Lonely? Call a MEETING!

I've just spent 90 minutes sitting on the Negotiating Committee of my union. Not literally, of course, they're quite well-behaved. They seemed unnaturally pleased to see me, mostly because I'm twenty years younger than all of them. I just felt inexperienced (and depressed about the state of play).

However, I returned to find in my pigeon-hole not pigeons but my new biography of Tom Wintringham, a book on political dirty tricks by a man with a great name: Kerwin C. Swint, and Pride and Prejudice with Zombies ('transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you'd actually want to read'). What a great haul! Now on with marking until I go fencing in Shrewsbury tonight for the first time in ages.

I'm not weird after all

Sales of Pride and Prejudice with Zombies have hit 4000 on pre-orders alone - clearly a lot of horror fans have been hankering for some Regency manners, and a lot of Austen fans are thirsting for blood.

May is shaping up

… to be a great month for culture. ATP, the Star Trek movie, and Pride and Prejudice With Zombies, about which I blogged a couple of months ago, and which is now available from some behemoth online corporations. I also got Hunger and the new Doves album, Kingdom of Rust in the post today. I've always had a soft spot for them. They're like a happier version of Tindersticks (and the title reminds me of Joan Baez's heartbreaking 'Diamonds and Rust', about her split with Bob Dylan). The video is a live performance from 1975.