An Open Letter

to Stephen Harper, PM of Canada.

You are a disgrace. You are a dreadful leader and your policies on everything from the environment to Canadian detainees at Guantanamo Bay evince your self-centred, smug, arrogant worldview. You are a tireless sychophant, an opponent of women's rights, gay rights, and more interested in capitalistic expansion than in health care and humanitarian projects. Even when your complete insensitivity produces an almost-admirable effect, it is for the wrong reasons. I very nearly had to align myself with your apparent stand on the Beijing Olympics until I realised that your absence was blamed on scheduling conflicts. Some people might take a scheduling conflict and use it to make a stand; you've taken what could have been an admirable stand on human rights and the idiocy of the free-spending spree that is the Olympics and turned it once again into a petty, trite, and laughable day-planner malfunction.

The merest whiff of a media blackout in what was once a relatively shining example of democracy and liberty in the western world should have been enough to ensure your early political demise. Your continued presence as the national and international representative of my country makes me shudder at thoughts of returning to take up my career and live out my life under your reactionary, right-wing, short-sighted, militaristic, and archaic governance.

The world does not need another politician more interested in numbers than people, in the short-gain over the long-loss. We need leadership that demonstrates the best of the people being lead, not the worst - or even the lackluster mediocre. We worry that children lack respect, are more given to instant gratification, indifference, and apathy - yet we offer them examples of how these strategies seem to work at the highest level. You are the leader of what could be the brightest and best country in the world, gifted with wealth, health, beauty, and difference. You have squandered that opportunity.

I can only hope that the damage you do is minimal and repairable. And may you always itch in unreachable places.

'mad-crazy-blazing brilliant'

I hope one day something I write, wear, or do is described thusly. Though in my critical little heart, I know it sounds ridiculous. Nothing like superfluous adjectives and stacked superlatives to make a sincere appreciation/admiration tip over into possible parody of the same.

Anyway, I didn't like the first of this sequel series - or are they prequels? Or haven't they caught up to Burton's efforts anyway? Why are we still watching these? And what happened to Superman? Now there's a hero for the times. Batman. Honestly. If someone could read the psychology of the day from the heroes we regurgitate what would they think? Batman. Crushingly self-aware, paranoid, tortured, dark; - it's Dirty Harry with a gym-membership, a therapist, and a better gadget guy. Same vigilanteism - but for Brucey, it's a hobby; for Harry, it's a job (and therefore suspect - though I've always thought it rather funny that immense wealth is what puts Batman above suspicion).

Okay, so I haven't seen the film yet.

And that wasn't the point of sitting down to blog a bit...

Graduating from my PhD was by far the most rewarding. I think it was the hat. And it was the only graduation I've attended where I got to sit with a group of friends who were also graduating, go out for lunch with families in tow - all that fun stuff. Natually, since we had guests over, it rained for a week. But it was a really relaxing and nice, unrushed and calm visit with my parents.
*post silly picture here eventually*

moving and shifting

Our new flat feels like our first - well, maybe second but I'll get to that - real grown-up place to live. It is clean, bright, and furnished with some modicum of taste. I love it. Those visiting must, in the words of Po, might be 'blinded due to overexposure of pure awesomeness'. It is so great that I feel retroactively embarassed for having my brother and sister and parents over to our old, crappy, dark and dingey back-to-back terrace - a special kind of housing that I think pretty much explains the curmudgeonly-ness and occassionally downright miserable-ness of some Leodeans. The new place reminds me of our best place in Canada - the apartment in Windsor just a few blocks from the Ambassador Bridge. It was small but bright, with four massive windows, a kitchen with a table and a huge main room. So it's our second non-studenty home. I think we'll stay for awhile. Logan and Laila love it too - Laila discovered last night that she can travel much faster than Logan on the laminate floor, to the amusement of Nas and I. Logan routinely slides by doors and around corners. Getting Laila into her box at the old house - which, fair enough, had been her entire world - and to the new flat was very unpleasant. She hates her box and with the excitement of the move, all her familiar surroundings gone and two strangers blocking her escape routes, she was not a happy kitty. But we got her there in the end. Luckily, they both seem to have forgiven us the indignity and Logan was back sleeping on our bed last night.

The library is still unbelievably quiet.

