School's out

It's the last Friday of the regular term and the library is very quiet. The staffroom is full of mince pies, christmas cake (with cheese, which my friend assures me is a delicious northern tradition!), and home-baked cakes and biscuits (fundraising drive). It's less full than it was as my break was last hour...luckily I found a fiver in my wallet and donated to fill my tum.

Yesterday I had my viva (defence) and passed with 'minor corrections' - which means typographical and editing errors. It was the hardest exam I have ever sat. My examiners were brilliant - they were interested and engaged with my work and made me feel totally comfortable while ripping it to shreds. In all honesty, about half way through the viva, I really did believe I would be given a pass with minor deficiencies - or majors (the dreaded referral). I was shocked when my internal recommended that I be awarded the degree pending editorial corrections.

It was exhausting as well - but I really really really enjoyed it. I didn't expect it to be that difficult but I'm glad it was because I can honestly say that I was put through my paces and earned this degree. My supervisor was so lovely as well - and we had a brief chat after the viva in her office about how quickly the four years went by - she said it felt like yesterday that my proposal landed on her desk...! I have been very fortunate in my supervisor: she has been so supportive throughout my degree. This degree has cost me a lot - financially and emotionally (I have been checking for grey hairs and none yet!) - but I can honestly say that it was worth it twice over and I would do it again - just for the friends we have here and the life we've made, if not the agonizing self-doubt and hair-tearing stress of PhD life.

So here I am, at the end of traditional education - and thankfully, it is no 'end' at all.

Skinny latte, with wings

I love it. If I drank skinny anything I would make this my new motto. I might just get a t-shirt with this blazoned across the front - and back. Could I use this at Timmy's next time I'm home? It might be worth a try. I know that there is a lovely lingo associated with diners in North America - I know this because diner culture is a fond topic of conversation in our house. I was unaware until this morning that coffee culture was developing its own...

I wonder, as I ponder, whether moving back to Canada will be anything like what this chap has experienced in moving back to England. Of course, I didn't leave Canada due to frustration with the political/cultural climate - in fact, I'm more frustrated with the politics of Canada since I left. But it's interesting to think about. What would I find different?

December One

24 Days until Christmas. I wish I had an advent calendar. I know Green&Black's does one with lovely chocs. Next year I'll get one. And hang it beside the door. Growing up (which makes it sound - horribly - as though I've grown up), we always had ours in the sunroom. Advent calendars and doors are somehow welded together in my mind.

As it's December, I suppose atheism is as good topic as any. I'm touched that Benedict has agreed to meet Muslim leaders to discuss common ground - he was, it's reported, particularly impressed with the insistence in the letter on the 'twofold commandment to love God and one's neighbour'. Well, it really is time that someone pointed that out to most of us. I'm equally confused, however, by his latest encyclical, in which he turns his vitriol from other religions to atheists.

Not content with even the Guardian's upstanding reportage, I spent some time doing a bit of light research while sitting at the desk waiting patiently for inquisitive minds. I do love the Catholic church for their records - truly, it's amazing what they are willing to commit to print. There is learning there; nothing can exist for that long without some kind of progression, I suppose - progress all the more startling considering that in Humanis Generis (1950), Pius XII thought it necessary to remind his flock that
"if the Supreme Pontiffs in their official documents purposely pass judgment on a matter up to that time under dispute, it is obvious that that matter, according to the mind and will of the Pontiffs, cannot be any longer considered a question open to discussion among theologians" (sec. 20).

But I digress - and return to the latest encyclical, Spe Salvi.

I'm really rather intrigued with Benedict's repeated insistence on the 'performative' nature of the Christian message (secs. 2, 4, 10 for example). But that's another digression. I do find myself nodding in agreement with Benedict's point regarding how the 'political conditions of the kingdom of reason and freedom [are]...ill defined': 'reason and freedom seem to guarantee by themselves, by virtue of their intrinsic goodness, a new and perfect human community' (sec. 18). Dalton Trumbo said it better in Johnny Got His Gun (a new edition of this has been published - go, gentle reader, and read): freedom is just a word. Sure, so is 'reason'. For that matter, so is 'faith' or 'hope'. I want to be convinced by - or willing to believe in - Benedict's discussion of human freedom (secs. 23-25). It is striking and rather eloquent - indeed, it stands out from the rest of the document in eloquence, which some of his prose lacks. I'm not, however, because the Church has forgotten, in spite of Benedict's belief in the performativity of the Gospel, that their own actions - their performances of doctine, instances of praxis - make it clear that the 'freedom' espoused is too narrow, too rigidly defined. Too broad a definition of 'freedom' or 'reason' doesn't actually seem to be a problem for the RC church. By human, read 'white, Christian, heterosexual male'; by freedom, read, 'to live as a white, Christian, heterosexual male'.

I'm curious however about his tacit insistence on the schism between 'science' and 'love'. Indeed, it seems to me that he does not clarify these terms anymore than the professors of 'freedom' and 'reason' explain their terms. Earlier in the document, Benedict's ideas put me in mind of Curtis White's essay in Harper's, 'The Idols of Evironmentalism', which I've already blogged about here. It feels as though this initial separation between 'science' and 'love' marshalls atheists and Christian believers into opposing sides by section 42.

It is one thing to critique pure reason for providing no more, if no less, certainty than faith; it is another to lump together science, reason, and atheism as bulwarks against the felicitous performance of the Christian message of hope.

But let me end with love and Saint Augustine: 'Love, and do what thou wilt: whether thou hold thy peace, through love hold thy peace; whether thou cry out, through love cry out; whether thou correct, through love correct; whether thou spare, through love do thou spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good' (In epistulam Ioannis ad Parth). How unbounded a vision does this offer of the potential of human goodness? How opposite from the 'love' that reads this and finds in it justification for cruelty, tyranny, and punishment.

librarian, vent thyself

There are times when I truly hate - with an aspirated 'H' - the general public -- even when that 'general public' is the fairly select demographic of a university student body (though 'fairly select' when, apparently, over 50% of A-level students scored in the highest grade range is dubious). I truly do believe that the university must be an institution open to all - anyone who wants to learn should be welcomed.

But that's the catch - wanting to learn. Not simply filling a chair (and the university's coffers), making use of the 10% discount at some high-street shops, and getting quicker access to a surgery. And I do - call me rather pedantic - believe that wanting to learn does not get compartmentalised - wanting to learn should be all-encompassing, not goal oriented; that lovely, sadly anachronistic, anti-utilitarian desire to learn for learning's sake. If you want to learn, you learn - you learn everything and anything that can be taught. Okay, this sounds like I expect everyone to be an expert in everything - impractical at best. Allow me to try to explain.

Learning - again, this is all from my perspective (um...obviously! it's my blog) - requires interest; I cannot teach an uninterested student. At best, they will recite back to me, with no real learning, what I have said in seminar, or what they've read from some secondary source. I don't particularly care, in the long run. But there are few people more boring to spend time with than those without interest - curiosity - critical engagement - enthusiasm. And that bleeds into all things. If I can teach one thing in any course, it is always just to be interested in something - anything but be interested and take responsibility for that interest: feed it, satisfy it, increase it.

Huh. Well this is going to sound silly. But see there's this alarm that goes off when someone tries to use their student ID more than once within a certain time period at the campus library. Okay - I know - silly. But when you are working at that station for an entire hour and that bloody alarm goes off every 10 minutes...well, by the half-hour you are ready to strangle the next reader who sets it off. And I especially love the ones that go through and turn around to let their friends through - the very reason the time delay was installed. Why unleash this particular rant here? Because it seems to me that someone at university would have the sense to see that there is a reason that EACH student has a unique ID. I also particularly enjoy the student that stands there, zombie-like, repeatedly passing his card over the sensor as it beeps merrily away...

I say nothing of those to whom the entire concept of a 'library' belongs to a brave new world. Nor of those who confuse 'customer service' with 'customer servants'...

I really am going to be the most crotchety old lady one day...

pillow talk

Now I'm not saying that laughter can't be part of great sex. Not just the low-in-the-throat, seductive chuckle - real belly laughter. To laugh like that heralds comfort and security - a recognition of the intimate relationship between the sacred and the profane (bedfellows always).

Writing sex scenes is difficult I'm sure - particularly in print where there is no picture/soundtrack to direct/manipulate the viewer. Bad sex in film would be a topic and competition all its own. Consider the difference between, say, Don't Look Now (one of the best sex scenes on celluloid) and...um... Titanic, or Baz Luhrman's Romeo + Juliet (both contenders for the worst sex scenes of recent film).

Anyway, this is what stimulated this particular ponder - a close contender for my all-time favourite literary mock-competition (which is this one).

