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Status Reports

Status: General Culture (2025 - December)

(Text as at 13/01/2026 13:14:53)

Rationale for this Project

• For years I hid reading and writing on (or watching and listening to) general cultural or political issues as so-called ‘Background Tasks’ appearing on reports for my Thesis¹.
• While there are genuine background tasks in this respect, and these will remain reported as above, items that appear in this report have no real connection in this regard, and so I will no longer overstate the time spent on my Thesis.
• Engagement with cultural and political issues is an important part of life so it’s worth recording and reflecting on what I do in this regard.
• I only intend to include items requiring active involvement, so nothing like passive news-watching.
• A particular focus was to have been Aeon where the papers and videos are in no way related to my Thesis. However, because of time restrictions, these priority ‘unrelated’ items are rather rare these days.
• More recently I obtained access to the London Review of Books (LRB) Archive, and spent a considerable amount of time salting away interesting items. This is also now in abeyance
• I also decided to book to this project time spent listening to the BBC (and other podcasts) while doing the washing up. This has declined considerably as I now mostly listen to (or watch) Royal Institute of Philosophy (RIP) podcasts for which time gets booked to my Thesis.
• So that I don’t resent time spent on important matters to do with Coxes Farm, I’ve recently decided to book time spent investigating property development plans in my road to this project.

Summary of Progress during October - December 2025

1. I spent 69 hours in 25Q4 on this Project, or related work (69 hours YTD, where for "YTD" - Year to Date - I mean the (academic) year that commenced in October 2025). That's 132.3% of the planned effort (132.3% YTD). Overall, 8.6% of my Project effort in the Quarter was directed towards this project (making 8.6% YTD) - as against 6.5% planned (6.5% YTD).
2. Further details follow (for the latest Quarter: 25Q4):-
   GeneralCulture (Total Hours = 69)
   • 25Q3 Status Reports (1.5 hours)
     → See "Admin - General Culture - Admin" (1.5 hours)
   • BBC - Miscellaneous Programmes (Journey to MIke & Sylvia's) (Read, 1.5 hours)
   • BBC - 'Outrageous' (Mitford sisters) (Read, 1.25 hours)
     → See "BBC - Miscellaneous iPlayer and Podcasts" (2.75 hours)
   • "Cambridge - CAM (Cambridge Alumni Magazine)" (Read, 0.75 hours)
   • Downton Abbey Film (Read, 2.5 hours)
     → See "Admin - General Culture - Admin" (2.5 hours)
   • "FT - Five Books - Various Subjects not covered elsewhere" (Read, 0.5 hours)
   • "Harris (Robert) - Dictator" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
   • "Harris (Robert) - Fatherland" (Read / Write, 10.75 hours)
   • "Harris (Robert) - Imperium" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
   • "Harris (Robert) - Lustrum" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
   • Interaction - Discussions with Mike, Sylvia & Julie (1 hour)
     → See "Interaction - Discussion with Mike" (1 hour)
   • Investigations into treatment of injured foxes (0.5 hours)
     → See "Admin - General Culture - Admin" (0.5 hours)
   • "LPOC - Listed Heritage: The Listed Property Owners' Club Magazine" (Read, 2 hours)
   • "LRB - London Review of Books" (Read, 1 hour)
   • "Mann (Thomas), Lowe-Porter (H.T.) - Lotte In Weimar" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Mann (Thomas), Lowe-Porter (H.T.) - The Holy Sinner" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • Oppenheimer (Read, 2 hours)
     → See "Admin - General Culture - Admin" (2 hours)
   • "Ryback (Timoth W.) - Takeover" (Read, 1.5 hours)
   • St John's Quiz (3 hours)
     → See "Admin - General Culture - Admin" (3 hours)
   • "Todman (Theo) - Investigating Housing Developments near Coxes Farm" (Read / Write, 36.5 hours)
3. I had doubled the scheduled time from the much-decreased 2 hours / week for this project to 4 hours / week in 25Q4. It was ‘only’ around 1/3 over budget this time (as against 80% in the previous quarter) – mainly because of the shift from BBC₂ to RIP podcasts.
4. As noted above, I’m booking time spent investigating Housing Developments near Coxes Farm to this project, now logged to "Todman (Theo) - Investigating Housing Developments near Coxes Farm". I spent a lot of time early in the Quarter, but virtually nothing later on.
5. I really enjoyed completing "Harris (Robert) - Fatherland". I’ve added the ‘Cicero’ trilogy to the list, but it may not get a look in for a while.
6. Otherwise there were sundry enjoyable ‘cultural events’, including a rare trip to the cinema, listed above.
7. Progress (if any) in the current quarter can be obtained from the General Culture section of my Summary Task List³.