Facebook has reached a level in my mind of too much information. I wonder how much of casual friendship (or whatever status is achieved by the action of 'friending') is based on deliberate or indifferent ignorance? Groups on FB are a source of interest to me: I don't know how much they actually accomplish (particularly the political interest groups) but they do reveal a lot about people. So I was kind of shocked to see friends who had joined (whatever level of affirmation that speaks to) a group demanding that Dr Morgantaler be stripped of his recent Order of Canada - particularly female friends. It is the same shock I feel when I discover female friends have changed their names upon getting married. Hey, to each her own and all that but seriously - it's like realising that someone actually thinks the world is flat, or the moon-landing was a government hoax, or the government invented AIDS -- or that feminism is a dinosaur; obsolete, slightly embarassing, and unnecessary. I especially love the defence that feminism is about the right to choose - a defence so brilliantly scripted - so apparently water-tight, so graciously 'pro-woman', that it deserves its own module in undergraduate law degrees - therefore, what a woman chooses is necessarily feminist. As though women spoke with one mind out of some homogenous common body. Anyway, sorry - this wasn't intended to be a discussion of feminism.

Right, too much information. Yes. It's a curious thing. I wonder often how I appear - what things about me might shock and how I might defend myself. I do think sometimes about my own contradictions and inconsistencies. I should probably be more generous with people.

Ski-DOOSH!

The weekend was really all that summer weekends can be: BBQ, matinee cinema, milkshakes, and just at the very last moment - sunshine!

Friday night we went into the city - a rare enough occurance any night let alone a Friday! - to enjoy some music and socialising at a friend's birthday. It rained, naturally enough! But the appearance of two friends who had disappeared into London this past year more than made up for it. Then Saturday we went to a BBQ - the rain held off - for more socialising (of the less raucous kind). I brough Pimm's and lemonade - instant BBQ success. We spent Sunday hungover... But dragged ourselves into the city to a matinee at the cinema - Kung Fu Panda: perfect rainy Sunday film-fodder. It was sticky sweet and cuddly but funny enough to keep us awake and entertained for the duration. I mean, A) panda (it is impossible to feel anything but gooey watching a panda - even a cartoon one) B) kung fu movie with feel-good message about knowing yourself etc etc etc C) PANDA! Then we came home and watched the penultimate Doctor Who ... no spoilers here - I have no idea what is going on. Though there is much speculation (and spoilers if you are sensitive to that kind of thing).

Then we woke up and decided to put everything we own in boxes. At least the hangover is gone! And tomorrow is Canada Day/Moving Day. And we have a shiny new flat. Bring on July - in which our heroic couple begin a new dawn in the magical land of 'Two Bedroomed Flat'...

That reminds me: I saw on telly the other night a new series of programs (I think it was for UK History channel?) called 'Real Heroes'. Which made me ponder. 'Real' heroes? Of course, everyone is a hero - I should apply for special status and funding for making it to work every afternoon in spite of an overwhelming natural inclination to sleep/find a beer garden/go to my allotment/take up possibly lucrative hobby (if only I had the time...!). I'm struggling against my nature here! This is the stuff of legend. I can spin it. So what, I ask, is a 'real' hero? Having done the standard opening volley into research (aka: google) I can safely say that in this case we are meant to be 'shocked' by the revelation that the 'real heroes' (in this case of WW2) aren't, in fact, the people we (apparently) think: nope, just yer average joe, unsung, unsought, unremarked. Given the fact that 'hero' is the watchword of post-9/11 media, I wonder if we would recognize Superman himself if he sprung from the pages of DC comics, in all his sincere, shiny, unreflective glory. Clark Kent - now he has a shot. But then, Superman is, well, super - kinda impaled by nominal determinism - by definition, he has to be heroic. So what to do with 'Real Heroes'?

It's a bit of a tired term is all. But it strikes me as odd, the use of that term everywhere - particularly because once applied, it becomes an act of agression to try to remove it. It sticks. Woe betide the cynic who dares suggest that someone isn't a hero - but by now, why bother - aren't we all heroes? Don't we all get to be special? Isn't everyone an individual, just like me?

5 is the number

Nasser and I have been married for five years today. In that time, we've moved across the ocean, started and finished our PhDs, lived in two different houses in one city, traveled, started growing our own veg, taken in two cats, found an amazing circle of people whom we count as friends and family - and kept every single one of our vows...oh, except the one about coffee cause now we drink tea!

My grandparents have been married 62 years this October. That makes our little time together lost in a vast sea of experience and living. My parents got married in 1972 - which means when they had me, they had been married for five years too.