Furthermore

As we played mancala last night, we discussed the event in Sudan that I blogged about yesterday. Which gave me more to ponder. I think now I was too harsh on this teacher and perhaps blame should be more fairly apportioned round. I'm not recanting completely but it seems to me, on further reflection, that a good old fashioned sit-down and chat would have been more appropriate than an arrest. And as Nasser points out, it is possible that the reportage, even in such a worthy rag as The Guardian, might not have the whole story.

So there. A lesson in pondering any ponderable at least twice before professing.

My bedside book right now is Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich. I'm not sure how to work it into my research profile - but I will find a way. I'm working slowly but surely towards theology and literature - it's not so far from law and literature in many ways (which I'll go into later...). Anyway, my paper in January at BSECS is about hagiography and historiography in Sophia Lee's The Recess and I'm hoping to look at how Mary's Catholicism, which is never overtly referred to in the text, emerges through Lee's strategies of writing...Obviously, I need to think more on this...

My viva is in two weeks.

A bear by any other name

This is a disheartening story in many ways. My initial reaction was one of slightly weary annoyance: honestly, it's a freakin' teddy bear. But then I took myself to task, shook myself from my library-induced lethargy and pondered a while (in between dealing with readers' questions and checking out books).

Now my annoyance is turned onto this teacher. I just cannot believe that she is unaware of the level of sensitivity that situations like this demand. This is not the first time that an issue like this has made the news in the past few years. While my initial reaction remains - I cannot understand that level of devotion to a name (surely there are people bearing the prophet's name whose lives constitute a slur on his memory - in the same way that not everyone named 'Jesus' is likely to be a saint) - it is not my faith and I am not called to understand it. I would like to believe, were I in this teacher's place, that I would be aware of the culture in which I am working and living.

It's a teachable moment badly missed. I think it would have made a lovely lesson to ask, when a child suggested 'Muhammed' as a name for a teddy bear, why they thought it would be a good name. What does the name mean to them? Given it's popularity as a boy's name, perhaps whoever suggested it had a brother called Muhammed or a father or uncle, or was so called himself. I'm wondering if, from there, it might be an interesting way into teaching them a culture/history/religious lesson on the spot. Why couldn't the bear be called Muhammed? What does the name mean? What does it mean to hold something sacred? I appreciate that I'm likely oversimplifying it and I don't teach young children and it's a very complex and large problem. I also think that that is crap. I'm particularly interested in the way that this teacher is implicitly absolved because she tried to teach the children a lesson about democracy instead...

And I will not countenance any whining claims that this is 'PC gone mad'. Few statements - usually accompanied by a liberal toss of the head and stamp of the foot - irritate me more. This has nothing to do with political correctness and everything to do with sensitivity and tolerance. I know that some reactions to this serious - but innocent - lapse in judgement will cause problems as well - there will be people (apparently there already are) who wait for events like this to excuse or explain violence. And that's a shame too. More than a shame. But I think that it is a separate issue and what I'm interested in now and shall go off and ponder is how big the world has become and how much more is demanded of us when we go out to play.

the C word

for the benefit of more constant readers, i feel it necessary to make it clear that the voice behind this post isn't kaley this time (i realize that i am at best an intermittent contributor to this blog, but perhaps in a few weeks, that too will change). for the purposes of distinction, my posts will be distinguished by a refusal to follow standard rules of capitalization (and a penchant for parenthetical asides) - oh - and an affection for dashes that would make emily dickinson proud.

this morning, kaley arose from sleep (reluctantly as always), and, while i prepared our morning tea, attired herself for the day. but today was not a typical day - this morning, she is going to meet with a person to discuss getting some temporary employment at a nearby university. now, i know better than anyone that she's perfect for the job - the quality of kaley's thought, her commitment to her students, and her unflinching professionalism bear the hallmarks of the best academics that i have had the pleasure of meeting.

(and here's the but)

she came downstairs in an outfit that i disagreed with. the conversation went something like this:

"you can't wear that"

"but i like this"

"you look like the Little Mermaid heading to the gym. you should wear your tweedy skirt and a black top - now THAT says i am an academic. hire me or your students will be lost "

in the end, she went for the more subdued look and kissed me on her way out the door - all is well in the land of nas. but now i am feeling some misgivings. if it's true that she's got everything it takes to fill the post, what should it matter how she looks? and where did i get the idea that appearance makes a difference?

i know, i know - the clothes make the man (see above picture for proof [or disproof]) - but in an information society - and perhaps the university was an information society long before there was ever an internet - how much relevant data is encoded in our clothes?

in other words, why do i err on the side of (and here comes the C-word) Conservative attire in job situations? surely we have passed a point where one's appearance (as long as it remains hygienic) influences one's reception? my fear is that if we haven't transcended this outside = inside economy, then what do we do with those aspects of our appearance that aren't so easily changed? i 'mask' my baldness by shaving my head, but i can't do anything about being brown. and if i am participating in a visual economy (as i have clearly demonstrated through kaley this morning), then what's to stop others from making judgments based on the same, retinal, evidence? is there a difference between racism and sartorial snobbery (when pitched in these terms)?

obviously, i can't propose anything like an answer here - and i don't think there is one. but what ultimately fascinates me is my ability to hold increasingly divergent (and even contradictory) ideas simultaneously. when i finish this post and go out into the world, i am going to sidestep teens in tracksuits, avoid eye contact with anyone dressed in a uniform that connotes religious zeal (be they mormons or muslims); i will assume that the man in unwashed clothes has no money to clean them (or he would) and so give him charity - and i will assume that people who dress like me are my equals, even while aspiring to dress better than i do presently, all the while mouthing the nice liberal pap (while in the company of my peers) that "looks don't matter - it's what you are on the inside that counts".

but what this all amounts to is this: kaley - if ever i ask you to change your clothes again, remind me of this post (or just smack me).

update: kaley got the job. we should all rain congratulations upon her.

ties that bind

It's sad when a great mind veers into narrow-minded prejudice. I'm worried that it is happening more and more - there was Dr James Watson and his comments last month; now it's Martin Amis.

And then there is the 'traditional family' debate - the phrase alone elicits the same response I have to nails on a blackboard or metal scraping metal. I don't know the source of this anxiety that seems to grip defenders of the 'traditional family'; frankly, I have no interest in plumbing the depths of intolerance and ignorance. But here comes another volley from...yes, the RC church, closely followed by perennial bedfellows, the Conservatives. 'Another blow struck against fatherhood'? Are men really that insecure with their role in reproduction? How, exactly, does a lesbian couple, or a gay couple, represent a threat to the 'traditional family'?

There is a link between Amis' comments and Cardinal Murphy O'Connor. Both seem slightly obsessed with being overpowered - a fear of colonization. It's bizarre. I'm typing this surreptitiously at work so I can't really get my thoughts together.

yarrrr...

Pirates clearly either A) had some remarkable physical resistance to hangovers, B) just stayed drunk their entire lives or C) didn't have anywhere near the dissipated lifestyles we ascribe to them now. I know this because I spent Saturday night as a pirate and Sunday on the couch recovering. And I wasn't even drinking rum! I know...some pirate.

Which made today less than the greatest Monday ever. Physically, I'm completely over the hangover. The thing is, the older I get, the more I find hangovers stick around in my mind far longer than I'd like. So everything today has a sheen of frustration: the world is still a bit too sharp for me; deadlines are too pressing, I am stretched too thin. This temporary subdued state of mind was not improved by retrieving the essays I've got to mark for my classes... I take marking and teaching too personally, I think. I'm sure every missed comma or careless spelling error isn't actually personal, but it feels like it. Particularly, when I say repeatedly in class that I'm happy to look at drafts, or answer questions; when I go over again and again the correct style of referencing only to get bibliographies that look intentionally misleading. I think I'll leave them for tonight and mark them in a happier state of mind on Wednesday.

On a more positive note - we saw Persepolis on Saturday at the Leeds Film Festival. It is brilliant. I haven't read the graphic novel but Christmas is coming... (nudge nudge, family!).

There are so many things that I mean to write about on this blog. They are, for the most part, fairly trivial things meant to feel like a conversation with my family far away: walking to work on a very windy morning, the how I made granola last night and how good it was for breakfast, ideas I have for Christmas dinner menus...things that, if I were closer, I'd send in a text, or call.

I did make granola last night - and it was, in fact, really good. Clearly, in spite of giving up those long, flowing India cotton skirts and blouses in my early 20s, I am a barking hippie. But then, I'm also a frugal one. Granola is a complete scam in the shops. I also learned a valuable lesson about baking parchment - it's only good for one go in the oven. After that, it just catches fire like normal paper... And I didn't actually have any ideas for Christmas dinner. Usually, I've had at least five fully-planned and distinct menus by the beginning of November. This year, thesis, teaching, working, and viva have taken over my brain and body almost completely. It was exceptionally windy this morning walking to the library. It's been a very blustery week and now the wind has got that November edge to it. The leaves have been ripped entirely from the trees the past week as well. That always takes me by surprise: one minute they are resisting autumn with all their arboreal might and then next, a grand surrender. I think the tree must feel a wonderful sense of relief letting all those leaves go.

i can has money plz?

