lockdown

So Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, claims that the great benefit of ID cards is that people's identities would be 'locked to them'. Is that the ideal? People 'locked' into their identity? And it does beg the question - in my mind at least - what exactly is the identity that Smith feels people are so vulnerable in that need - nay, desire - to be 'locked' into? It is an interesting formulatio nof idenity as as bounded, limited space; something that can be locked: a closet, a box, a room - something, first and foremost, that can belong to one person and must be guarded from invasive fraudsters that would steal it (the 'lock' metaphor does connote the idea of value and thus the desireability of the thing to theives - the curious crime referred to glibbly as 'identity theft').

I've been discussing the concept of the sublime with two of my seminar groups this morning - and I, at least, have a ponderous headache (that is, caused by pondering). They tackled Shelley's Mont Blanc very well and I hope that I didn't add chaos to confusion. I was let down in my pedagogy today by the perverse machines - my friend who studies J.G. Ballard complimented me on the phrase - in the PG common room which refused to open the lovely and genius handout I had made for my seminars summarising the key points and terms of Longinus, Burke, Kant and Wordsworth. They were generous enough to look sincerely hopeful and interested when I promised to email it to them instead - bless ... I'm the doddering old prof already.

Completely lateral references today in seminar: BtVS (1), Star Trek (1), Minority Report (1) - to be fair, the last one came from a student first, I just ran with it...