So you want to be an English lecturer…

This is so painfully accurate. It's being sent round my department right now.

Does violence breed violence?

There's an established body of work dealing with the cultural effects of trauma: the Northern Irish, Sarajevans, Palestinians and plenty of other groups are witness to the fact that psychiatric disorders always follow in the wake of conflict.

Joshua Tabor is a prime example. The US soldier came home and asked his four-year old daughter to recite the alphabet. When she couldn't, he waterboarded her (i.e. semi-drowned her, a technique officially listed as torture).

Still, I might try it in my seminars. That'll teach them to misprounounce "þæt þu lagu drefde, / siþþan þu gehyrde on hliþes oran / galan geomorne geac on bearwe".*


From The Seafarer. 'That you disturb the ocean / after hearing on the hill's brow / the mournful singing of the cuckoo in the grove'.

I'm an academic get me out of here

It's hot, stuffy and boring. One of our number is being driven to scavenge Marks and Spencer rather than face the bureaucracy. Others are loosening their ties or have simply launched themselves from the window ledges. Nothing appears to be happening in the world - even in Iran - and all you student bloggers are obviously outside.

I'm reading the English subject centre's Benchmarks for English degrees. Amazing what you're meant to know by the end of it!

So to break the boredom: one of my favourite bands of the early 80s (though I was quite young then) - The Pale Fountains

Random meanderings on football, books and bike theft

Like, I assume, the rest of you, I'm listening to Hull v. Stoke City on Radio 5. We're 2-0 up and guaranteed survival, which pleases me mightily, though I'd like Hull to stay up too. I'm particularly happy that the entire world is listening to the match on the World Service. What a great way to encounter the quality, the class, the sheer magic of the English Premier League.

Over at the Hawthorns, West Brom are storming to a win over Wigan too: fantastic. We always beat them, they play attractive football and their fans are brilliant, so I hope they pull off a great escape.

I should be writing the final piece of this month's PGCE essay, but I've wasted the day reading the Guardian - which means ripping out more book reviews, leading to more purchases. There's a brilliant essay by Elaine Showalter on her favourite eight overlooked American female authors - a good corrective to the endless lionisation of cigar-chewing, gun-toting grand old men of American letters.

The only wrinkle on the day was the end of Neal's birthday. He left his bike at Wolverhampton Swimming Pool overnight, and found this morning that some utter wanker has smashed it up, really gone to town on it. If it had been stolen, I could understand the logic, but the sheer mindlessness of deciding to smash up somebody else's bike because it's there completely defeats me. (Obviously, the security cameras are only trained on the car park - cyclists are beneath the attention of all authority). Still if anyone has a housemate with spokes stuck in their shoes, let me know.

It's also a bit annoying because I gave Neal a micro-techno-super-pump and a bicycle bell for his birthday. Perhaps I'll attach the bell to his shoes.

Still - tonight I shall be attending the Star Trek movie. On my own, like a proper Trek fan.

Names are important

Those of you who know me professionally will be aware that I teach English Literature and Media Studies (and various other things on the side). So I'm in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Sciences.

Except that I'm not. Now I'm in the School of Law, Social Sciences and Communications. Does this make me feel valued, loved and secure? It bloody doesn't. Does it make me feel that the Executive is a) incompetent and b) contemptuous of a large proportion of the school's activities? It bloody does.

What really angers me (and my colleagues here on the PGCE are using the phrase 'red mist' about me) is that Law, Social Sciences and Communications doesn't cover: English Lit, History, Politics, War Studies, Philosophy, Religious Studies, European Studies, Cultural Studies, Languages, Women's Studies, American Studies and only reductively, obliquely covers Linguistics, English Language, PR, Media Studies, Cultural Studies. Not only does this list cover more than half our degree courses, it covers way more than half of our students. Grrrr.