Journal Entries
This week
Posted Jun 21, 2015
S and I went to see a broadcast of the Globe Antony and Cleopatra at Cineworld. The next night we went to see Mr Holmes at the Belmont. The Law graduations were on Monday. I finished doing the 2015-2016 honours allocations on Friday. Yesterday we went to see the degree shows at the Art School and the School of Architecture (both RGU) and today we visited Leith Hall just outside Huntly. I have finished books 1-6 of Charlie Higson's The Enemy series and now have to wait 'til October for number 7 - the last volume - and I feel like a 13 year-old waiting for Deathly Hallows in March 2007. I have been kept moderately occupied this week - the resits are the week after next and one does try to help the students to get up to speed. Anyhow, I got a present of a bottle of Glenlivet from one of the 2015 graduates. I have done not badly on the malts front this year.
Tomorrow, I think, A Girl Walks Home in the Dark. On Wednesday, Terminator.
I have been cancelling subscriptions - Times Higher Education, London Review of Books, Shindig, Edinburgh Law Review. More to follow. I don't have time to read 'em all.
The graduations were wonderful. Someone posted on twitter "I don't want to go to sleep as that would mean that graduations are over."
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Latest reply: Jun 21, 2015
Graduations tomorrow
Posted Jun 14, 2015
There'll be a party in the Taylor Quad.
P phoned yesterday. He has been moved into a shared ward, with, I expect, five others; I furthermore suspect, amputees. Meanwhile, no progress in re rehousing. I cannot help but think that he should have been considering his future several years ago.
S has for the last year been planning for a new home, built to spec, to meet the needs of an aging and decomposing couple. As I am one of the rotters I am rather hoping that she is maybe a wee bit early out of the blocks.
Anyhow, two completely different approaches.
Sunny day. I walked into town via the Uni. I had breakfast at Casa di... then did the charity shops.
Yesterday, S and I cleared out the shed. The planning permission is agreed for the new build and the Building Warrant documents went in last week. My relocation in the late summer seems all but assured.
I cannot recommend the Charlie Higson 'Enemy' books too highly. I am on 5 of 6 (to date), with a seventh in the pipeline, and I will be queuing outside the bookshop on the release date, and will probably take the day off work to read the book.
This coming weekend, A Girl Walks Home in the Dark.
I have been cancelling magazine subscriptions - having a clear out.
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Latest reply: Jun 14, 2015
Summer
Posted Jun 6, 2015
Exams over, marking done, exam board come and gone, graduation the week after next. Then resits. Then 'get course guides in order'. Then the merry-go-round starts afresh. Meanwhile, I have a big admin job to fit in and editing/updating work to do on two books. Ochone.
Susan and I are now at building warrant application stage. 8-10 weeks for a decision, the process of actually deciding probably taking a couple of hours.
Last Friday se'nnight we went to Ikea in Edinburgh. Yesterday we had a mini-tour of St Andrews, Crail, Anstruther and Dundee. We went to see Great Expectations at Dundee Rep and I was DELIGHTED to find out that Granny Island had been cast as Miss Havisham. She was excellent as was the Estella. It was the Jo Clifford adaptation.
Sunny. We are going to a concert of sea songs tonight, with a few Gilbert and Sullivan being promised.
When the BW OK is secured, I relocate to Kem.
These are very very good - I am half way through number 3 and have the full set. http://www.the-enemy.co.uk/home
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Latest reply: Jun 6, 2015
The cold was a bad one
Posted May 17, 2015
My lungs still feel 10ft above my head. S is also still recovering.
We had a wee road trip yesterday, with Zomb F, to Lunan Bay. We then went to Arbroath and, on the way home, to Stonehaven. Arbroath has a far better town centre than Montrose, and the harbour is quite nice, but as in many Scottish towns one regrets the lack of granite.
I have finished my marking. I have one batch of scripts to submit but they have been marked and I am going to review them tomorrow before handing them in - I want to be absolutely sure.
Then the next horrible job will kick off.
S and I went to Elgin this morning so that I could buy a music system for a tenner - it is for the cubbyhole, and is actually quite good spec. We came back via Lossiemouth, which is prosperous. The RAF base there has been under threat, but with all these Russian bombers having to be escorted out of airspace these days maybe a reprieve might be on the cards. We also went through Keith and Fochabers. And a ruined castle, nearby Gordonstoun.
I have just seen in iTunes a whole heap of 70s Peter Maxwell Davies stuff, with Fires of London, at £4 a pop. I like PMD. I remember seeing ...Mad King in the Elphinstone in the 80s.
It strikes me that if things go the way they are looking like they might that JK Rowling would make a good Scottish President. She can handle the trolls and her heart is in the right place. I saw a coupla nat-trolls on the news last night trolling Jim Murphy ahead of his confidence motion meeting - nasty vile things, to take so much joy and to express it so unpleasantly over another's misfortunes.
Macbeth on BBC R3 tonight.
I am thinking about going to the Mike Leigh Pirates of Penzance at the flicks this week.
Reading Deathly Hallows and George Farquhar plays. Watching... not much. Listening to BBC R3. Miah is well. Susan is (mostly) well. Nice day today. Nice day (mostly) yesterday.
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Latest reply: May 17, 2015
Smoorin'
Posted Apr 26, 2015
I have a foul cough cough cough snottery sore head sore neck sore everything cold and my eyes are crawling like caterpillars.
Revision week kicks off tomorrow. I have a very full week and could really do without the whole hurty hurty mostly-green bodily fluids drip drip thang. It gets so that I'm coughing and choking and fighting for breath at night and I reckon that this mode of doing the common colds experience is what will finally finish me off some years down the line. Huh, morbid, eh?
Scotland is going through one of its periodic bouts of madness. The Reformation, witch-burning, the Covenant, Jacobitism, the Darien Bubble, the disruptions &c. Last year we had a mostly fairly-conducted referendum on independence. We had a record turnout - 86% - on an enlarged electoral register (taking in 16 & 17 year-olds) and by a convincing margin voted the electorate voted No. The Yes camp say the No camp lied to the Scottish people and that the UK establishment pulled out all the stops to rig a No vote, but the referendum was held in the year of the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn, with the Commonwealth Games having just been held in Glasgow, coming off the back of Homecoming 2014, so the Nats had the advantage of chosing the field and the rules and the timing. And if the No camp were maybe at times less than honest then the same can be said for the Yes camp.
Maybe the smartest thing about the timing of the referendum was its proximity to a UK General Election.
Anyhow, we now, in that General Election, face the prospect of the Nats picking up over 50 of the 59 Scottish Westminster seats with 45-50% of the popular vote on a turnout of, what? 65%? All thanks to the UK's unfit first past the post system. If the Nats do achieve a such-like result they are perfectly entitled to use their party representation at Westminster to forward their aims and interests. It would be an abomination and would amount to a de facto disenfranchisement of a significant portion of the Scottish electorate.
Labour is dead in Scotland. I can't say it isn't deserved. But it could take down the UK.
I can't claim to like nationalism. I've never seen a flag that has made me happy. On a cultural level I'm British and politically I'm mildly left of centre. My political credos are 'careful now' and 'down with this sort of thing.' Good grief, I nearly joined the SDP and regard John Major as an under-rated Prime Minister. I am seriously worried about the whole Weimar 1933 vibe that's goin' down...
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Latest reply: Apr 26, 2015
DruglessBrain
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