I love phishing emails. It gives me a perverse pleasure to know that somewhere in the world, there are two people engaged in what I can only describe as a battle of hope and greed - the Phisher hoping that the person he/she is pumping for bank details actually HAS any money, and the Phishee hoping beyond hope that there actually is 19teen Milion United State dollars in a metallic box somewhere in the Cote d'Ivoire.

Not to mention the fact that someone is somewhere receiving a random email and thinking 'You know what, I'm just going to help this poor sod out of an obviously tight jam simply by handing over my banking details, and if I net ten percent of his fortune (like it's some kind of a tip for services rendered), well then, that's just great! Everybody wins!'

I won't even use this phrase.

I got this one today, and it's a beauty:

"Having known my condition, I decided to Contact you and Reveal to you in person Regarding my Heritage from my Late husband after my late husband brothers
has neglected me and has well sit on my late husband properties and his bank accounts."

Compare the use of third person present tense between the Phisher and the infamous LOLcat.

Perhaps I'm onto something here?

Religious views: Feminism

I shouldn't read the Metro - it's like the Daily Mail but without the wit or depth of thoughtful prose. It's a commuter paper - and it's free... When Nas and I were both bussing to work the first year we lived here we used to compare Metro stories when we got home. But I did while on my break today.

I should stress - there are interesting and provocative slasher films out there. And as offended as I am by this director and his dubious 'political commentary' I will not call for any censorship of his material. Go ahead - watch it; write a credible, intelligent response about the analogy and deeper reading possible from both films. Just don't try, as this fellow does to pass off misogyny as an artistic or philosophical strategy.

Eli Roth, the 'director' of Hostel and Hostel II, was the '60-second interview' today. In his scintillating responses to the clever and provocative questions (I'm not being entirely sarcastic there - they were standard questions and he missed the boat badly on a few) was the following (paraphrased) response to MP Charles Walker's attempt to ban the sale of stills from Hostel II. Walker admitted that he had not personally seen the film - which earned him a sneer from the Roth (who by the way, was named by Men's Health as the most fit director in Hollywood (2006) - clearly the world is sitting up and taking notice of this 'artist'!). Walker reportedly called Hostel II "90 minutes of obscene misogyny". Roth's response?

'That's the greatest endorsement you can get.'

'If you're upsetting MPs, you're doing something right'. Right. Cause it's little ol' Hollywood - that last bastion of individual creativity - beset on all sides by censorious and fascistic governments. With heroes like this, who needs villains? Grow up, Mr. Roth. Hostel and Hostel II are about the 'wrong side of capitalism'? And what side is Mr. Roth representing? Who distributed these films? How much did it cost to film and produce? Did Roth donate any or all of his earnings to some worthy NGO?

And people tell me feminism is outdated...

How is chopping a woman's head off a metaphor for U.S. politics? You won't find the answer there.

by any name

I don't have time to comment on this article now - but I've been meaning to gather my thoughts on this topic on teethbeforewords. Because it is so close to my heart and because it's taken as such a trivial matter by so many people.

Names do matter - childish rhymes aside. In the same issue of The Guardian, I find this article about Nas's (the rapper) apparently 'unspeakable' new album and this article from a woman I would love to meet.

A Grand Day Out

Occasionally, I realise that we haven't been out of the city in ages. Usually when I start becoming frustrated for no apparent reason with my fellow Loiners; when I start cursing about the city council, the public transit system, the rubbish collection...taxes... - when I offer Nasser an uncomfortably clear picture of exactly how crotchety I'll be in fifty years. So yesterday, we had a grand day out. In spite of knowing about this day for well on four weeks, I still managed to get caught out on some details - bus schedules notably!

The greatest thing about not quite planning enough is the surprises. There was a festival on in York - of course, to balance that boon, it was half-term and the city centre was crawling with children. Obviously I was still suffering from urban-induced crabbiness cause the kiddies were alright really. It might have been the sunshine, my delicious cheese-leek-and-bacon pasty, or the thrill of being out and about but I could see, briefly, how children might be amusing - not to have around for any stretch of time but at least not constantly grating. We watched Jorvik Viking Centre's display of Celtic combat techniques and a group of singers from Zimbabwe; walked around looking at expensive boutiques and market stalls; cast our usual admiring eye over the Minster and then tried to find the bus...

I should have mentioned that the object of our travels was Coxwold - specifically, Shandy Hall, former home (obviously!) of Laurence Sterne and currently the temporary writing retreat of Kenneth Goldsmith, conceptual poet and performance artist. I should also add that our whole day was thanks to Nasser's supervisor, who gave Nasser his tickets to the day, which comprised poetry readings, a book-sale-cum-fundraiser for Shandy Hall with donated items from various artists, and the screening of Sucking on Words, a film by Simon Morris about Goldsmith's work.

I should also mention that Coxwold is very nearly impossible to get into and out of - especially on the weekends. Shandy Hall suggests that it is a 'value day out for the whole family'. If I budget in train fares, bus fares + the frustration of doing that with a child, let alone more than one, the only value would exist in leaving them all there while I ran, stark raving mad, over the moors back to the city. Of course, the bus driving straight through Coxwold NOT STOPPING until 1 and 1/2 miles past the village, was a bit of an unanticipated set-back.

But there is, in all things, something to balance, if we take the time to look. In this case, it was hard to miss. By driving straight through Coxwold, the bus-driver had unwittingly shown us Byland Abbey - something we would never have seen had we stopped, as planned, in Coxwold. We also saw the Kilburn White Horse (when we were walking back to Coxwold, we couldn't see it to get a picture, alas). Okay, so we've seen enough abbey ruins to become rather immune to them. But they are always good for a moment of reflection.

So we made it to Coxwold - I really can't recommend our way as something to emmulate. Grass verges are not meant for walkers. Shandy Hall is lovely and old and the poetry readings were very provoking. Kenneth Goldsmith - whom Nasser had had the pleasure of meeting during the week at York Uni - is charming and lovely; as are the scholars, poets, and interested/interesting folk who attended. Nasser was in his element - and it was so wonderful to see how excited and engaged academics and practioners are about the ideas and texts he is working on (which I knew was amazing - but I was always going to say that...).

The moors at night are dark and quiet - the kind of dark and quiet that I've quite forgotten living in Leeds. Coxwold is - literally - a crossroads, a church, and a village hall. As a writing retreat, it would be heaven. As a permanent home...well, I go back and forth on this one. I love the peace and quiet - but there are no amenities - and by that I mean anything (no newsagents!) - but I would hate to have to walk into the churchyard to get a signal on my mobile (it's true...). And I think Nasser might go mad or possibly go native and start wearing tweed and wellingtons and carrying a walking stick everywhere.

On the way home we managed to get a free ride from Thirsk to York and smoothly on home. Which was good and capped the day nicely. Pancakes for breakfast - and dinner at a friend's tonight - and we're pretty set up for the rest of the week...!

Lazy Sunday

I haven't had a Sunday off, it seems, since sometime last spring - before the 'writing up' madness began. So I have one today. I think I've forgotten how to really enjoy doing nothing. I'm sure it will come back quickly enough. The days are noticeably shorter now and that fall smell is everywhere - it rained yesterday so the leaves have made a slick carpet of rot on the pavement. I prefer them crunchy and dry, for kicking about when walking. It was Eid last night as well - the end of Ramadan - and in our neighbourhood, it's a big night and the whole area smells of the most delicious food and you can feel the holiday cheer.

Last night, while out with friends, I picked up some maple syrup - the first I have ever bought here in Leeds. I paid £2.99 for 330mL. And that was at Tesco's (yes, I feel a bit dirty) - so I won't be buying it again in a hurry! But on pancakes this morning with fruit compote and our own bacon, it was totally worth it.

Nasser is at the library now and I'm roasting tomatoes for sauce. No matter what I do, I cannot make my sauce taste like hers. And I swear I'm doing exactly as I was taught! I think it has much more to do with everything else that I associate with the tomato sauce in my mind. I suppose it has never been about the food - just like I can't seem to get the flavour or texture exactly right when I try to make my mum's or grandmother's recipes. What I'm really after is everything else. I know when I'm eating that pasta that makes my mouth water just remembering it, that I'm surrounded by my extended family; that it's a celebration - if not of the calendar kind, at least of our own devising. Nothing tastes quite the same away from mum's kitchen - barbeques simply cannot be the same way from the cottage I grew up in. I'm not saying that barbeques aren't delicious - they're just not the same. Then again, it's also nice to make something that is so very much Nasser and I.