At least once every 3/4 months someone asks me how I knew Nasser was 'the one'. Truth is, I didn't; I'm still not sure that I believe in 'one' person for everyone - cosmic pairs, yin-yang and all that rubbish. We both took a leap. The same leap someone takes in moving in with someone, in making that first gesture - a smile, a phone call, the first bridge across a chasm of pretended indifference. There are so many places to fall down and I am so lucky to have found Nasser - not 'someone like Nasser' - actually Nasser.

Five years - and I would live every moment again just to end here, in front of a screen 5,000 miles from where we started, Nasser snoozing on the sofa behind me, our small cat curled on the bookshelf; a moment and space of certainty.

Body, soul, and honest lies

Spent the weekend in our allotment - a reanimating and refreshing break for body and soul. Thanks to a combined effort - and the unflagging enthusiam and energy of one of our 'plot-mates' - our allotment is absolutely restorative; we should sell tickets - an afternoon of guaranteed relaxing, with the added bonus of nibbles straight from the plant. Very young broad bean leaves, still curled into bunches at the tops of the plants, are delicious. Nasturtium leaves taste of very very peppery rocket; pea shoots are wonderfully pea-like (possibly unsurprisingly!). Our salad bed doth overflow and, with a can of lager from the (very) nearby off-licence ... it's a little bit of heaven in Leeds.

Apparently, plagiarism isn't just a problem for university lecturers though I'm not sure that this case helps or hinders the effort to deter the practice. It amuses me that he falls back on the same excuse I've heard in the past - yes, it is plagiarism, but his actions weren't dishonest. Huh? Splitting hairs, methinks. It's always disappointing to see this kind of prevarication in established academics - let alone in my students.

Justice and generosity

Steve (formerly Marx) didn't make it. While I'm sad because he died, I know that he was a hurtin' little beastie and the vet likely did a kindness in putting him down. It's not fair - it's not fair that things have to hurt and suffer and I know I sound like 6-year-old but it is not fair and I won't have it. I get it - I know that life is tough all over and what is one cat in the balance of the universe - which never actually seemed a very fair argument to me as it just assumes (once again) a human-shaped universe - maybe one cat is precious - maybe one bunny or frog or spider or flea or protazoa. Life is unique and so we clap ourselves on the backs and say well aren't we even more special - aren't we worth that much more cause, well - I'll be - just look at me looking at myself! We've got consciousness and what that gives us first and foremost is the ability to look round and decide that we're the most important things here. All this potential to understand things; to demonstrate grace; to change things - which we do every bloody moment - and look what these people chose to do with it.

But I'm also happy - or satisfied - that Marx at least was happy and safe and even liked a little for a few weeks before he died. Not everything - or everyone - will get that; but that doesn't take away from the rightness and goodness when it does happen.

We'll be letting Marx's ignorant, stupid and lazy owners know what happened to him. It will mean nothing to them - but then, I don't care - the world is too small for them and they will stand on the wayside and we will move forward.

E-minder

Netto's doesn't take credit. Netto's doesn't take credit. Netto's doesn't take credit.

I've made this mistake at least once per year - and I just did it again today. And I didn't have my debit card with me. And I'd done a lovely nice shop and was quite looking forward to a cheese and Marmite sandwich for lunch. And the charming lady (whose response to my ever-so-polite 'I'll just put that on credit, please' was 'debit'. Which lead to the following conversation:

me: 'No - credit card, please'
her: 'debit'
me: 'No, this a credit card.'
her: 'debit'

Honestly, she sounded like a frog. A lesson in the use of complete sentences I think. How quickly might I have understood our problem if she had said - the first time - Netto's doesn't take credit, luv)

had already rung through my entire purchase. Cue the frustrated/embarrassed walk out of the store.

Summer and Sunshine ... and then a bit of a rant

At last! the weather has turned glorious sunshine all around - a mediocre Saturday turned into the kind of Sunday that belongs firmly in nostalgic reflections of childhood summers. I spent it at the garden, listening to the French Open on a portable radio, planting tomatoes, chatting to neighbours, and generally revelling in the goodness of outside.

I'm now inside, alas, while the sun continues to shine on outside. But it shows no sign of disappearing so I'm content to be here ... kinda ...

