Support the CWU

There's a postal strike coming. Support it - the postmen and women are being painted as lazy, reactionary troublemakers rather than hardworking people who aren't opposed to 'modernisation' - they're opposed to reduced services with inadequate staffing.

Personally, it means going cold turkey. No books in the post. Worse than that, the university post is suspended while new pigeonholes are constructed (they look too small for more than a single paperback - more dumbing down). I had to scavenge in the school office to get my fix today: two Angela Carter novels (Love and Several Perceptions) from the 1960s and (finally) Colfer's Hitchhiker's Guide novel, And Another Thing… Wonder if I'll hate it as much as Cynical Ben (here and here).

Neigh thank you…

Many thanks to the anonymous individual who sent me a sparkly pink book entitled Katie Price's Perfect Ponies. I'm not sure who. Someone noticed Animal Stories for Under-Fives and Animal Stories for Girls on my shelves (no, I don't know how they came into my possession) - perhaps that's who it was. The other possibility is Cynical Ben. A full review will follow.

I confess myself confused. 'Fess up!

In other book news, I've received a replacement for my missing The Day of the Triffids, Angela Carter's Shadow Dance (to my shame, I thought I had everything she wrote) and a free copy of George Ritzer's Globalization: A Basic Text, which will be good for students.

How do you produce a scintillating Ireland-Italy football match?

You pick 3 Stoke City players, all set-piece specialists, one of whom (Whelan) scores in the 8th minute from a free kick by another (Lawrence). Italy were very, very lucky with their 89th minute equaliser. Read all about it here.

Off to prepare my Research Methods lecture now: dry but important… Then it's Carter's Wise Children tonight, PR with Yvonne Gaskell tomorrow morning, then something for Communications, then Zoot's doing the Poetry lecture. After that, I simply have to dream up a 2 hour lecture on Much Ado About Nothing. Any ideas?

Late entrants

Late additions to the list of powerful women who aren't Margaret Thatcher: Caryl Churchill, Anne of Green Gables (with some reservations), Helen Suzman, Eleanor Roosevelt, Emma Goldman, Angela Carter, Ada Babbage, Ruth First, Lauren Laverne, Franny Armstrong (thanks Neal for the latter, and Emma for the Buffy suggestion).