Aside from that, I've written a letter to my brother, listened to some music, and had some tea. Oh I've also read about my friend's new baby in Canada. Nas and I have no thought for children of our own right now, but I'm glad of other people's (especially my friends') happiness.

So generally, a pretty okay Sunday.

on not being disappointed

The staff at Special Collections (aka paradise) are really quite amazing. I made a completely newbie error and didn't take down the bibliographic details of an eighteenth-century text I used for my research on the Marriage Act of 1753. With nothing more than the title I thought was correct - History of Parliamentary Debates and a page reference, they found it for me. Stellar. Of course, my thesis being handed in, I'll have to add the reference (which I had to remove) before it's hardbound - after I pass of course (please please please!!!).

Last night, being thoroughly bored with telly's meager offerings, we watched Solaris - the Soderbergh version, yes - I know - not the original Russian version (we'll get to it!). I remember this film being advertised and thought it looked absolutely rubbish. Turns out, the PR team for the film were absolutely rubbish. I recall it being billed as a kind of romance-suspense-(quasi) space horror - kind of Alien but clearly not. I feel rather cheated now because this is one of the best science fiction films I've ever seen - in fact, I'll dare to remove that stigmatizing genre category and just say this is one of the best films I've ever seen. I'm not overly fond of Soderbergh and I thought Traffic was pedantic and tortured; nor have I joined Hollywood's left wing activists on the Clooney bandwagon. I can't stand E.R. - never could and unfortunately, I have let that taint my opinion of Clooney's acting skills and artistic choices. Nasser has recently been reading Stanislaw Lem (The Cyberiad) and as I was shelving in the library earlier in the week, I stumbled on Solaris, and did some research - it's based (loosely) on Lem's story - which, intriguingly, still does not have an official English translation. Soderbergh and others are working from an English version of the French translation of the Polish. Having watched it, even this detail - this layering and distancing of the (English) audience is provocative and resonant.

This film is stunning in all respects - it is beautifully shot and directed; the roles are unbelievably difficult and carried off with aplomb by every actor. In spite of being connected to The Abyss, the special effects are minimal. The music is incredible. But - a warning if you are tempted to rush out and rent this - it isn't like anything you are expecting. More like 2001: A Space Odyssey than anything else I can think of, it did badly on general release - little wonder there: the dialogue is minimal, there is no explanation - no resolution - no conclusion; the acting is subdued and there is rarely more than one person on screen at a time. There are scenes with almost no background sound - unnerving and perfectly orchestrated. It is confusing ('challenging' claims one description of the film), non-linear, and not for a casual viewing experience.

BUT it repays thought and rewatching and leaves that lovely lingering sense of new ideas and larger horizons - in my mind at least.

Eating the animate alphabet

In the world of dull dinners - and I've fallen into a funk, creatively; meaning I'll have to go through my immense collection of cookbooks for inspiration soon - this intrigues me. His project, as he says, is to eat his way through the alphabet - in a carnivorous fashion (apologies to my vegetarian friends). Of course, for a vegetarian, this would be far too easy - but, off the top of my head, I would stall out after beef, chicken, fish, and lamb (sheep?) - unless I got to count different breeds (Angus, Highland...um...bantam chickens? mutton and lamb?). He starts with 'ants'. I'll keep reading.

And of course, in my daily trawl of the online newspapers, I couldn't resist clicking here. It's the new exhibit at the Barbican and I will definitely be checking it out - with much glee - next time I'm in London...

newspapers...sometimes, aside from the news-like bits, they're okay.

To give thanks

It's Thanksgiving again - not that there is any sign of it here in Leeds: no children still out, relishing the prospect of a day off school, no television specials, no national shortage of brightly coloured construction paper - nor any flocks of paper turkeys, or inedible but lush paper cornucopias. I don't think my neighbours have given much thought to the pilgrims; there aren't many leaves scattered artistically about the streets - but when I was walking home from work tonight, I caught that smoky, earthy tang in the air and remembered - it's Thanksgiving!

Okay, that might have been mostly for dramatic effect. I might have remembered it before the poetic moment of the gloaming. Betraying my preparation, behind me in the kitchen, we have a most beautiful fore-rib of beef from the best butcher in Leeds - fresh from the farmers' market. Not to mention sprouts still on the stalk - potatoes roasting in the oven - huge flat mushrooms...It's not very traditional - but it'll do. Finding turkey in England anytime before Christmas is a chore anyway.

I'm reading about the Early Modern Period right now - a fantastic book by Julian Yates called Object Lessons from the English Renaissance. I'm thinking of it right now because it opens with a reflection on Derrida - "or was it Rabbi Hillel" - who says that the only true giving must be done in isolation, without announcement or acknowledgment. 'Thank you' or the reciprocated exchange we're so used to isn't real giving at all - it's just that: exchange. True giving must be an end - not a circle or a ripple or any other corny Hollywood plot engine. So what about giving thanks? What does that mean? - Aside from screwing up my face like a kid's - concentrating fiercely on somehow manifesting that source of all my happiness in order that I might present my thanks like so many heartfelt art-class projects.

I don't know the answer to this. But I like to think that there is something deliberate in the thanks given in homes all over Canada today. And maybe that is what I like about Thanksgiving - the only holiday named with a verb - and a gerund! It's lovely and continuous - everything about it resonates: why does everyone sit down for dinner? Thanksgiving! Why do we get a day extra of rest? Thanksgiving! Perhaps, in a genius bit of soft propaganda, whoever came up with it realised that if you say something enough - repeat it enough times - it can be true (a positive spin on it can become meaningless). The sheer number of times 'thanks' must be repeated on telly, and radio, in print and in conversation all building up to some grand and polyphonic grace.

So I give thanks alone and quietly and loudly and in company. Giving without acknowledgment is too cold and martyr-like for me. I'd rather the exchange - it feels messier and more real. And it's time for dinner.

It's good to be king

At least, if you are Jonathan Rhys Meyers and only playing Henry VIII in BBC 2's new costume drama, The Tudors. It's a Friday night - I'm not going out - I'm hooked. Bowl of popcorn, soda pop, what Nasser lovingly (I'm sure) refers to as my 'ghetto pants' - bright blue velour leisure pants (that's the North American use of 'pants' BTW)... I may or may not have tea and biscuits.

Telly remains distressingly black or white in terms of quality. Even the siren calls (literally) of Law & Order hold little allure anymore...oh sure, they're always on but more often than not I'll flip through books with more interest. It's more background drama than captivating, must-see TV. Particuarly as the new series features a depressingly thick-set, older and grittier but no more humourous Chris Noth. And his sidekick? Annabella Sciorra - looking far too good to really be a cop. Oh Briscoe... we hardly knew you.

Of course, then there is Heroes.

Oh golden hours of telly watching in the true spirit of children! Bums to the edge of the seats - no talking during ad-breaks - mad dashes for the loo before and after that tell-tale eclipse flashes across the screen...Heated debates over motivations, twists, who has the best power (Hiro, obviously). Even my friend who swears up and down that she doesn't like sci-fi/fantasy is a fan.

I love it.

***

The Tudors was interesting - more for the (as my friend writes) smouldering!JRM action than any particular plot twists. Pretty boys in pretty clothes. Good enough for my Friday night in!

I made very late dinner - we went for a monthly shop and found our store stocked with Porkinson's sausages - aside from our farmers' market and the local Co-op range of British certified sausages, Porkinson's are the only brand-name bangers we'll buy. I'm disappointed that they mainly supply Tesco's.

Work this weekend - but the farmers' market to look forward to on Sunday. Our new project is cassoulet for Christmas. We have the confit makings; now need an astonishing array of pig products. Nasser is accusing me of returning to my 'sandwich blog'...

Hello Blog-world!

I shouldn't jinx myself: my thesis is handed in - not finished. My viva (defense) isn't until December. While leaves me loads of time to freak out, become super-stressed, and decide to go into middle-management at the bank.

Or I could make a start on the stack of reading on my desk - things that I mentioned briefly in the thesis, or in my bibliography that I really should read before defending! Particularly a book by my internal examiner and an article by my external examiner. Plus, teaching has started and I'm tutoring two hours of Renaissance Literature - luckily for me, my groups are sharp - the sharpest I've had. Or do I say that every year? Well, it's better than the news we get every year that kids are getting stupider and uni easier (or am I lowering my expectations already?!).

Today, they were bang-on. A blessing as I'm a bit poorly with a horrid cold - I knew I'd get ill as soon as I handed in. Work was lovely - I've never had a job where I actually get sick leave. It's all very grown up. Anyway - my classes - tackled formal crit and thematic discussions like pros. Next week - Hamlet. I'm really looking forward to teaching it - particularly as one of my students has never read it or seen it before. Imagine. I wish I was in her position in some ways. One thing about finishing a truly great book - you never get that same feeling again. Not that Hamlet is my favourite - and that reminds me that I want them to read some of Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead - my personal favourite is King Lear or MacBeth. But I think Hamlet fits the module - they knocked off The Spanish Tragedy today - and maybe the age. Hamlet is a young person's tragedy in many ways. MacBeth the middle-aged tragedy and Lear the old-age tragedy. I'm sure I've not just come up with that!