Marx - whose name is now Steve - is getting on and hopefully, getting better ... but very very slowly. He's less yellow - and you must understand when our wonderful neighbours took him in his skin was the colour of a Crayola yellow crayon - if still very slow and a bit confused. I backed myself into a corner - or, got backed into a corner - at a dinner last week defending, slightly drunkenly, my position on my own superiority over people that would evince that kind of cruelty to anyone or anything. The response was that my categories were too easily expanded without cause - or with only subjective cause - people who mistreat animals? the questioning went - what next? The problem is reducing any idea to a policy to be applied broadly and without familiarity. I do wonder what on earth I might have in common with these people that might make me comfortable sharing anything with them - particularly representation. How can one person, one system, represent all these individuals? All these standards of living and being? I still believe what I wrote in the previous post: I am better than someone who could/would starve and neglect to the point of death any creature dependent on them. How do we judge people if not by their actions? What reason might they offer to excuse such behaviour? That they didn't think - how can that be an excuse?

I am better than that. I am expected to be better than that. I'm not talking about moral absolutes. In this case, there was no reason for that kind of cruel neglect - nothing but unwillingness to take responsibility for a creature's life. I would apply that regardless of who it was enacting the cruelty. I suppose in some way cruelty might be a rather subjective term - 'meat is murder' is one of the most inane arguments I've come across but I'm willing to allow that most commercially mass-produced meat likely is unjustifiably cruel. But surely at some level cruelty is cruelty - when it is unnecessary, wasteful, unthinking; there are few arguments I would countenance as a justification for it. I don't deny that life is cruel, but we need not be. And particularly, as here, when it is just crude thoughtlessness, neglect - there is nothing so awful as ignorance, nothing so profoundly disgusting as cruelty born of ignorance without any excuse. These people cannot claim that they did not know; knowing, then, the only conclusion is that they did not care. And that is simply not acceptable.

Did I forget that the sun is shining? Nope. Just wanted to get that out. The sun shines on; my garden will provide dinner tonight!

An Open Letter of Thanks

I name all the cats on the streets where I live - I have since living in Kingston during my undergrad. Here, we have LaFonda and The Black Cat (TBC) and lovely, lonely little Marx. He got his name cause he has a funny black patch on his head that looks like a Groucho Marx wig and a little black spot on his nose - a moustache. Anyway, I've never been fond of Marx's people - Yes, I do judge people by how they treat animals - I also judge people who are irrationally scared of animals and really, if you 'don't like' animals, we're likely not friends. Nor do I likely have a high opinion of you. Back on track - Marx pretty much lived outside. He's just a young cat but lately I noticed that he just sat, rather sadly, on the steps outside his people's house - through sun and rain, wind and, well, more wind. The other day I went past on the other side of the road and he cried out at seeing me - so I walked over to give him a pat. He was skin and bone; his skin was yellow and he was weak. The door opened and some tarted up, bleach-blond, trakkie bottom wearing bint stands there staring. 'Is this your cat?' I ask. 'Yeh. But ee's been sick inside so I threw him out.' 'Oh...um...' - door shuts. Ever the cool one in these situations, I go back home and have a cry. Nas has better plans. He goes down to our neighbourhood friend who lives across from The Assholes. She's been feeding Marx for awhile and had thought he'd been looking worse but wasn't sure. Confirmed in her view by our reports, she acts.

So this is a letter to thank her. She called PDSA and got Marx an appointment; when the first vet said he had liver failure and would have to be put down, she got a second opinion. She had him tested for FIV and feline leukemia and has him at home, grateful for a little warmth and a diet of chicken and fish to get him back up to scratch. He was always a friendly little thing.

See the world needs more people who act - something I've got to do. And I'm also going to focus on her actions because focusing on The Assholes and what they suggest about the whole democratic system makes me see red. But I learned through her about PDSA so next time I'll know what to do.

Apparently The Assholes came over to her house to see 'if they were angry' - our friend and her partner had actually asked them if they could take Marx away. They had 'never really liked cats' and said their little boy used to just pull Marx's tail and hit him. They had apparently never stopped him from doing this. The lesson they had chosen to teach their children, apparently, was that responsibility can be given up - I've raged about this before - and I said I wasn't going to get angry anymore. They are not worth my time or my energy. They are less than nothing. They aren't my peers or my neighbours - I am, in fact, better than them in every possible way. Perhaps, when they get tired of their children (screaming fat brats from what I can see), they'll also end up outside.

But let me end and calm myself by remembering that, at least in this case, all it takes is someone with sense and compassion. Marx is safely in a home, purring on a radiator, enjoying chicken and fish. Thank you neighbour!

