The clocks struck thirteen

Won't be blogging much today - I'm stuck in MC331 waiting for you all to collect your essays.

I'm still feeling utterly miserable about the elections, amongst other things. Yesterday, I should have phoned my local MP or branch and joined in with the process of recovery, indefatigably knocking on doors, putting forward the case for a hard-left turn, persuading people to see the light.

Instead, I bought a massive sack of Marmite-infused cashew nuts (thus proving that industrial food can be a good thing), a box set of all the decent-ish Star Trek films (1-6) and went to bed at 7 p.m., to catch up on the weekend's newspapers and some sleep. I didn't even listed to any news later than Channel 4's at 7, which is unprecedented for me: usually I take in The World Tonight on Radio 4 from 10-10.30, then turn over to Newsnight from 10.30-11.20, then the midnight news on Radio 4. Sometimes I'll even listen to the World Service news at 1 a.m too. That's how I know stuff.

By the way: if you eat at Café Rouge or Bella Italia, make sure you give the staff a tip in cash, but be careful. These restaurants, and many others, keep the tips to make the staff pay up to the minimum wage if you pay by card, and they're sacking staff who mention what's going on. From October, staff will legally be paid the minimum wage (currently £5.72 for over-21s) without counting tips. Of course, in a civilised society, everybody would be paid enough without tips, but being a waiter is a horrible job (as I know from experience), and they deserve something extra.

(title of the post is from 1984)

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.

Licence fee - whinge, whinge, whinge.

People sometimes whinge to me about the licence fee being a rip-off, or an unfair, compulsory tax. Never mind that it pays for 100+ radio stations, several TV channels - at least one of which will appeal to you - the World Service and the whole transmission system AND doesn't carry adverts.

Last night's BBC2 vindicated the licence fee for me (despite the Orwellian ads about paying up or being hunted down). Heroes, followed by some variable quality Mitchell and Webb, then Stuart Lee (he won't be appearing on commercial TV anytime soon), then a stunning Cancer Special Newsnight which didn't mention God or 'alternative' (i.e. evil, made-up preying on the vulnerable) medicine, followed by The Wire. Two of these are American shows - fine. They're good quality and cost millions of pounds per episode, and we get them for £140 per year.