Real telly

We've caved to pressure and desire and installed broadband at home ... we did last almost 9 months without it - and it wasn't the desperate need to check Facebook every 30 minutes. I've just done the dishes - which sorely needed doing and in a fit of determination not to waste the lovely salmon we got from the fishmonger in the city market, I've put potatoes on the boil to make fishcakes - and realised that I've been listening to the telly in the background with possibly the most offensive program I've ever come across.

Coleen's Real Women. Yet another program about challenging body stereotypes that reinforces those same stereotypes with every word. I have no idea what Coleen does for a living (is a footballer's wife a 'profession' yet?) but, whatever it is, it clearly hasn't kept her busy enough.* Apparently, the seriously under-examined world of models and female fashion needs her particular views. It reminds me of another mission program I happened upon in which someone or other was determined to get to the bottom of hair extensions. Yes, hair extensions were set to be the next bleeding-heart issue - except that the women that our doughty celebrity investigator tracked down (to Eastern Europe) really didn't answer the apparent need for tragedy. It's hair. Hair. It grows back. It ended up being rather amusing as our increasingly desperate detective tried to twist every interview into a heart-wrenching story about forced haircuts, impovrished families relying on the little money each trip to the hairdresser earned, days spent lovingly brushing beautiful locks - locks that would ornament the heads of thoughtless wealthy (?) women in the West while the young girl - victim of the impatience of those cursed with slowly-growing hair (or indecision). Even when she travelled to India where she found women who sacrificed their hair for their religious beliefs, she just couldn't find that tear-jerking story of exploitation. Instead, she was met with outright sniggers of disbelief.

At any rate, Coleen's Real Women has pitched 'real women' - that is women larger than a size 4 - at an open call for a model to front a new cosmetics line - or something like that (does it matter?). 2 problems immediately spring to mind: firstly, that anyone smaller or larger than the 'curviest' contestant here (a size 16...) is somehow NOT a real woman; secondly, that this is something the viewer will find a) interesting or b) somehow worthy of attention.

The talking head bits between Coleen and whatever experts she has dragged into this fiasco are unbelievable - oh, cue behind me the 'back-room' discussions between the judges - who have had a 'very very tough time' making a decision; and gosh darn it haven't they wrestled (Jacob should take notes) with their choice - and the moment arrives -bestill my heart, one of Coleen's 'real woman' has made it to the semi-finals! Shock shock. But really? Why on earth does a modelling job need a semi-final? Anyway, from the kitchen, I was snorting into the soap bubbles over such comments as 'her boobs are just so big', 'we'll really have to work around the lack of body shape', 'these are the curviest girls we've ever had in here' (remember the 'curviest' - 'biggest' was never used - real women aren't 'big'; they're 'curvy' - was a stonking size 16). There was also the memorable 'she's been crying but she really has lovely skin'.

But the judges were actually the most forgiveable in some respects - not that I'm condoning any part of this idiocy - but they were doing a job and likely rather wearily included Coleen's 'real woman' just to reassure us that the fashion industry really cares about real women and what they think - or at least, where they might spend their money. All of this seems much more about Coleen - next week London, where Coleen will face the challenge of getting 'one of her girls' into a major modelling agency.

* On the ITV website, Coleen reveals that her childhood ambition was to be a journalist. Why bother with schooling? Leave it long enough and I'm sure ITV will host a 'who wants to be a newsanchor'.

I've just made my fishcakes (lovely they were too) and conducted an entire rant in my head about how the line between wanting and having seems to be very thin these days ... but in all honesty, I just can't be bothered... and Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason is one ... I can feel another rant coming on. I should go...

Tocsin of reason

I got the title from Olympe de Gouges's Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen, which we looked at in my French Revolution seminar. But I put it there purely to be able to post this under it.

Read.

Charlie Brooker and the summer of fear.

Unsolved Mysteries

...actually used to terrify me when I was young.