Normal parameters

I'm participating in a study for Health Psychology at the university here. Nothing is actually required of me except going in for a health check three times a year and answering some questionaires. I figured I'd get some feedback and get those all important stats on my fitness level generally. I was still nervous going in this morning, worried, as usual (for no reason in the world) that they would tell me that I was a mess physically (able, with doctor-vision to see that I had popcorn for tea followed by biscuits for breakfast and still prefer full-fat milk...).

But I'm normal. I met a work colleague outside the Psych department and managed to put down and forget the paper with my results. Luckily I remember them:

Blood pressure: 115/74
resting heart rate: 78
peak heart rate (I had to do a step exercise - 3 minutes x 3): 120
recovery rate (after 3 minutes): 105
VO2: 97%

Generally I say that numbers don't matter blah blah blah but hey, with numbers like those I don't mind if they do! I get to go back 1 year from now and repeat the test. So running and gardening seems to have paid off - who'd've thunk?

A brief respite for the eyes

My photography skills are very bad, but I thought for the benefit of my family far away I should post some pics from Amsterdam. Also, this blog has been rather text-heavy so here's a break...!
The one below is the lovely flat we rented with our friends - I wish I'd gotten a picture of our little garden patio. The cat was resident in an amazing bakery. The other cat resided like a king in the 'kattenkabinet' - a bizarre museum begun by an eccentric rich guy in memory of his ginger tomcat - very strange and full of mostly very bad art featuring cats... Everyone was a great sport in going with me!! The rest just things around the caught my eye...

Spring breaks

Amsterdam was fantastic. Exactly what was needed to get through the exam period - both at the library and in terms of the growing stack of marking ... I always find it strange to be in a city purely as a tourist. Firstly cause I'm so very much a home-body; not that I prefer to be in my actual home (especially now as we're still in the dingy terrace anticipating the move to our new digs at the end of the month) but because I like to be comfortable and familiar. We got a self-catering place in Jordaan between the Rosengracht and a side-canal. It does go a long way to feeling at home to have a 'home' to go to at night rather than a hotel. If we'd rented bicycles, we'd have fit right in!

The city is so quiet compared to Leeds - and so clean. Take everything with a block of salt, but it felt friendlier and more relaxed. I do think that the fact that there are just less cars on the road makes a huge difference. And the cafe culture! On the corner of our little street there was a little bar/cafe - straight out of some 'olde worlde' black-and-white film - where old men sat playing chess and smoking cigars, drinking innumerable cups of coffee and measures of Belgian beer (La Chouffe). We spent our last night there, playing 4-person chess and drinking beer. It was perfect. Our little flat had a wee garden at the back for a quiet glass of wine in the evenings as well.

Based on that - I could live there. Provided, as I mentioned to my friend over coffee this morning, that I was on permanent vacation. Is it too much to ask??

So now we're back in Leeds. The library is getting gradually quieter as the exam period winds down. Marking, on the other hand, is piling up! But at least it has a very firm deadline for finishing.

Exam Watch

Trends that mystify me in equal measure:

1. January - polo shirt with scarf, no coat, no hat, sunglasses.
2. June - t-shirt, shorts, flip-flops ... woolen cap worn like a limp smurf/dwarf hat.

Things that especially are irritating today:

1. students blithely coming IN the EXIT at the library and then arguing that they are 'already in' when I ask them to go back and go through the barrier.
2. students.

Things that I like:

1. I have finally found a pilates class that I can attend starting next week. Very excited about this as pilates is amazing and really does improve my posture and go a long way to easing the tension I carry around in my shoulders and neck. I think it will go miles in improving my mood at work these next few weeks - during Exam Watch.

2. And our perfectly timed weekend away will also help: Amsterdam in the spring. What could be more perfect? My gran has already warned me that it is a city of drugs and criminals, and fore-warned is fore-armed. We've gotten a self-catering flat in Jordaan with our friends and travelling-mates. It looks divine - it's likely just liveable (I have little faith in the reality depicted in online advertising photos...). But its away from work, away from the city with its binmen on strike, away from the stressed out, rude students, away away away!

reflecting on the right

Weather: still amazing.
Library: still packed.

Went running for the first time this year without layers - my beautiful MEC top stayed home. And it was still hotter-than-comfortable in the direct sunshine. Beautiful.

