 Dominic Hinkins, PhD (Gynaecology and English), King, Amateur Polemicist
Bruce Hargreaves, Author, Playwright, Sceptic
Epictetus, Choya Charmain Chair of Philosophy and Stuff at the University of Old Rectoryland (posthumous)
  
| DOM HINKINS PhD/SIMIAN SAPIENS/MONKEE_BOY/KING DOMINIC I/NIC/SPAWN OF SATAN/DOMSQUIDGE/REVOLUTIONARY WITHOUT A CAUSE/DONICIM JAKOB HINNSKI/: A BIO
| | Born on the 12th of July 1990, in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, to Chris and Gail Hinkins (one a renound pianist and expert music typesetter, the other a talented amateur singer and actress and some-time art teacher), Dom studied at Horncastle Community Primary School until 2001, and at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Horncastle from 2002-2008. He is a youthful amateur author, actor, film-maker and artist, with much exuberance in familiar settings. He earned his joint PhD in English and Gynaecology from the University of Old Rectoryland where he is now head of English.
In 2005 Dom founded a small country, Old Rectoryland, and became its King in 2006, encouraging its growth and development to the impressive size it is now. He has founded two film production companies, woofkitty pictures (1997-) and ELM Pictures (2003/4-), for which he still produces short films, writing and directing his first feature length film over three years from 2005-07, Explorers: The Movie.
Dom likes to use the free association method to write often witty and always strange short stories, plays, and fake 'extracts' from textbooks or information websites; find inspiration for poetry (which hardly ever progresses above the level of doggerel) whilst walking the dog; and engaging in deep thought about the nature of faith, life, religion, and of course politics--unfortunately, since there is nothing new under the sun he often wastes hours on this only to find someone else has got there first. His greatest ambition, therefore, is to have an original thought. That and to build a personal zeppelin to avoid having to learn to drive...
Dom loves his dog, Jasper de Bourneville, a Springer Spaniel/Chocolate Labrador cross, and hates everyone else. His preferred mode of dress owes more to the neo-victorian than to modern fashion, and he considers the t-shirt an undergarment. Due to his discussions with 'Yanks', he persists in calling Braces 'suspenders', which is the cause of much hilarity. His favourite comedian is Ross Noble, and he likes music. An active and passionate member of the Scout movement from a young age, Dom seeks to join the campaign for abolishing 'religious tendencies' as a criterion for membership, but in the meantime prays to the Norse gods Odin, Thor and Frigg, to whose intervention (following the timely sacrifice of a fresh peach) he owes his excellent A level results.
He has yet to find a favourite book, although he has recently enjoyed Jude the Obscure which he felt expressed many of his own views, and recommends post apocalyptic texts such as Earth Abides by George Stewart, The Drowned World by JG Ballard, and Alas Babylon by Pat Frank. Although a moderate fan of humorists such as Pratchett, Fforde, and Rankin, Dom has been inspired in particular by the optimistic works of contemporary comedian and philosopher Danny Wallace, and those of Richard Dawkins and Jostein Gaarder. Dom found Paradise Lost impenetrable and intends to have another shot when he feels less tired and more intellectually worthy, but found Dante's Divine Comedy surprisingly accessible, enjoyable and rewarding (he is half way through Purgatory at the time of writing). He loves Dickens, enjoys dissecting Shakespeare, and has at least attempted to read Plato and Aristophanes. It is with great regret that he reflects the first ten years of his life were spent on Michael Chrichton novels, Where's Spot? and Doctor Doolittle, and only discovered Dylan Thomas and Under Milk Wood relatively recently, but there are only so many words you can understand as a kid. George Orwell is another provider of devourable texts (i.e. 1984, Animal Farm, and Down and Out in Paris and London).The list, unfortunately, goes on, and looks increasingly like this obviously unhealthy obsession with books will become a lifelong obsession. Sigh.
From October 2008, Dom will be reading English at Christ's College Cambridge; so the cycle of life goes on. Well, kind of a cycle...the analogy is slightly weak due to the fact there's very little evidence for reincarnation. You know what I mean.
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| BRUCE HARGREAVES : A BIO
| | Born on the fourth of July 1949 in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, to Bob and Hilda Hargreaves, Bruce studied at Peterhouse College, Cambridge for two years before dropping out because he "felt like it" and emigrating to Australia in 1969. He is an aged writer and producer for radio, and has worked in the past for such illustrious firms as the BBC, and has been married "happily, without children" to his wife Daria since 1979.