But we've had our own unsolved mystery at ours involving a mobile phone full of water (thus broken) without any clues as to where the water came from... We woke up on Monday morning to the alarm of said mobile but when Nas reached over to turn it off, he picked it up, and water came pouring out. I'm making it more dramatic for rhetorical purposes - it didn't really pour out I suppose, but given that there shouldn't be any water in a mobile, it may as well have. The mobile had spent the night on the shelf by the bed - that is at least 2 feet off the floor. We don't keep unopened water beside the bed cos Laila and Logan see water in cups/glasses as a special treat that (presumedly) tastes much better than their water dish water. So that isn't the solution. The shelf is slatted but there was no water above - or below for that matter. It hadn't fallen into a puddle as there was no water on the floor.

Eliminating the impossible then leaves us with a scenario in which I, or Nas, turned - for one night only and without precedent - into a sonambulist, decided to wash the phone, and had the presence of mind to dry off the outside ...

In other news, we've given in - sort of - and will shortly have the interwebs at home. And Nas replaced his phone. The mystery remains unsolved.

Fat Tuesday

We realised yesterday morning that we had nearly stumbled through Mardi Gras without noticing - fortunately, the day was rescued in time. Unfortunately, we found ourselves without maple syrup ... disaster: pancakes (proper pancakes - none of these silly crepe things) must be eaten with maple syrup in our house. To do otherwise is anathema. But Mardi Gras demands pancakes! What to do?

That evening, being in high good humour for unknown reasons (I do not question these things), I set about creating dinner for Pancake Tuesday that would not draw unnecessary attention to our deplorable state of maple-syrup-less-ness. So we had savory crepes with salmon, leek, and mushroom in a white wine sauce. I made it up. And it was really really good...

And fortunately, there were crepes left over for breakfast - a very ersatz crepes suzette.

I'm not giving anything up for the next 40 days. I would inevitably fail and thus cause myself even more stress.

Catching up

Keeping up on this blog has proven darn near impossible with my new 'working academic' lifestyle - actually, I've given up on keeping up with anything beyond scraping by week-to-week with my classes. Today my very very reticent class finally admitted - well, one brave or fed-up student admitted that they weren't following my seminars. When I opened the next seminar with a discussion of how the module was going, they responded positively to the seminar structure. I have to admit that the idea of designing four different seminars - one for each group in the module - is rather daunting, especially as just writing a lecture and staying on top of the reading takes up most of my free time.

Other things that are interesting: the snow is gone. It's actually gone quite mild and the first crocuses are coming up in the park. I've never noticed crocuses in Canada - I love them here. On the last really snowy weekend, Logan, Laila, and I watched our neighbourhood fox play in the garden next door. I love our flat - I still love our flat: I love the view over the school and across the valley on nice evenings. The fox must have been as confused as most of the population at the snow but seemed to be having a good day of it.

I've now been rejected - ever so nicely - from three Canadian universities. And one UK university.

I tink it is all the fault of the internet: more specifically, Facebook. History repeating: I seem to remember the same 'concerns' and anxiety directed at television, comic books, the internet in general, fashion magazines, 'entertainment' news, tabloids, ... ... I wonder if Lady Greenfield has read this? Lack of narrative indeed!

A colleague in America found this - it just has to be posted - and every time I remember it, I remember how much I love this business...

Surprises!

1. Snow! Loads and loads of it - well, for Leeds anyway. Canadian friends may snigger but this is the biggest snowfall I've seen in 5 years (apart from Christmases back in the true-north-strong-and-free). I walked to work in a whole new world. It's been snowing off and on all day but this morning, bright and early, before 8am - it was perfect. The library is closing early tonight and generally, the country is descending into chaos. But I walked to work and I'll walk safely back home. As a change from the rain and greyness of a Leeds February, it's nice. I even spent a good 10 minutes watching some spontaneous snow-sculpture making outside my office window - okay, it was yr standard snowman but still! Granted, being British, they were poorly dressed for the occassion but there was something very fresh and re-freshing about it. I also walked past some students who I can only assume were international from the excitement and photo-snapping.

