The best I can say is, it's been another week.

I've (almost) nothing to say this week. Personally, it's been one of banal but necessary administrative labour the details of which I won't burden you, and one of social horror out there. This morning I watched a billionaire with a number of palaces make polite conversation with those burned out of their homes by capitalist greed, while yesterday the political figurehead of said capitalist greed took time out of her self-interested negotiations with the representatives of 17th-century Planter Bigotry to visit Grenfell without meeting any of her victims. What more is there to say?

Back here, it's results week: some of the students are thrilled, some are OK, some are resigned and others are very unhappy, and I'm hearing from all of them. Most of those who've failed or marginally passed have clearly worked hard, while a small minority fail because through lack of effort, and an even smaller minority cheat, but the key thing at this point is to encourage personal responsibility while not being a dick about it. We talk to those who come to see us about their academic practice and support them through the resit process, and we worry about those who for various reasons don't come to see us. I usually point out, too, that we submit work to journals and publishers and rarely get things accepted first time round.*

I'm keeping up culturally too: last night I went to a poetry reading organised by a PhD student and one of my ex-students, featuring their own work plus their favourite regional poets. It was really good - a range of styles and subject matter, and uniformly good delivery which isn't always the case. Sadly only one English student came along, and not a single Creative Writing student or teacher. No doubt they all had good reasons but it's a bit disheartening for the artists.

Except for the one on fan fiction-erotica and neoliberalism I wrote with one of my PhD students. Straight in! With the added joy of slightly freaking out the reviewers and editor. You quote one story about humans mating with anthropomorphised cats…