Yesterday I went charity shopping with Annie, with pleasing results. I bought the RotK DVD (yes, shamefully I didn't own it before...), 2 Discworld books (1 of which I already owned, alas), an atlas of ancient history and the Book of Lost Tales by Tolkien. I'm particularly pleased with the last two. The atlas covers all those ancient Eurasian empires, like the Hittites and Assyrians, that nobody really cares about. I feel I should know more about them - the world didn't start with the Ancient Greeks, and it will be interesting to see what came before them. The Book of Lost Tales I remember being my favourite volume of the History of Middle Earth series - so much amazing myth.

I also bought a 5000 year old game. It was discovered in Ur and dates from 2600 BC (although my replica dates from the 1980s). It's pretty darn fantastic. Look at the board!



Look at the pieces!


It would be worth it for the amazing design alone, but I've played it and it's a pretty good game, somewhat like backgammon but more strategic.

Finally, anybody who is LJ friends with lalwendeboggart will remember her Walkers taste test. If not, and if so, to recap: Walkers introduced 6 new flavours of crisps, only one of which can survive. Like Lal, I have now tried all six, and can rank them:

1 - Builder's Breakfast
2 - Fish and Chips
3 - Cajun Squirrel
4.5 - Hoisin Duck / Onion Bhaji
6 - Chilli and Chocolate

Builder's Breakfast is something like crisp heaven, while Chilli and Chocolate approaches hell. I was quite impressed with Fish and Chips as well. The other three flavours were good at tasting like what they were meant to, but not good flavours for crisps.

I spent the weekend at Cambridge because one of my friends (Mike the Mathematician) lives there. Five Oxonians were there altogether, plus a couple of Mike's friends at some points. I've been to Cambridge a couple of times before and think it is actually quite a lot nicer than Oxford. The grand college, like King's, are prettier than Oxford equivalents like ChristChurch; the towncentre is more spread out and doesn't have people spilling onto the streets; there are loads of parks spread out throughout the town and the shops are better (Fopp! Giant Oxfam! Amnesty Bookshop! Mead vendors! Geeky shop whose name eludes me!).

I had a good time, involving punting (with no falling in! The poles are lighter in Cambridge and therefore easier to manage too. Oh, and the river is cleaner), picnics, nudists, blackberries (first of the season!), bubbles, pubs and Age of Empires until 3:30am.

I bought quite a few things at brilliant Cambridge prices, including LOTR FOTR DVD which I shamefully did not own; these games: Age of Empires 1, Shogun Total War, Theme Hospital; and a book by Noam Chomsky called Hegemony or Survival. Noam Chomsky is one of my person heroes, being a linguist, a socialist, the most quoted living person in the humanities and generally cool. I'd always meant to read one of his political books but never got round to it, so it was this to find this book on American foreign policy for £3.