2. I'm kind of sorry I missed this.

Running on pride

My amazing husband is running the Paris marathon this year - in April, which is just two months away. A mutual friend dared him to do it the Sunday after New Year: what better goal for the new year? He's been thinking of doing one for ages and this was exactly the kick he needed. So he's been running since then - surpassing everything he thought he could do, coming home with new enthusiasm, new aches, new pains, new highs, new reasons to stay out there.

He's running for 'Get Kids Going' and training with our friend who has run this marathon (and others!) before - invaluable experience to have out there on the training days.

This is a not-so-subtle call for donations - please donate! Anything would be amazing. You can even follow his training and likely beyond at his new blog: nas can't stop. Messages of support and sharing your experience of doing anything like this would be more than welcome.

PS. Tell all your friends about the philanthropic gesture of the year!

And thanks all... please visit Nas over there and tell him how cool he is.

Foodie blogs

Foodie I am - well, I'd like to be anyway - but even I, who can rhapsodize about the possibilities of supper at breakfast, am getting fed up with the incessant moralising of taste going on in various forums. Okay, that's just one example - hardly 'incessant'; I'd have a snarky comment if a student tried that in an essay.

I'm not a vegetarian and in the world of carniverous delights, I'm fairly conservative. I don't like the taste or texture of most offal - except, bizarrely, mushed up or chunked up as pate (I'll eat anything as pate) and I'm not rushing to prove my gastronomic worth by eating lamb brains or sweetbreads (or oysters - nope nope nope). I'd like to say I'll try anything once, but the fact is, I won't. I'm not vegetarian and I have little patience for the kind of moral absolutism that gets spouted in the name of vegetarianism and veganism. I'm afraid I don't believe that meat is murder - indeed, a more ridiculous comment I can't imagine. While I fully understand that what I consider edible - on practical or sentimental grounds - is largely prejudicial and based in culture, upbringing, and habit, I'm afraid that I don't really think that's worth any more than an interesting comparison. I'm not going to eat a dog simply because someone somewhere in the world does - what a ridiculous idea. While I am facinated by the connexions we draw between what people eat and who they are, I'm interested less in those connexions than in what they suggest about how we classify and create value in our societies. That's not to say that what we choose to eat doesn't have some kind of effect on our world, but to insist on evidence of 'fairness' in eating habits is just silly.

Hungry enough and sure, I'll likely eat just about anything. I've never been there - I'm not keen to get there, and I'm afraid that I think it is ludicrous to assume some kind of superiority of experience or personal moral worth for either A) having been in that situation or B) castigating people based on the supposition that because they haven't been starving and thus, have never been in the position of having to eat something they otherwise would find distasteful, they are somehow lacking. There isn't a reason why 'rat, dog, cat, or horse should not be perfectly acceptable and delicious' - I'm sure they are - but that doesn't mean I have to eat them. Eat less meat and eat better meat, definitely. When rat appears at the farmer's market I might give it a try but I sincerely hope that the apocalyptic tone of articles like this lightens. We are not in the siege of Vienna and the kind of rabid moralising it suggests is bizarre. We should be very aware of what we eat, but I refuse to believe that because I don't eat the plentiful supply of rats in my neighbourhood that I am guilty of behaviour that, in the words of Lady Bracknell 'lead to the worst excesses of the French Revolution'.

Recommended reading: The Raw and the Cooked - Claude Levi-Strauss; The Civilizing Process - Norbert Elias.

Writing tales

Dead Poet's Society was on telly last night. This used to be one of my favourite films as an angsty teen; I watched it with more cynical eyes this time round. Oh for the pedagogical heaven of Welton ('Hellton') prep school! Nonetheless, it still got me right there and I was suitably moved by the struggles of those pretty boys.