My friend, who is a Renaissance scholar, and I were discussing the Renaissance at a party on the weekend. It's a facinating period of study - seriously. Not, of course, as facinating as the Enlightenment but a close second. I might even put it before the late Victorian on my list. I'm trying to get my students to appreciate how Renaissance we still are. Religious strife, global warfare, suspicion at home, security, individual versus society... violence, duplicity, forgery... It's all there.

September flew by. It really did. I can't believe I've submitted my final student project. It is scary - a lot scary. And terrifyingly, amazingly, exciting. I've already got my next project bubbling away - it'll start with a paper at BSECS (assuming I am accepted). I have to start and finish a research assistant application tomorrow - at the National Archives in London. It sounds amazing - tho it is with a History Department rather than English. But must start playing the game I suppose. Then I've got chopping up my thesis into articles for publishing...and undoubtedly something else will come along. Life is busy - and very very good.

3...2...1...

And I'm back in the room.

Sorry.

Much better now!

Full-on panic

This is NOT the time to suffer from writer's block...and yet, here I am, sitting for the fifth hour in a ROW in front of my computer monitor which is showing me the product of the afternoon's work. Namely, three sentences that I have re-arranged, rephrased, and recycled for five hours.

I have found 7 different quotations - ranging from Edward Coke to Carole Pateman. Have re-arranged them at the beginning of this chapter chronologically, thematically, and alphabetically. I have started with 'put simply' - and stopped there. I have returned to my notes. I have used the work 'mythopoetic' - correctly! - in the first sentence. And 'hermeneutic' in the second. I have skimmed paragraphs from my finished chapters. I have thought seriously about starting and finishing my introduction with 'please turn the page'. I have considered slamming my hand in the door to provide an excuse for an extension. I have curled up on the floor of my office and tried to have a hysterical fit.

I've also tried coffee.

I'm still staring at those three sentences. And the longer I stare, the less sense they make. I spent yesterday afternoon moving my things from my library office to my teaching office - conveniently, the library is closed this weekend until Wednesday. You'd think no body worked around here! Now I've moved from my teaching office into the PG cluster. Still nothing. But it is warmer.

Surely, I'm getting warmer.

the headlines today

I thought I'd read the Guardian today while working at the library to take my mind off of my thesis. I really shouldn't have - haedlines today:

[Gordon] Brown condemns 'henious' killing of 11-year old boy
WHO predicts more global epidemics
Texas executes 400th inmate in 25 years
Three held after street shootout

And my personal favourite - the one that made me seek out alternative news sources: Hotel Katajanokka, Helsinki - a prison-themed hotel.

So I typed 'good news' into Google - and waded through the Christian and gospel sites for awhile. Then I found the Good News Network International. It's a bit cheesy - but isn't anything happy just a bit cheesy? and isn't that just a reaction stemming from cynicism and bitterness - bred of reading too much 'news'. I mean I suppose I'm just used to shaking my head at the newspaper - I don't even read the stories anymore, generally I can just see the paper and shake my head at the stupidity, ingratidude, brutality, and short-sightedness of 'the world'.

And then I found The Happiness Project. And I got even more cynical - and jaded - and ready to find fault.

But I really like it. It's funny. It's silly in many ways and it's neither breath-takingly new or original. But then, happiness isn't either, I suppose. And the really neat thing about happiness is that it doesn't care if you are miserable. It's happy. Nothing like a resolutely chipper attitude to just put the finishing touches on a foul mood, right?

Being happy takes resolution though. Finding good news takes time and some digging. Getting used to reading and hearing good news - that takes even longer, I find. But for some reason, there is a cultural attitude that happiness is slightly embarassing. I mean, we're all supposed to want 'happiness' - we (in the West anyway) spend a fortune on the merest whiff of happiness: hair products, clothing, food, vacations, gadgets, gear...pills, self-help, 'happiness coaches'. I'm pretty sure I've gone on before about the pressure such a concept of happiness can exert - if we're not happy (happy, mind you, not merely content), we're failures somehow. But being a failure is always easier than 'winning'; it's much easier to be miserable because it requires nothing - as I say, don't even open the paper, just start the daily mutters. Happiness gets lumped in with dippy smiles, 'sunshine, rainbows, and lollipops', pastel colours, and some kind of new age, soft-edges spirituality. It's easy to kill that by congratulating myself on my irresolute ability to see the real - to cut through the crap - to take it on the chin.

I think I'll find a new newspaper. Here for you, reader, I present another alternative, or supplemental, media: Positive News. Here's to a balanced breakfast.

And after all that

...Fab was closed. So we didn't go dancing - I still looked great. We ended up back at ours with pizza and wine until wee hours.

Now there is a steak seasoned and waiting for the grill, potatoes for mash, green salad, a swiss roll for afters...and friends on their way. Farmers' market provides so well. There was an article in The Observer food monthly on freeganism again - there was one about a year and a half ago (I'm sure you can do this in Canada as well, but I've noticed the cycle of topics in the weekend supplements). I love this movement - and 'freecycling' as well - Go, dear reader, read the article. I'll get back later - I just can't think of anything else right now...

Gone dancin'

So we're gearing up to go dancing tonight. I understand that in some people's lives this is a common occurence that doesn't bring on the slightly awkward teenage fluttery feeling of going properly 'out'. But to me, dancing has all of the potential for disaster as a blind date but without the benefit of being seated most of the time. It's not that I'm sedentary - okay, actually, I am pretty sedentary. I do run. I will play frisbee in the park or get down to some serious back-breaking work in the garden. But enjoying time with friends and a delicious drink, to me, has never really included throwing myself about the dancefloor. Likely because I'm just not so graceful up there. Seriously, those few years of dance lessons had absolutely no impact on my ability to co-ordinate arms and legs in any approximation of 'dancing'. I vaguely recall 'dancing' during my undergrad in Kingston - but dancing in Kingston in the 1990s involved a lot of swaying and arm-work with little actual movement (usually because of a packed dance floor) - a kind of variation on the white-man-shuffle. It was a bit ethnic, a bit hippie, and, when sufficient units of alcohol were consumed, definitely alluring...I think.

Of course, we're going to the Fab Cafe - which isn't even quite in the city. It's a film and television themed club and is honestly quite relaxed and definitely (decor-wise) stuck somewhere between the 1960s and the 1980's idea of the 1960s. Which is handy as my dancing is firmly stuck somewhere in the 1980s.

I'm thinking of wearing sequins. But I'm remembering that the last time I wore my sequined top, I'd overestimated how 'willowy' my frame was and cut my under-upper-arms to shreds on my shirt. I think I used to have the kind of wardrobe that might indicate that I went out dancing regularly - oh my gold and silver lame shirts...red velvet pants...black shiny pants that required me to lie down to zip them up...

Anyway, I'm just milking the situation really. It'll be great. I should take pictures. At least that way, there won't be any pictures of me.

What started off as a description of my weekend and became this...

Just back from another London-break - had a blast as usual. This time, more friends from Canada were over, crossing paths on their various travels. Though I left my jogging gear at home, I don't feel too bad about it as we must've walked for at least 5 hours each day. Our wonderful and generous friend living in London was her wonderful and generous self - putting up with four different house-guests (two of them family!) in two schedules...

On Sunday we got slightly lost around the East End but eventually found our way back to something recognisable - in this case the Square Mile. Monday, my friend and I played at being wealthy and walked through Knightbridge - had gelato at Harrods and lunch in Kensington Gardens. Harrods was fun - in that kind of peering into another world kind of fun - the world of £110/kg morrels and Bvlgari watches... I even secretly kept an eye out for celebrities... (didn't see anyone but in truth, I'm bad with faces...).

Two of our friends were on their way to Poland - which is my introduction to why we went to the Imperial War Museum. The Holocaust exhibit seemed like an appropriate testing ground for her reaction to Auschwitz - though I suppose no safe and sterile exhibit, regardless of how well done, could match seeing the actual place. Nonetheless, it was a very moving experience - okay, I was glad of the low lighting - though mine weren't the only strategic coughs and throat clearings. It's always funny to walk out of exhibits like that back into the rest of the museum with its bright lights, white walls, and helpful employees. Particularly jarring I think when the first thing you are confronted with is more guns, tanks, fighter planes, and replica missiles. But of course, these are the weapons of the good guys...