Then spent the morning making granola and flipping through my thesis in preparation for writing a conference paper (or cut-and-pasting a conference paper!) tonight for Saturday. Now, I'm gazing longingly outside from my prison/place of employment ... afternoons are the best part of the day. I wish I worked mornings!

In other news, or at least from other news sources, this is pretty terrifying. This country is leaning so far right we may actually tip over and crash into France - who are, in turn, going to fall over into Europe and so forth. Domino effect? Hmm... I don't understand how an educated, privileged person can actually advocate violence to fight violence. This is the world we live in - and people still ask why I don't want children.

I'm being flippant.

And this is a serious topic - our home secretary actually wants to give police the power to 'harrass' people who are perceived to be acting against 'normal' conventions, offending 'normal', law abiding citizens, defrauding the system that 'normal', decent, quiet people have set up to continue their normal, decent, quiet lives. The level of stereotyping going on here is astonishing: ASBOs are only ever a problem of class which is only ever a problem of 'stuff', cars and tellys (the things the government taxes) - indeed, part of the problem here seems to be people getting their hands on material goods that they then cannot afford (in taxes). No one who does pay their car tax or television licence fee gets and ASBO - ever. ASBOs are always given for well-thought-out reasons after careful consideration of the particular circumstances, including the source of the complaint. People who get handed an ASBO are merely rebels against quietness, goodness, decency, the British spirit, a good cuppa - they probably hate Eurovision and think that Marmite tastes of rancid dust. Unsavoury types, y'know?

I do appreciate that there are nasty people out there. Show me an avenue at dusk full of adolescents and I'll take the long way home. They are rude, irritating, disrespectul, ignorant, and possess a sense of entitlement nourished at the teats of the same government that now wants to 'harrass' them. But then, I live and breathe in the hallowed halls of academia and there are nasty, ignorant, priggish, arogant, rude, and horrid people here too. Fewer of them get ASBOs perhaps; most of them would duck out of taxes if they could - indeed, some of them likely make enough money to hire an accountant clever enough to do just that.

So where does that leave us? Cowering in our houses, clinging to 'decency', living quiet lives, and hoping that no one takes offence at us. Thanks but I'll be sitting outside on my stoop, enjoying a cuppa and the weather, griping about the neighbourhood kids, and generally trying to understand.

Sunshine and taxes

The library is in a state of high panic today - it's giving me a splitting headache. Which is too bad as I was in an elated mood all morning - well, nearly all morning. It is the first perfectly beautiful day of the spring. At least, I hope it is the first - rather than the only - perfect day of the spring. I walked into the city bright and early, clutching my carefully collected tax forms and ID. Naturally, I had to make the walk twice because the only paper they needed was one that I hadn't brought. But I managed to maintain my good mood all the way home and all the way back. With luck - actually no, I'm sure I'm due a refund! - I'll get some money back at some point...

For reasons unbeknownst to me, the powers-that-be of the library have decided that all of our security staff/facility assistants needed to attend training TODAY. It is the first day of revision week, the library is heaving, there are books stacked all over the place ... Thankfully, I'm only here til 6pm.

We had a really lovely time on Sunday at the festival - though the weather did its best to ruin it. It rained all day... in the end though it was quite fun as it felt like the blue-rinse crowd's answer to Glastonbury: expensive, organic food, really really good beer, and a brass band playing away all afternoon... Our shoes were muddy, our bellys full, and it looked like some kind of school trip as all 11 of us filed off the bus in Northallerton. We got some really amazing cheese, a mustard (can't leave a market without at least one condiment!), and some white chocolate with chilli - amazing. Pork sandwiches, sausages, and burgers, some really lovely ales and stouts made up our picnic/all-day-grazing. There's another one in York at the end of the month ... My mouth is watering already...

May Days

There are 2 bank holidays in May - this weekend and at the end of the month. Then, of course, in true British fashion, there isn't another one until the end of August. Why do I identify this as a national curiousity? Well, national curiosities are on my mind today (yes, I've been reading The Guardian), such as: why have two bank holidays in a single month followed by a veritable drought of free time during the loveliest months of the year (hopefully...)? Or why worry about binge-drinking students when the same anxious government cuts funding, cuts employment opportunities, and royally screws the economy, thus ensuring that when they graduate, students immediately resort to drink?

Or, how does this become the Lord Mayor of London?