After living and working in Canberra for 4XFM radio, which went bankrupt in 2006 ("completely unrelated" to Bruce's surrealist series 'Sir Barrington'), Bruce and Daria sold the family ranch and moved back to Lincolnshire, England, where Bruce worked for a year and a half (or thereabouts) for BBC Radio Lincolnshire.
He is now semi-retired and devotes all his time to writing and shouting at Christians. He is a "misunderstood marxist" and enjoys protesting animal rights, eating, collecting bruised fruit from history (the proud--or gullible--owner of the apple which struck Newton's head, purchased for £6000 pickled in vinegar), and going for long, drug fueled walks in the countryside. And seeing how long he can grow his beard before Daria hits him.
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| | EPICTETUS: A BIO
Born around the year 55 in Hierapolis, Phrygia (home of those annoying little hats the smurfs wear), Epictetus ('Epic') lived most of his life in Rome until exiled to Nicopolis around 89. Despite living as a slave for most of his youth (a profession in which he was able to build an admirable store of potty jokes) he managed to study Stoic philosophy under Musonius Rufus in his spare time. When freed, Epic suffered from extreme ill health as a result of mistreatment by his master, but founded a famous philosophical school with alumni such as the Emporer Hadrian and the historian Arrian.
True to stoicism, Epic lived a simple life marked by teaching and intellectual pursuits. His most famous works are the Discourses (only half of which survives) and his Handbook , dictated to his student Arrian, which concentrate on ethics amongst other themes. Epictetus' doctrine recognized two categories of influences to life, distinguishing between those under human control and those outside thereof (adiaphora). The first category includes aspects like ambition or animosity; the latter health, fame or property. He concludes that positive or negative interpretation of personal circumstances emerging from uncontrollable facts is an act of free will. Stoicism is the state of recognition that such facts cannot affect life.
In 2007, Epic was the first to be unanimously elected to the Choya Charmain Chair of Philosophy and Stuff at the understaffed University of Old Rectoryland, which offers correspondance based courses for Old Rectorian citizens in philosophy, gynaecology, geology and English Literature. On accepting the post, Epic stated "?". He holds the chair for life, and has no duties.
"The life of virtue is the life in accordance with nature. Since for the Stoic nature is rational and perfect, the ethical life is a life lived in accordance with the rational order of things. "Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well" .
Essential to appreciating this Stoic theme is the recognition of the difference between those things that are within our power and those not within our power.
Our opinions are up to us, and our impulses, desires, aversions--in short, whatever is our doing. Our bodies are not up to us, nor our possessions, our reputations, or our public offices, or, that is, whatever is not our doing...So remember, if you think that things naturally enslaved are free or that things not your own are your own, you will be thwarted, miserable, and upset, and will blame both the gods and men.
The only thing over which we have control, therefore, is the faculty of judgment. Since anything else, including all external affairs and acts of others, are not within our power, we should adopt toward them the attitude of indifference. Toward all that is not within our power we should be apathetic.
What upsets people is not things themselves but their judgments about the things. For example, death is nothing dreadful (or else it would have appeared so to Socrates), but instead the judgment about death is that it is dreadful, that is what is dreadful.
To avoid unhappiness, frustration, and disappointment, we, therefore, need to do two things: control those things that are within our power (namely our beliefs, judgments, desires , and attitudes) and be indifferent or apathetic to those things which are not in our power (namely, things external to us).
Toward those unfortunate things that are not within our power which we cannot avoid (for example, death and the actions and opinions of others) the proper attitude is one of apathy. Distress is the result of our attitudes towards things, not the things themselves. This is the consoling feature of Stoic fatalism. It is absurd to become distraught over externals for the same reason that it is absurd to become distressed over the past; both are beyond our power. The Stoic is simply adopting toward all things the only logical attitude appropriate to the past--indifference." -Epictetus
A Note on the Hinkins Surname
The Hinkins family probably originates in Holland or Germany. Hinkins probably comes from the dutch word for 'limper'--one with a limp. The family came to England as engineers and builders from Holland in the 1630s, to construct the Bedford cuts built to drain the Norfolk fens, and were afterwards generously rewarded with large grants of the resulting farmland. There is also evidence Hinkinses were among those who helped drain the Lincolnshire fens further north. The family later spread to the rest of the country, and abroad to America etc. The family still has strong connections with the building trade (for instance the Oxford contractors Hinkins and Fruin etc.) and with music, long a family hobby but only recently a trade.
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