It was interesting (maybe only to me) - one of the quotes evocatively displayed in the Holocaust exhibit was 'all it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing'. I hate that quotation. I really really do. To paraphrase Pilate, what is 'good'? Who are these good men? What is the 'evil' they will protect me from? Of course, we're expected to digest these 'wise sayings' like pablum - the good men are good and they are so because they are good; evil, concomitantly, is evil and it is so because it is evil. The problem as I see it - and I also recognize the problematically reductive potential of this argument - is that 'evil' and 'good' are just words we use to make monsters and heroes. Quite frankly, anyone convinced of their own righteousness and the manifest destiny of that righteousness is someone to run from - quickly. Though I suppose my problem is that such comments are generally deployed in the service of some 'common good'. Which isn't to say that I'm advocating that we all sit down and let evil get on with it over my particular semantic tics. It's just frustrating: these wise old sayings that we parrot at each other as though they have any meaning - any applicability; as though we can see evil and know it as always that which is not us.

Ooh I can hear it...'come on, everyone knows what it means...yer over-analysing again'- but does everyone know? Really? Cause come on, evil doesn't start off all blustery and scary, red smoke and heat, horns an' all - good doesn't pop out of the egg all shiny and strong. It just too binary - too simple.

Although, thinking about it - I kinda like it as it was used in that particular exhibit. Because I think it was accusatory - challenging - Not the smug and always already remorseful, exculpatory declaration of some politician or prelate - something more desperate and powerful: not 'all it takes blah blah blah' but 'good men did nothing and evil flourished here and here and here'. Which is, I think, more accurate because it is specific - no one can combat EVIL on some abstract plane. Looking at those awful pictures, I didn't see EVIL - just people. If we're all waiting for EVIL to announce itself, we're not going to get far as 'good men'. It's also interestingly provocative in that particular situation because the viewer there in that museum is always 'good' - this is how people think of themselves, right? Or at least, this is how we're supposed to think of ourselves - we're basically good. Maybe not great - not saints, but really deep down, we're alright. But to be confronted with that familiar quotation in that place - in a dark room surrounded by those particularly present images of suffering that cannot be comforted - suddenly that darkness and murkiness seep into things - between words and intentions. To be a viewer on this particular history, to be outside, confronted with things that cannot be changed - that have not changed (Stalin in Russia, Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, Rwanda...) - is always to wonder what would I have done? and never be satisfied.

***

I fear than I'm falling into soapboxing on this blog...

It was so great to see my family friends - though I find it funny sometimes how conflicted I get about my role with them. I've known them both since they were born and now they are beautiful, kind, generous, and intelligent young women - and I sometimes get stuck acting like a 'big sister' of the most annoying sort when all I really want to do is be their friend. This is why I generally think myself unfit for motherhood - I'm a bit of a control freak. I'm terrified of something hurting the people I love - when my brother came to visit and went to Whitby by himself for a night, I spent a good deal of time worrying - not about his physical safety but his psychological safety: what if someone was rude to him? What if they hurt his feelings? What if he felt alone or scared or upset? Keeping in mind my brother was 23, over 6 feet, and more travelled than I am... But there it is. Sometimes I just feel too big - like I'm taking up too much space, being too agressive, too prescriptive - all the things I hate when I see them in other people.

Huh.

I need to change that.

And all that was to say - I had a great weekend in London. And I want to say thank you to Marina and Micaela and Jim - I am rested and well-fed - spiritually and physically. And it's nice to have friends who love me anyway... cause I'm alright really!

We are a police state

I've always thought there was something rather pretentious in the title of Paul Langford's A Polite and Commercial People. It seems to conjure that sepia-tinted image of the upstanding middle-class entrepreneur, gruff, apologetic, full of integrity, and always slightly embarassed. Polite commerciality...harumph, as my friend would say (expostulate? well, visualise in writing anyway). Is there such a thing?

This week will see another clash between the police and environmental activists: it's the second Camp for Climate Action. It's becoming, increasingly, a question of when not if something will happen: all sides holding their breath for the next clash, all media posed for the next martyr.

All of my sympathies are with Climate Action and the protestors. British police have been given permission to use 'terror laws' to "deal robustly" with any 'threat' to Heathrow. This includes indiscriminate use of 'stop and search', holding suspects without charge, searching people's homes... Why? And this I love: 'confrontations threaten to bring major delays to the already overstretched airport'. (Guardian, Saturday 11 August)

That. Is. Disgusting. An airport is not a cause.

(Also disgusting me right now is the rude little scally I'm having to deal with at the library. My mother-in-law wants us to have children - if I could bottle this one just to show anyone who asks me That Question again, I would. But I digress...)

We need, and I speak socially and politically, to redress this bifucation between protestors and protectors. I'm swayed by Curtis White's latest essay in Harper's Magazine: 'The Idols of Environmentalism'. Not entirely pursuaded, mind you, but convinced that he is right in essence. We need to replace the language of confrontation, of war, of terrorism with what he calls a 'language of care'. To do this is to begin to heal the rift not between multinational CEO and frontline activist - both of whom are little more than cartoon figures (Curis White) - but between protestor and protector. Not to do this - to fear the enemies and impossibilities we construct out of language, the monsters we create in order to have something to flee - is to risk falling irretrievably into the chasms of 'us' and 'them'.

And if this is a warning - I've no intention of turning prophet - then it is most clearly to the government that dares to separate itself from the people. Continuing to turn us into them -they will have something to fear. And this is not to invoke the WWII piece - moving though it is - I do not mean that 'we' (who? We who care.) should stand up now for fear that 'when they come for us, there will be no one left' but to turn that address around: one day, we will come calling for the government - we will demand accountability, responsibility, our rights - and there will be no one to stop us.

blue skies

Just for the record: it's been absolutely gorgeous outside for a whole week. The garden actually needed watering - for the first time in nearly two months. I needed my sunglasses yesterday cause my eyes hurt from the glare of the sunshine off of the pavement.

I love the British summer - it's so rare that I feel I must appreciate it fully while it lasts.

Justifying my collection of cookbooks

Now I am just procrastinating. It's a lovely day outside, the house is clean, dishes done, laundry laundering... I've managed to read the first chapter in the new book by my external examiner. I'm debating going up to the Bollywood film in an hour.

And as always happens when I'm looking for distraction, I've started pulling down my cookbooks and feasting on imaginary dinners. I'm quite as good as Peter Pan at eating pretend food. And I'm quite happy with my collection these days. While I am still seduced by the gastro-porn style of food writing - more pictures than text - I'm more and more attracted to good writing. Our last purchase - a lucky find in the Oxfam shop in the city - was Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook. For the record, and because I'm curious, the entire collection is as follows:

How to Eat - Nigella Lawson
Larousse Gastronomique
The Kitchen Diaries - Nigel Slater
New Food Fast - Donna Hay
The New Cook - Donna Hay
German Cooking Today - Dr. Oetker
The Family Cookbook - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
The Silver Spoon
The River Cottage Year - Hugh Fearnley - Whittingstall
Cooking from an Italian Garden
The Vegetarian Chef
Lighten Up
Best Recipes: German Cooking and Baking - Dr. Oetker
Soup - Sandler and Acton
Curries and Indian Foods - Linda Fraser
Fondue - Loraine Turner
various old Canadian Living magazines
my ratty old spiral notebook with recipes from various people and sources

Huh. Written out like that, I do have rather a lot of cookbooks. I think I left some in Canada as well. I think I likely read them more than actually use them on any kind of daily basis - which isn't to say that I never use them. Lawson and Slater I just enjoy reading - hell, I've taken both to bed with me in the hopes of inspiring some flights of dreamy gastronomy. My collection does run the gamut from straightforward food preparation (German Cooking Today and The Silver Spoon tie for the most stripped down writing) to philosophical treatises on eating ethically (Slater) or the wickedly onanistic pleasures of cooking for one's self (Lawson).

Is feeding the body feeding the soul? I have no idea. But I love food - I love preparing it, I love feeding people (a genetic predisposition - thanks gran!), and I love eating. But not just the mechanics of eating, the whole socio-cultural ritual of the thing. On my own, food simply doesn't taste quite as good or as satisfying than when taken in good company. I'm fascinated by table manners, by eating disorders, by images of consumption and expulsion - maybe it's a Catholic thing? How we devour our world, are devoured by our world - by each other. We are fed with ideas, eat up words, get 'fed up', are glutted by consumer culture, digest bad news, sink our teeth into new things, worry at something 'like a dog with a bone', lap up information... We are part of a body - we're taught in Catholic school that God has laid a feast for us - we obsess about the Last Supper - we play games of describing our perfect 'last meal'. Food is desire; it signals belonging and strangeness, continuity and change. It is, in the end, all that we are.

Chew on that.

Pride

There are few things more annoying (or embarassing) than switching handbags, leaving the house, getting to a destination, and realising that the handbag smells of cat pee.

So I emptied it, distributed my belongings amongst friends, and threw out the bag. Which was a shame - it served me well. Luckily, it was an older bag that I mostly use for travelling and such. Nonetheless, a practical, versatile purse - ah, Roots bag, you will be missed...