The positive spin has this tow-haired, ignorant relic of the private school system and patriarchal privilege making such a hash of the next four years that the Conservative party will sink out of sight for the national elections. The reality of it is likely closer to a functioning democracy voting for the person they actually believe represents their views. Which is to say, secure the crockery, we're shifting to the right.

***
Tomorrow is our annual pilgrimage out to Leyburn for the real beginning of the summer: the Dales' Festival of Food and Drink. This year it's perfectly timed to mark the end of teaching - and thus, sadly, the end of one source of income! Ah, the life of the over-educated and woefully underemployed...

warning: wavering possible

It is possible that this blog is a more transparent window to my moods than an accurate reflection of my opinions. In the world of things that are possible, that is one of them. I'm not going to come down either way.

But having spent the morning waiting for our new refridgerator (more on which later) and playing around on the site I posted about yesterday, I found myself giggling a little bit. Okay, so it might be a bit funny after all. I maintain that it isn't parody - of any kind really. But I'll retract a bit from my intractable stance of yesterday and say, it is pretty funny. Perhaps I had momentarily lost my sense of humour after all... I blame encroaching exam period at the library - the stress is tangible - and it's starting to smell on the upper floors where they congregate in the greatest density...

Yes, new fridge - very exciting. Of course, we're moving in two months and we've been complaining (nicely) about the fridge for the last year so, typically for our landbarons, too little too late. The seal around the fridge door has been gone since we moved in, which means it has cost us more than it should to run at all. Luckily, the new flat has a lovely new fridge as well - tho Nas was, for a second, concerned that the old fridge would turn up, poltergeist-like in the new flat to terrorize us... (insert Psycho soundbite here). Unlikely.

So there, another chapter in which our heroine pondered much, said too much, and retracted a little with grace.

limits, on pushing

I've tried and failed to find this site funny. I had a momentary crisis of doubting my own redoubtable sense of humour. Then, I realised that it wasn't in fact, as The Guardian described it, 'a sizzling parody of middle-class liberal values'. That description is simply a product of middle-class liberal white guilt - something The Guardian has far too much of and desperately needs to pass some off to The Times in some kind of moral 'cap and share' scheme. But before I digress...

It seems to me that the catch-all excuse - it's only a laugh - is allowed far too much play. And I'm a fan of play - I'm all over that Derridean play of language and totally against the Orwellian shut-down of meaning blah blah blah. The thing is, that site isn't playful. I would draw your attention particularly to this entry, in which, surprise surprise, women get to be the brunt of the joke - how original! how cutting! how risque! My what sizzling parody!

The problem with such rapier wits is that they make themselves proof from criticism. There is no attempt to engage alternate viewpoints, no dialogue; merely juvenile sarcasm in place of 'parody'. I'm not sure who the reviewer for The Guardian is, but I can recommend some excellent texts that might begin to advance his/her understanding of parody beyond: 'it's funny cause it is (not) me' (the high-water mark of liberal white guilt and the consolatory recompensation: we laugh at ourselves - hey, it's not racist if the target's white, right?!

Oh wait, is that parody?

Or just sarcasm?

And which one is the lowest form of wit?

Foundations

Yesterday saw the most glorious spring weather - the kind of afternoon that makes up for nearly a month of grey skies and rain. Everything burst into bloom - audibly. A perfect late April read-outdoors-with-a-cuppa kind of day. Crowned in every way by Nasser's successful viva. A house of two doctors we are!

It's funny - I've always explained that we're moved here to do our PhDs and now we're finished and that's not the most interesting, most compelling, or most important thing keeping us here. We live here - we've lived here longer than anywhere else. This is, in so many ways, our home. I've been thinking that I always understood 'home' as singular and felt guilty about using it to describe anywhere but Canada. But I don't think that it is a singular thing anymore - Canada will always be my home but Britain is my home too. The only thing that I continue to miss - strongly enough to return to - is my family. It's strange that we all live so far apart now. And I do feel guilty about staying here sometimes - worried that they don't know how much I miss them, or that we'll drift apart and be strangers. But I'm also not ready to leave here - I love it: our garden, our (new!) flat, our little community of ex-pats and Brits... I guess I feel like I have to say that - we aren't here anymore 'for school' - we're here by choice because this is where - for now and I don't know for how long - we live. I'm home.

***

I really must express this or it will come out in some horrible repressed and displaced fashion: I really really intensely dislike the use of ultrasounds as avatars on Facebook. Please stop. It's horrible.