You can take the boy out of Stoke

…but he's still most impressed by the Staffordshire pottery used in this posh hotel (Thistle Parc, Cardiff/Caerdydd). That's how to spot Stokies anywhere (that and the Stoke City shirt worn for all occasions). They turn over the plates.

Fare thee well

After a delightful and sophisticated lunch with the Deer Friend, I'm off to Cardiff, so have a good weekend - you probably won't hear from me, which may constitute a good one.

I've just noticed with some glee that my friend William's book Jean Baudrillard: Against Banality is in the same typeset as my copy of Moominpappa at Sea (except for the front covers). Must look up the name of the type.

Thursday's Friday Conundrum

I'm off to Cardiff tomorrow, and so rather depressingly missing Cruel Brother Featuring The Deer Friend, but I urge you to attend. I don't know if I'll be online tomorrow or over the weekend as the posh hotel charges extra for wi-fi, the skinflints.

So Friday's Conundrum will have to go up early.

What words would you take back, and what words should you have said? What have you said/written/hinted to someone that you regret? What have you failed to say to someone that may have changed your life, their lives, or simply been the right thing to come out with? Feel free to post anonymously! I'll think about mine for a little longer, as I've only just come up with this one.

(I've only just popped into the office after a full day in Walsall: well worth it - remastered double CDs of Slanted and Enchanted and Terror Twilight).

Heeeeeeeeeeeeere's Voley!

Back in the office where I belong, faced with a massive pile of marking.

Yesterday's meeting in Cardiff was to inspect their halls of residence ready for the School Games. The journey down was beautiful. Deer, rabbits, buzzards and other fauna played in the spring sunshine, and the rolling hills of Gloucestershire and South Wales blazed with blackthorn blossom and wild flowers. Disembarking at Cardiff Central, the Welsh language fell on me like the softest of spring rain.

It was amazing to see their student body. Clearly more middle-class (did you know that Wolves has the most working-class intake of any UK university) and almost all white. They were all working hard - Cardiff seems to run more exams than us. The main university buildings are stunning: massive, gleaming white Edwardian architecture from the days when the cheapest bid didn't always win the tender.

If you haven't been, the city is well worth visiting. On the way back from the visit, I took the circular bus round the city. It went through Splott and all the dock areas, grey houses hunched against the environment. I saw Ninian Park (now abandoned for a new stadium across the road), and suddenly glimpsed the Welsh Assembly Building down at the front. It really is astonishing, a brown and grey hulk of bronze, stone and slate which both fits in and looks like a spaceship from that great Welsh TV show, Dr Who. Then of course there's the castle (I didn't get a chance to go in), Spillers Records - the oldest in Britain, and some bookshops.

On that subject, thanks very much to Anita. In recommending The Plan café, she neglected to mention that it's right next door to Capital Bookshop. I went in for a minute, looked through just one case, and came out with £50-worth of Welsh books. Most won't excite you much: a bibliography of Anglo-Welsh literature published between 1900-1965, a first English-language edition of Kate Roberts's A Summer Day in hardback with its dustjacket, an early edition of Alun Lewis's Raider's Dawn and Other Poems, biographies of Katherine Philips (Orinda) and Emyr Humphreys, a collection of conversations and essays by Humphreys, and Glyn Jones's wonderful The Island of Apples, a classic mid-century Welsh Bildungsroman.

I marked essays on the train. It appears that some of my students believe McDonaldization is a good thing because it means more leisure time for students, and lower staff numbers. As you can guess, that gave me a nice warm glow. Thanks to one of my commenters for linking to this, which sets out McDonald's' plan to offer academic qualifications. So while we're being McDonaldized, they're being Universitized. Or something. Shamefully, one of my American cousins 'teaches' at Hamburger University.

Au revoir

That's enough marking for one day. I've a 7.15 a.m. train to Cardiff, and I'll take a pile of MZ3001 with me, you lucky people. See you on Thursday.