Last night me and my friend saw Grow Your Own - it's set on allotments. It's completely PG and so uplifting that I think I floated to the pub on a cloud of general well-being and satisfaction with humanity in general (or at least, that part of humanity that recognises the awesome personal and community healing power of allotments). Then another group of us went into the city to celebrate Leeds Pride 2007. That morning, Nas and I had caught the parade as we came home from the the farmers' market. A friend's band played the main event at a bar down by the river. I always forget how lovely Leeds can be down there. Anyway, the band was great - our friend rocked out on the keyboard and played some mighty mighty power chords. We danced, and swayed, and cheered, and a generally, again, felt pretty at home and at peace with the world.

The more I think about it, the more I realise what a great weekend it was. On Saturday night, we went into Ilkley to celebrate a birthday - with much pizza, wine, good beer and better conversation (and we didn't manage to empty the restaurant like last time!). Sunday morning we went for a long run with the Fleet, followed by the farmers' market, then the movie, then the band. Tonight, we're going to watch some Bollywood - cheaper and likely healthier than a beer at the end of the day! We are so unbelievably fortunate to be part of this brilliant, creative, generous group of friends. I suppose everyone thinks their gang is the coolest - but really, ours is. And damn, we're a sexy bunch too.

Play

My supervisor has just returned my fourth chapter - saying that is is absolutely fine and that the argument is logically and clearly presented! I didn't realise how hard I had worked on it until I heard that. For 7 of my 11 years in HE, I worked very little. I'll admit it - I've got skills and a head for literature. But I never worked like I have for this thesis. Funnily enough, I've never enjoyed studies more. A line from Donna Tartt's The Secret History always comes back to me when I'm feeling most optimistic and fortunate about my chosen career. Asked by the erstwhile narrator how much work he requires, the slightly creepy, very eccentric professor explains that he doesn't consider what he does as 'work': it is 'the most glorious kind of play'. Today, I agree.

Listening to: The Goldberg Variations by J.S. Bach, played by Glenn Gould

No matter how many times I hear this recording, I am struck every single time by the sheer brilliance of Gould. And I my very favourite part is listening to him hum and sing along to his own playing. It feels like such a very embodied performance, perhaps because I can hear his voice rather than the disembodied playing of a 'perfect' recording. Of course, now, it's a disembodied voice. Which begs the question, can the body be captured? Does it last? Is there part of Gould preserved in this recording? The music implies his hands; his voice implies much more.

And now I am thinking of my very favourite ever writing by Mary Wollstonecraft, from Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway: 'Life! What art thou? Where goes this breath? this I, so much alive? In what element will it mix, giving or receiving fresh energy? What will break the enchantment of animation?'

Luckily, I'm working on Wollstonecraft today, so I can just keep thinking about her...

Passports

So my passport will expire in January. According to travel regulations, this means that I cannot travel anywhere between now and then without a new passport. So really, a passport is valid for 4 1/2 years, not five. At any rate, this wasn't so much of a problem - the Canadian High Embassy here in the UK has a decent turn-around time; I've got all the forms and such...and then... the Guarantor problem hit me full on.

I have met wonderful people in Leeds - none of them, it transpires, are qualified to back up my claim that I am who I am. I'm down to spending £70 at the notary public's office or asking my dentist (who may try to charge me more...). Using the notary public would make that section of the form worth more than the entire passport. The cheek!

The sun has finally returned to this island - It's glorious outside. We helped a friend move house on Saturday and far from the rain we were dreading, it was actually hot and sunny. I drove for the first time in England as well! Only about 1/2 mile from the rental place to our friend's block of flats. It was exciting. And scary. And not necessarily something I'll try again in a hurry. I hadn't anticipated the difference of sitting on the other side of the vehicle in terms of having to negotiate the size and dimensions. It's one thing to work the stick with my left hand, to remember to look over my left shoulder to check behind - these things came pretty naturally. But having to remember that the bulk of the van was to my left...that was interesting. Luckily, another friend found the van much less intimidating than she imagined and so took over the driving responsibilities with native grace.

And as the sun is out - I'm off to the garden.

Filler

It's been a good while since I posted anything. I think spending all day in the library squeezing out writing puts a damper on doing more writing on my blog. Too much typing. And nothing very exciting has happened lately that I feel must be communicated.

Just writing writing and more writing - read, revise, read, revise... But it's coming together (I hope). I have a meeting with my supervisor on Monday - almost my last before handing in.

Other things that I have been up to:

- running up hills (much more difficult than running along the canal)
- contemplating working for a living
- contemplating how much council tax will take out of my paycheque come January
- trying to work out how to renew my passport and my visa in time for October
- hoping that the rain will ease off before everything in my garden rots on the vine
- reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I realised (again) this morning how little I am aware of the world outside my library office. It's kind of ridiculous. I know I can read newspapers online but I miss the morning clutter of the breakfast table with tea, food, and newspapers.

It's very nearly August.

personal best

There are few better ways to start the day than breaking a personal record. Particularly if said day is looking rather dull in all other ways.

Yesterday it rained again from sun-up to sun-down - it would have been a most depressing day but for a trip to The Deep in Hull. We did mean to actually go into Hull as well - but it's rather depressing in the best of weather. Except for the whaling museum in the city centre (next time) which is pretty cool as they have whale skeletons and things like that. I can see why shrinks have fish tanks in their offices - it's very relaxing. But for the over-sugared, just-started-school-holidays, children, it would be very easy to sit by the tank and fall asleep.

***
Have just come home from a friend's house absolutely stuffed full of pizza and wine... The sun even came out for our gathering - so we immediately ran outside to take full advantage of the last precious hours of sunlight. Then we watched Doctor Who. Mmm...pizza. Nasser actually made pizza dough so's I could impress all my friends. What a guy.

Laila is having a mild freak-out session on the sofa. It's nice to be home.

Chapter 4

Have finally - and just at the end of the day - figured out a new way into my fourth chapter. As it is the chapter I submitted for my upgrade - all those years ago - it's absolutely crap as it stands. I didn't realise this until the last time I read it all the way through, or, yesterday. Wow it's some of the worst writing I've ever produced and I say that as an English student of some 10 years experience in writing crappy, last-minute essays. Thankfully, I still have time to make it better.

I'm grateful now that I finally read - and understood some of - Jacques Derrida. Something I never thought I'd say after spending a miserable half-term back in the fourth year of my undergrad degree trying, unsuccessfully, to get him through my head. I'd always say - and still will - that my weakness is critical theory. My strength is close reading; I can go on for pages with a close reading. Tying it firmly to theory...not so skilled. Unlike Nas, who has mad theory skillz.

The weather on our morning run was almost uncomfortably muggy. Even the usual denizens of the canal seemed rather out of sorts. We startled the heron (as usual) who flew sluggishly and peevishly to the opposite bank; the moorhens ran with less energy - everything seemed a bit dragged down - it felt like an oil painting that the artist, dissatisfied, had distractedly wiped with a cloth. I have got to work on my metaphors - I know this. Enjoy the rough rendering for now.

News unfit for print

In the news today - Bored Teenagers. Shockingly, someone has figured out that teenagers are bored. Yup. Apparently, the BBC has uncovered a critical mass of bored teenagers. This is new - this is newsworthy. Teenagers are bored; they can't think of anything to do. What do they want to do? In a streetside interview with a representative: 'I dunno'. Whose responsibility is it, according to the BBC, to provide something constantly exciting for these poor souls? Yes - the government's. We must launch a government initiative into solving the boredom of teenagers. Because teenage ennui leads to ... you guessed it: crime.

Yesterday, of course, 'crime' was caused by something entirely different - wait - say it with me - 'the breakdown of the family'. A conservative think-tank has pitched the idea of 'marriage tax breaks' as part of a huge 200+ idea package. Married couples would receive about £20 per week - provided that one of them gave up employment to stay home with the kids (who then, would not grow up to be criminals). BTW, that means that childcare - including education, feeding, 'parenting' - is worth £20/week. That amount would not pay for childminding services for half a day. AND considering the fact that women's wages still lag behind men's, which employed parent will be the one to give up their salary? What brings this on, you say? Political-moral panic over rising divorce rates - broken homes - single-parent families - bored children. Where is it going? Crime.

I will become incoherent and raving if I think on this too long - marriage does not a family make. Marriage does not ensure that children are healthy, well-educated, raised with confidence in themselves and their place in the world. Marriage is a half-hour exchange of words - a legal fiction of 'binding contract'. It is nothing - it is less than nothing. It means nothing outside of two people, the decisions they make to share their lives with each other, and the people whom they choose to include in their lives. Not getting married - like not having children - is not an avoidance of responsibility: it is a choice every bit as valid and rational.

