Morning. Ish.

Hello readers. How are you all? I sort of took the morning off. Instead of swimming and coming into the office, I went to Birmingham to look at furniture. I'd received a leaflet which promised things like 'Eames Chair, was £1500, now 20p'. It turned out to be obscenely expensive articles reduced to merely extortionate and I bought nothing. I was tempted by the massive bookshelves (damaged) reduced from £12500 to £10,500, mostly because they featured a ladder on runners. I'd only have required three…

Then I went to Habitat in Brum, which is now a rather forlorn 'outlet'. Tempted by an elegant sun lounger which would serve very well as a chaise-longue, and by the extremely cheap, solid CD storage, but couldn't be bothered. I'll just see what the parents have in the attic when I move in a few weeks.

Exhausted, I met Bec from my PGCE to compare teaching workload and colleagues. She's over from Walsall for graduation, and was resplendent in a suit and Staffordshire Uni gown (staff wear the gear from the institution at which they gained their highest qualification). I was less resplendent in my 2004 English Youth Championships fencing t-shirt, 501s and an ancient but very cool pair of superannuated fencing trainers. People think I'm the photocopier engineer.

Vote early, vote often

…is an Irish proverb. I voted at 7 a.m. today, partly because I had to be out of the house to get to Walsall anyway, and partly because I wanted the Tories to be behind from the start. I voted before anyone else in my ward. Plenty of loons standing: BNP, Christian Voice, Libertas etc. etc. If only we'd had PR I could have given my vote to Labour and the Greens (not necessarily in this order), but under first past the post, Labour had to have my vote solely to keep the Tories and BNP out.

Falling over like ninepins in Downing Street

So several ministers have said they'll quit their posts in a few days: Tom Watson, Beverly Hughes, Patricia Hewitt and Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary. Alastair Darling might go over a matter of £350, though I think he's done a good job in saving the actual economy, and Jeff Whoon is off too. Someone might notice. It's not great politics, making the government look incompetent a couple of days before the European elections. I won't miss many of these people, but when you compare Smith to Charles Clarke and David Blunkett, she was a calm, rational, reasonable and pleasant even when wrong, unlike those revolting predecessors.

BUT: what the hell is going on? All these people are going, yet Hazel Blears, the most blatantly corrupt, dishonest, disloyal and untrustworthy minister of all appears to be going nowhere. Astonishing.

I spent the afternoon in Walsall, speaking my mind to the PGCE's external examiner (every course asks someone at a different university to evaluate the standard of the course every year). I did it as a favour - then found that the last bus left at 3.15, almost an hour before I finished. So in the end it cost me money and two horrible sticky rides lasting an hour and a half to get back to Wolves. I'll have to do it again on Thursday. Not impressed!

We're all off to Walsall, We're all off to Walsall, la la la la

Well, that's it for a few hours. I'm guessing that many of you are out in the sun anyway. I'm off to Walsall on the campus bus, which will be horrible. Not, unfortunately, to visit the Jerome K Jerome Museum: instead I'm going to meet the external examiners for the PGCE and hope they don't ask me any detailed questions. (Jerome's Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow almost made it as the name of this blog).

Still, lunch with Bec, which is always fun. I've also just ordered Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger and China Miéville's The City and the City to keep my average up.

I got a free book in the post yesterday too. LibraryThing members can request one of a number of review copies provided by publishers. I'm a bit behind with the ones I wanted to review, which is a bit naughty. This latest one is a proof copy of Giles Foden's Turbulence, which is set in the meteorology world prior to D-Day. Excellent: I need to read about rain to take my mind off the relentless searing heat!

I'm learnin', learnin', learnin', learnin'

Here we are on the PGCE and we're on to reflective learning. Only 4 of us here and it's all rather jolly - lots more exchange of ideas. Shame I'm in Walsall - I never thought I'd pine for Wolverhampton.