Mischief managed

Well, that's graduation done. Decent speech from the Students' Union vice-president, worthy ones from the worthies. The honorary degree went to Sathnam Sanghera, who despite his day job with the Murdoch press, wrote an excellent memoir of growing up in Sikh Wolverhampton, Love, Secrets and Lies in Wolverhampton, and gave a great little acceptance speech. Other highlights were a card from Christine, and seeing the engraved Pen Anna-Maria gave to William. He's a Baudrillard expert and she's spent the summer at Disneyland, so the pen quoted JB: 'Disneyland is paradise…' - the other half of the quote speaks of 'toxic excrement'.

I felt a little less like Laura Ashley curtains circa 1986 this evening, after a student pointed out that our robes are in Gryffindor colours. Now to the pub to accept libations from survivors (or graduates, as they're technically called).

PS. I almost forgot. According to the platform speeches, Wolverhampton is the greatest university in the world, with a bright future. And not a place which is sacking 250 employees (management exempt), cutting degrees and modules, reducing student workload, increasing surviving staff's workload and increasing class sizes at all! How wrong I've been.

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.

Even more books

In return for spending two whole days translating some Pierre Klossowski (bonkers French philosopher, novelist and artist), William has given me a copy of Bataille's Literature and Evil. I've only read The Story of the Eye so don't quite know what to expect. Onto the pile it goes…

I also received my 'Collector's Library' three-quarter size facsimile of William Morris's Kelmscott Chaucer. It's got too much gold on the outside for my taste, and the edition is completely monochrome - a huge disappointment - but it's still a beautiful edition, reflecting the height of Victorian guild-socialist thought and design from illustrations to typeface. It will certainly do until I can afford to blow a million or two on the real thing (though one of the 48 pigskin and vellum copies can be seen at Wightwick Manor in Wolverhampton) and here are some images from the 425-copies first edition.