A friend passed on The Writer's Tale, which is a book entirely composed of emails regarding the writing, rewriting, and production of Doctor Who, series 4 (and some of series 3). It's a delicious feast for a fan - and like the true geeky fangirl that I am, I loved it. It's difficult to read in one go and retains a lot of the sporadic and disconnected feel of email and text messaging but it also captures the magic of successful and good writing and the sense of accomplishment and passion that Davies (and the cast and crew) have (had!) for the show. All of which, of course, shows in the product. Reading the drafting process was really interesting - I wish I could work it into a module somehow. It would be such a lesson to students on the value of RE-writing, drafting, failing, and starting over.

For all I didn't start out as a fan of Catherine Tate's Donna Noble at the beginning of the series - mostly cos I was a huge fan of Freema Agyeman's Martha Jones - reading Davies' scripts and impressions of the character-in-development I have reconsidered. The ending of the series is tear-jerkingly good both as evidence of talented writing and television production: it's Flowers for Algernon redux. The scene is so brief and so packed - much more so than the previous rather problematic scene between the Doctor(s) and Rose Tyler. Though it does implicitly illustrate the Doctor's tendency to tyranny - for the good, of course, always for the 'good'. I know I have read something on a similar problem arising with the Doctor's actions in Planet of the Ood - something about the problematics of ethics and authority in Doctor Who. The doctor knows best but it is difficult to watch Donna writhe and plead without being offered the choice - does she want to return to the way she was before she turned left? The doctor's implicit maxim - that all life (and any life, apparently) is better than none - seems to negate Donna's control over her own destiny. While I am not taking away from the emotional register of the series, it does place Donna (though very unusual for a doctor's companion in many ways) squarely back in a dangerously gendered role: the self-sacrificing woman. The series already demanded that Donna sacrifice herself once (in Turn Left) in order to save the Doctor - and thereby the entire planet - so I find it a bit difficult to completely accept the ending that sees her power and development curtailed by the Doctor.

Reader, review!

I've just watched a girl wearing fashionably tight - I think they go by the euphemistic name of 'skinny' - jeans try to pick up a pen she'd dropped on the floor. I'm afraid, as the catalyst for humour was fashion, that it was terribly funny. She managed a dip not entirely lacking in grace, had she been born a flamingo.

Speaking of fashion, I am wearing the crummiest old jumper - the library, bereft of heating (or patrons) for two weeks, is taking its time getting back to comfortable temperatures.

After Christmas, I picked up Labyrinth by Kate Mosse purely because she is speaking at a conference I am going to in June. The conference is (very briefly) on women writing history/writing women's history/the history of writing women, etc etc etc - Labyrinth is supposed to be an adventure involving 13th century Cathar France, the true grail, and some spunky heroines. The inside back cover indicates that if the prospective reader enjoyed The DaVinci Code, the Boudicca series by Manda Scott, or The Alchemist by Coelho, they were sure to love this one. It's a lesson, I reckon, in reading the inside back cover before making a purchase: I hated two of these and the other I just haven't read.

It's not that Labyrinth is so awful; it's just that it's boring, conventional, and without much interest in the characters beyond their plot function. The setting and history are fascinating but peopled by these characters, I'm just not interested. Alas. Kate Mosse is the co-founder and honorary director of the Orange Prize for fiction. I'm now quite curious to know why she was invited to the conference and what she'll say.

In the same bookstore run, I also picked up Gombrich's A Little History of the World. It has all the flaws and failings - or at least expected biases - of a history written before the second world war. But it is really rather charming and it does evince a great deal of respect for some peoples and cultures left of out of 'histories of the world' even now. It tends to treat the bible as an authoritative historical document and it's descriptions of the peoples of far east Asia would be struck from texts today as Orientalist at best, racist at worst. Interestingly, it was burned during WWII for being too pacifist.

Nasser read: James Morrow, The Philosopher's Apprentice.
Decision: crap - yet somehow compelling enough to finish. But crap. Which is too bad as I really rather enjoyed his earlier novels. Ah well. Luckily, it was £2 at a remainder bookshop in Skipton.

2009

I like the number - mostly even and a little odd. Though I suppose odd where it counts.