Here's the thing - marriage is not a political issue. The government has no place in the bedrooms of the nation. Teenage boredom is not a political issue either.

So according to the BBC, we've got a nation of people who can't think of anything to do and can't stick with something when they've got it. And this, - not the failing health care system, not the state of schools, education, or unemployment, not the environment, not the war that we are losing, not racism, homophobia, sexism and every other prejudice that lives and breathes on our streets - THIS is worth time and consideration.

Meringues

I have spent the last week, on and off, trying to make meringues (as I mentioned, rather self-righteously, in a previous post). I went through half a dozen egg whites and most of my precious caster sugar in my attempts. For something 'dead easy', I made a mess of it twice. See I've got this nostalgia for meringues - when I was little, Nonna used to make these gorgeous meringue-and-chocolate cookies at Christmas. They were the culinary highlight (for me) in a sumptuous Christmas dinner. I remember the Christmas after she died they weren't there on the table and I missed them and I missed her.

Now I can make them myself - the trick is beating the egg whites and sugar far longer than I thought necessary.

I remember one summer when my friend was away, with her family, on a summer holiday. I'd gone up to their house to check on their cat, Gables, the mail, the house in general - as you do. I'd biked up the hill and it was a hot day - I was planning on biking back home straight away. But when I got there, Nonna was there, staying at their place while they were gone. I don't know how old I was - young, young enough to feel that I was doing something very responsible and grown up in checking on their house. Nonna had been a fixture of my life but I don't think we had ever talked, like two people, rather than grandmother and small child. She invited me in, had made lemonade or iced-tea, and we sat outside and talked. And she told me about moving to Canada, and her husband, and my friend's mum growing up; about music and food; and I talked about school and my bike, soccer, and my friend (her granddaughter). The sun was hot but we sat out on the stone patio under the shade from a big ol' maple tree that held up our treehouse. It's strange that I don't remember more, I suppose - just flashes that sometimes I think might be from a dream. But it's one of my favourite memories.

Time check

Something cataclysmic clearly happened at the library one day between 7.10 and 7.15 - all the clocks have stopped. Luckily my basement office has a window and I can chart the shadows on the wall opposite (when it is sunny). It's also possible I have been watching too many re-runs of The X-Files. Last night's episode found our hero doggedly trying to defend his theory of time travel in a suspicious murder case involving cyrogenics and spontaneous human combustion. A heady mix I'd say.

Time travel has to be one of the most difficult/cop-out writing techniques EVER. Terminator might be one example in which it actually works - though if I think too hard about that film (and yes, ocassionally I do) it falls apart. My favourite theory regarding it is one suggested by Darryl Jones: John Connor (who we don't actually meet until T2) is his own father - that would make Kyle Reese actually John Connor from the future. 'JC' - see - 'JC' - another example of someone who is, for different reasons, his own father... Yeah...well, something has to distract me from the 18th century and I find sci-fi a nice antidote.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (No.3) has one of the sloppiest examples of time-travel-writing I've seen - if, as we are supposed to believe, time travel is possible, shouldn't someone have gone back and stopped Voldemort in the first place? I mean, if it's plausible that wanting to take too many classes is a good enough reason to use a time travel device, surely 'saving the world' would rate some consideration? Or, peradventure, to save poor Cedric Diggory at the end of number 4?

Motivation to start yet another chapter of revisions is obviously faltering...

aye, mother earth

July 1 was international action for climate change 'day' - I say 'day' with inflections since, of course, the action taken should extend for far longer than one day. I should, here, direct you here - as it's provided us with some good tips. And here, one of the sites set up by a friend, who has a kind of ambition and uncompromising dedication that are unbelievably inspiring.

Is this the part where I make my excuses? Yes and no. We try our damn'dest to be green - maybe it's easier when the high street's siren call doesn't set the non-existent money jingling in our purses (did that make sense?). Of course, 'green' is the new black - but we've got to be a bit more grassroots on student budgets. We can't afford a lot of officially 'green' products though we've decided to switch to Ecover cleaning products and have stopped using washing detergent in the machine. Alas, our ancient clothes dryer doesn't have a temperature control - everything gets the 90-degree blast - and our damp problem means air drying inside either makes everything slick or makes the clothing stink. We don't have a car; we can't afford vacations; we can afford, within our little budget, to make informed decisions.

What I really wanted to say was that our fridge is full of food we made ourselves. The twice-monthly farmer's market in the city is fantastic inspiration. On Sunday we had locally-sourced, organic beef - the best I've ever had. Our allotment has given us potatoes and salad today. Nasser made a whole jar of homemade mayonnaise - and I actually used up the leftover egg whites, to make meringues (and yes, with fair-trade sugar).

I'm not sure why I started this post with international climate change. I suppose what I'm more interested in is consumer power. So we've decided to see how long we can survive without buying clothing new. The charity shops here are really amazing - that plus wardrobe-swaps should have us kitted out for a while.

Now I'm a bit lost. I suppose that is what blogging is for though. Rambling. Self-congratulatory prose. Announcing the changes in days that would otherwise pass unnoticed.

Time time time (see what's become of me)

How did it get to be July so suddenly? And Tuesday? And after 6pm?

Countdown to submission of The Thesis is on - I've just handed two chapters over for yet another read by my amazing supervisor. Writing is going exceptionally well - I finally feel like I understand my project a little bit. Which is exciting. Staying in the library is considerably easier with the weather like this as well. The flooding has receded - but the rain keeps coming. Good for the garden!

It's been an exciting week in England - what with a new government, terror alerts at 'critical' (I don't know what this means, really), Wimbledon being rained out every half hour... Less prescient to the global community, but more important to me, are such events as finishing aforementioned two chapters, while keeping up the running and not losing my mind.

Doctor Who is, alas, finished for the season. I'm joining in the general grumbling that, while Kylie might be making a guest appearance, Martha (the Dr's latest companion) won't be back next season. Which doesn't start until Christmas... Alas. Back to re-runs of Scrubs and The X-Files (mysteriously on every night on Living) to take my mind off of the 18th century.

Wet blankets

It is, once again, tipping it down outside. This is getting a bit much - even for the north of England. I'm hoping this isn't a new trend: June as a 'rainy season'. I've been trying to wait out the heaviest rain to walk up to campus, but it doesn't seem to be working. I think even our house-cats are feeling the weather as they are more sluggish than usual.

Those of you who follow British politics will know that Gordon Brown gets the keys to no. 10 this week. I'm not sure what difference it will make - or how long Brown will last as PM. This article from MacLean's magazine, however, is not right - or rather it is too far right. Yes, the stats are correct I'm sure - but it amounts to a tacit support of David Cameron's Conservatives. It's a bit uncanny how much this feels like the situation Canada was in when Martin's Liberals were booted out - the scandal, the country described as going to the dogs in the popular press, the suddden about-face in politics and BANG we've got stephen-bloody-harper. I fear the same thing will happen here.

The one problem we don't have in this house is leaks - a fact I'm very glad of in this weather...

Those days...

Set the wrong alarm and missed my morning run - I feel especially stupid about that as it was a route that I suggested. And I have this nagging fear that the Fleet will simply think I've dogged out. THEN as I was leaping out of bed to get to my mobile, I stepped on my glasses, which Laila had knocked, with my bedtime-novel, to the floor. Luckily they are titanium - a matter of little force applied and they are mostly back in shape. I really should get new glasses. Will have to fill out new low-income application to NHS - will get to that today...

It's Open Day at the school today so the campus is absolutely rammed full of pre-university aged people (the worst kind - even below university students); my sacred library space trespassed continuously with boorish, messy, unfeeling candidates and their parents. Yes, I am being unfair. The campus has been so lovely this summer: quiet, peaceful, serene, -- academic. Suddenly, I'm reminded that I have to share it for 9 months of the year...!

London was fabulous - we managed to see 'most everything we wanted and much besides. And we saw this production of Othello at the Globe Theatre, met up with an old friend, and generally amused ourselves being tourists. Now it is really the grind - nearly July and only three months until I hand in The Thesis. Have switched external readers as the professor my supervisor initially picked wasn't available - but have found someone at last willing to read my little dissertation. I'm deliberately not thinking much past 30 September...

AND good news to make up for dreadful morning: it's a birthday-BBQ tonight! I'm hoping that the weather will hold up. It has been raining off and on for a week here in Yorkshire. There is some watery sunlight now - I'm willing it strength to see through the next bank of clouds. Our garden is blossoming like Eden, though I think I've learned something: fruit/veg plus loads and loads of rain makes for big swollen fruit/veg - but it's not sweet. The raspberries on our plot are gigantic this year, but when I picked a bowlful for pudding tonight, they were watery and sour. I've checked my books and apparently sunlight changes the starches to sugars... Simple chemistry I suppose - if they had explained chemistry with food in high-school, I'd have done much better I think. But see the bounty of our garden!