Plans for the Near Future

• I’ve retained the time allocation to 4 hours / week, given the need to spend time defending my property from the predations of developers. Time is booked to:-
  → "Todman (Theo) - Investigating Housing Developments near Coxes Farm".
• So, the above won’t leave much opportunity to address the items on the list below:-
  1. Continue / complete reading various books that have landed in my in-tray₄:-
     1. "Allison (Graham) - Destined for War: can America and China escape Thucydides’ Trap?",
     2. "Doyle (Andrew) - The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World",
     3. "Freedman (Sam) - Failed State: Why Nothing Works and How We Fix It",
     4. Robert Harris:-
        → "Harris (Robert) - Imperium"
        → "Harris (Robert) - Lustrum"
        → "Harris (Robert) - Dictator"
     5. "Ryback (Timoth W.) - Takeover"
  2. Aeon⁵: Continue collecting, reading and reviewing papers issued by Aeon & Psyche (and the occasional spin-off).
  3. "FT - Five Books - Various Subjects not covered elsewhere": Continue collecting, reading and reviewing relevant books.
  4. "BBC - Miscellaneous iPlayer and Podcasts": Continue listening / watching and try to write up brief notes.
  5. Coxes Farm: Read:-
     1. "Barratt (Nick) - Tracing the History of Your House: The Building, the People, the Past",
     2. "Brunskill (R.W.) - Vernacular Architecture: An Illustrated Handbook"
     3. "LPOC - Listed Heritage: The Listed Property Owners' Club Magazine",
     4. "Yorke (Trevor) - Timber-Framed Building Explained", and
     5. "Yorke (Trevor) - Tudor Houses Explained"
  6. "Todman (Theo) - Investigating Housing Developments near Coxes Farm".

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In-Page Footnotes:

Footnote 2:

• There seems to be a minor reporting bug, in previous Quarters: the bulk of the time has been assigned to "Admin - General Culture - Admin" rather than to "BBC - Miscellaneous iPlayer and Podcasts".
• I’ve checked this is in fact the case and raised a ‘change request’.

Footnote 4:

• This list had started to grow, so I've given it a very severe pruning.
• I may add culled books back in as and when.

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Table of the Previous 8 Versions of this Note:

Date	Length	Title
30/10/2025 18:31:41	5982	Status: General Culture (2025 - September)
15/07/2025 10:14:53	6104	Status: General Culture (2025 - June)
07/04/2025 00:15:50	5461	Status: General Culture (2025 - March)
01/02/2025 00:28:48	4588	Status: General Culture (2024 - December)
10/10/2024 00:47:31	3979	Status: General Culture (2024 - September)
11/07/2024 23:08:10	4031	Status: General Culture (2024 - June)
15/04/2024 00:34:34	4354	Status: General Culture (2024 - March)
01/04/2024 20:08:10	4154	Status: General Culture (2023 - December)

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Note last updated	Reference for this Topic	Parent Topic
13/01/2026 13:14:53	1362 (Status: General Culture (2025 - December))	Status: Summary (2025 - December)

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Summary of Notes Referenced by This Note

Aeon Papers

Status: Summary Task List (2026: January - February)

To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.

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Summary of Notes Citing This Note

Status: Priority Task List (2026 - January), 2	Status: Summary (2025 - December), 2, 3	Status: Summary Task List (2026: January - February)	Status: Summary Task List (YTD: 25Q4 - 26Q1)	Status: Web-Tools (2025 - December)
Website - Outstanding Developments (2026 - February), 2

To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.

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Authors, Books & Papers Citing this Note

Author	Title	Medium	Extra Links	Read?
Chapman (Colin)	The Israel-Hamas war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict	Paper		Yes
LPOC	Listed Heritage: The Listed Property Owners' Club Magazine	Book

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Text Colour Conventions

1. Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2026

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