Christmas without my family is odd too. And 2008 particularly so since I couldn't even picture everyone gathered around the tree at my parent's house, eloquently expressing how much they missed me. We were all spread about. And yet, we had a cosy and lovely Christms with very good friends - Nasser cooked Christmas lunch to a 'T'. Our turkey's name was Bob - he just looked like a Bob sitting there in the fridge. He was a white, free-range, organic turkey from some lovely people at the farmer's market in town. Roasted for many hours, dressed with herbs from our allotment and a generous massage of butter - he would have made Dickens rewrite A Christmas Carol to give the Cratchits a turkey rather than a goose. Logan and Laila thoroughly enjoyed the Christmas scraps - and their celebratory tin of tuna.

I didn't make it to mass this Christmas, but I did read the Christmas story - and A Christmas Carol just to cover all bases. Oh, and I did listen to the carol and 'lesson' service from Oxbridge - I can't remember which it was. Nas even got into it and proposed a sympathetic reading of ol' Scrooge as a man soured by grief more than avarice. Nothing like taking apart the classics for Christmas eve!

What I did in 2008
1. Finished my PhD
2. personal growth...blah blah blah

2009
1. Find employment that does not contain the words 'customer' or 'service' anywhere in the title
2. personal growth blah blah

Personal growth seems to be the topic of a lot of these blog thingies. I'm not one for 'Personal Development Plans (PDPs)'.

2009: C'mon!!
2009: Get it yerself!
2009: with a vengeance.
2009: ...

Three more days ...

It is December 17 ... and I'm still teaching. The logic of this - I'm not begrudging my students their valuable time with moi - still escapes me. Last week - that is the penultimate week of term - I had a total of 9 students over two seminars. That's 9 out of a possible 40 listed on the roster. And in my 9am seminar, the two brave little students were two of my best. So we had a chat, discussed shoes and ships and ceiling wax, and then I sent them off home. I've prepared a lively seminar for today, tomorrow and Friday essentially giving them the keys to the kingdom as far as the exam goes. Of course, I'm sure if the 'last week' of term were two weeks earlier, the attendence would be the same.

First week of term, on the other hand, is a glorious 5 weeks away right now. Five weeks introduced by two weeks of Christmas hols with the library and universities CLOSED. I may accidentally lock my office keys in my office.

I'm kinda looking forward to Christmas this year. Albeit, it won't be the same so far away. But this year, we've made our own tree out of paper and stuck it to the wall (space saving! and recycleable!). Our Christmas box from Canada has arrived. Logan and Laila haven't yet ripped open the prezzies - they have a perverse fascinating with tearing paper. Office Christmas parties are done and dusted. A Christmas Carol is the book of the week on Radio 4. I found the music to Charlie Brown's Christmas special on Nasser's iPod. And we found a recipe for bagels so's to make Christmas morning extra special - since it will be extra emotional.

I was greivously dissapointed to learn that our German Christmas market is far from unique. My friend laughed when I explained my most recent disillusionment. But I really did think that Leeds was special somehow - that we got something original at Christmas. It's silly but it really did take the shine off the whole thing. Apparently, ours is just part of a chain. I guess I'm not as post-modern as I thought.

I'm feeling very blah today. I shouldn't as it is beautiful and sunny out. But then, I'll be spending the afternoon watching the sunshine recede from inside a seminar room. *sigh*

Three more days ...

Ignorance is British - but bad literature is for everyone

So the first part of this title is from an adventure Nasser had with one of the more agressive locals. Call it the credit crunch, or Christmas, or just the freakin' cold weather - any way I cut it, the guy was (and I wasn't actually there) just plain mean. In response to Nasser's suggestion that screaming obscenities and pushing at the crossing was 'ignorant', our friend responded (among other colourful comments) that it wasn't ignorance: it was British.

Oh well.

