
"I hope Dodgson will be alright," muttered Charlie gloomily. "It's getting cold at nights and he's not used to sleeping outdoors."
"I asked the angry man if fritillaries were poisonous to dodos but he didn't answer," added James plaintively.
"Was he wearing his collar?" I asked them. "If anyone finds him they are bound to ring us and let us know." If they don't stuff him, eat him or keep him for themselves, I thought glumly.
"Oh yes," James answered. "And I gave Professor Claridge a full description. He promised to organise a search."
Hunting for a dodo in the grounds of Magdalen College must count as unusual behaviour even by the standards of an Oxford don. Perhaps he is the Abnormal Professor of Psycology after all.
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