I've been reading - on wikipedia - the synopsis and such for Twilight, the spectacularly popular series of young adult novels by Stephanie Meyer - now film. My friend, who lectures in children's literature, had much criticism for it. Having read the wiki entry, found some reviews, and looked through the truly god-awful, teenage-angsty website of the film, I've decided that it is the worst thing I haven't seen or read in ages. It sounds absolutely bloody awful - the kind of awful that's intensified by the fact that I likely would have devoured them like candy when I was 13. And I don't mean awful from a high-brow, academic-white-tower viewpoint; I mean awful as in insulting, candy-coated nonsense that panders to kiddy-Gothic, celebrations of the undead as Byronic heroes. Honestly. Who falls for this crap?

She said, a Gothicist.

Yes, but there are few things more tiring than a teenager and few things more unimaginably horrible than an immortal teenager.

Not to mention the gender politics that apparently get played out in this book. I have no problem with abstinence; but vampires and marriage? Honestly. I feel that I must shake my head a lot in any discussion of this book. Is marriage still such an ideal that a relationship with a vampire can be okay'd provided marriage is on the table? Hmm...it's possible that I'm being a miserable git. Likely from reading too much of this fellow and enjoying too much this program.

Cos otherwise, what've I got to complain about? It's nearly the end of term, teaching finishes in two weeks (two weeks is a long long time...), I've got teaching lined up for next term, and a job application to finish - and Christmas is coming. None too shabby for the second week of December.

Things that make my day

Two good teaching sessions in a row - enough to send me through the roof with joy. I'm trying to explore more options for group work with my first years: today's exercise really worked. I hated group work in undergrad - mainly cos I ended up doing the bloody work. So I did pay careful attention to who was doing the work in each group and will break up the class differently next time. But they really did pull something off - and they were paying attention to the text.

THEN I got to pat the police horses as they stood majesterial guard outside the Uni. Max is beautiful and his person very cheery - the kind of police officer straight out of a children's book - I wonder if the horses make community work easier (for people unafraid of horses!). Animals always invite people closer. These are not the average pokey pony mind you, but massive great beasts. But lovely and soft with big dark eyes. It really did make my day - I was immediately cheered and grinning as I set off for an afternoon's work at the library.

To quote Calvin...

...the days are just packed. My constant disbelief at the passage of time seems to be a regular feature on this my blog. But - OCTOBER?! When did that happen?? As Nas commented this morning on our way to campus - 'I'm a doctor!'. That still hasn't worn off on me, even though I appeared on the pass list back in January and got my purdy degree in print in July.

Packed with what? Teaching has started - so that's five mornings a week - and the library still eats my time up every afternoon. Luckily, it's quite busy these days with the students back and such. At least the afternoons pass quickly enough. We had a totally successful surprise party at our flat last weekend - in addition to our first ever party in the UK, it was a double surprise party for two friends' birthdays. Facing down the clean-up the next morning, however ... nah - totally worth it. So sucessful indeed that we're already planning the sequel - '6 Degrees of the Doctor' - for Halloween!

And I saw a fox! I'm not sure where he lives - I don't know that it's a he either, but I've called him Mr Fox so 'he' it is for now - but we saw him the other night come into the parking lot of our flats and sniff about. He is beautiful: lovely white-tipped, bottle-brush tail. I hope he gets lots of rats and lives well. With all the students around ours, there should be loads of fine rubbish to be had!

We also saw Die Welle (spoilers on that link) at the local rep cinema - always excellent. They have a cat named Tibbs (whom Nas and I call, rather unimaginatively, Oscar) that lives there. Proper theatre cat. Anyway, the film - yes, Die Welle: interesting if very predictable. But interesting nonetheless - mostly for the very cool houseboat of the lead character, with its conceptual art on the walls, and pristine lake outside. I also just really really like listening to German. I must learn. Add that to my days!

All play and no work

My week off work is speeding by faster or at least as fast as when I'm at work for half the day. By 'work' I mean work - as in things I do not for fun but for financial remuneration. Then there is my work by which I mean my work, my research, my writing, my teaching, my studies - things that I do for which I am paid but gladly do and resent being pulled away from by the other kind of work.

We've learned the very nasty twist to potato blight - the taters don't keep. Oh they look good - all shiny and white when cleaned up, innocently sitting in their hessian sacks looking perfectly ready to hibernate like well-behaved little taters until needed. But turn your back and they melt into a stinking oozy mess. It's unpleasant. The tomatoes are, alack the day, affected as well. We saved a bunch of green ones to try our hand at chutney or pickle only to find that they too melted away overnight. It's like gardening in hell. I can kind of picture how devastating it would be to rely on these fickle veggies for life and breath - carefully stacking them away only to find a black puddle of yuck in the larder a few weeks later. Evil evil blight.

Well, back to the intellectually, spiritually, if not financially (yet) rewarding WORK.

fear and loathing

So Sarah Palin believes that 'smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a large power' should receive an immediate smackdown from the US military might. This from an interview that was supposed to refute her lack of foreign policy experience. What it shows instead is a staggering lack of self-awareness of the less-glorious history of American military intervention.

Oh wait - democratic countries. Right. Because countries that aren't democratic - or aren't toeing the American line of 21st century economically-driven democracy (that implicitly benefits US market forces) - don't particularly require assistance - or whatever illegal occupation that might go on needs no comment.

This woman scares me.

But in other news, I've finally finished and submitted an article - ripped mercilessly from my thesis. Now I just wait to get it back with editor's marks nearly obliterating my poor text ...

Not even a pop

So the world didn't end when the Cern excellerator was turned on. Not even a blip in my electricity at home. Not that I'm disappointed - though I've never read the studies by the fellows who attempted to launch a lawsuit on behalf of EVERYTHING, claiming that turning the machine on was putting all life in serious danger. I'm curious who would have benefitted from the payout - of course, if they are right, I suppose the point is moot.

Since the world didn't end - and I should go back to long-term planning - I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't take advantage of the hysteria generated far from Leeds (clearly). It might have been a good laugh to host a 'Final Bang' party or similar - or make up (if not actually complete) one of those completely sentimental 'Bucket Lists' so popular with the kids (or at least old men) these days. Instead, I spent what could have been my last days on earth in much my usual routine - which meant the usual great deal of work avoiding my usual routine ... Someday I'm sure I will emerge from my chrysallis woven of procrastination, foot-dragging, and general laziness into the super-organised, efficient, and professional academic that I know is inside.

If I can be bothered ...

Oh grin, dear reader, I was mostly kidding.

small print

I spend enough time wandering about the internet at work - and enough of that time rummaging through Wikipedia, following my own inclination through interminable links. But was it common knowledge that Wikipedia 'English' is written in 'simple English'?

As opposed to 'difficult English'? 'The Queen's English'? Jargon? Business-speak?

Would anyone notice if it were in some other English?

What if it were poetry?

Thinking in a box

I am, unsurprisingly, bored at work again. So I've looked around the interwebs universe and found a site apparently dedicated entirely to 'top 10' lists. I'm intrigued and just bored enough to find thinking in list-form a pleasant distraction.

10 things I'd like to grow in my garden next year

1. more squash
2. golden beetroot
3. borlotti beans
4. strawberries
5. sweetcorn
6. crown prince pumpkins
7. carrots
8. plums
9. fennel
10. blight-free potatoes

10 things I would like to eat right now

1. blueberry pancakes with maple syrup
2. smoked salmon and cream cheese on a proper bagel
3. carrot sticks
4. home-made chocolate chip cooky
5. miso soup
6. beetroot marinated salmon sashimi
7. haloumi and roasted butternut squash on foccacia from Bakery 164
8. leftover stew
9. dosa with spinach and paneer with minted yoghurt and curry sauces
10. pretty much anything in Barcelona

10 reasons I like the library

1. generally it's pretty quiet
2. books
3. books
4. new books
5. old books
6. my colleagues and bosses are pretty great
7. internet access
8. feeling of having done research even when I just walk in and fall asleep on the desk
9. the reading room
10. it's a library

Good times.