The Plashing Vole

I've been in the office for 13 hours now. I've been marking essays and listening to music but - unusually for me - I can't settl...

Like many institutions, The Hegemon is keen to make us look all whizzy and cool by making e-learning a compulsory segment of every module (t...

Given that Denmark has just banned Marmite , it becomes increasingly clear that the mysterious mission to England on which Hamlet, Rosencran...

My pal Gerry wandered into the office just know, and picked up my copy of The Word. It's the only music magazine which occasionally feat...

He's on to education now : another subject on which he knows nothing other than the party line. What steps he is taking to reduce the b...

Well, I'm back at work less than ten hours after I left the office last night. I've already managed to send an e-mail with: the wr...

You may have noticed that the US has suddenly got a lot tougher on its allies as they start to topple - after supporting some vicious dictat...

I couldn't resist: this is dedicated to Harold Camping, who declared that Saturday was Rapture Day. Perhaps it was: we haven't heard...

I thoroughly disapprove of the furore over Ryan Giggs' alleged marital misbehaviour: the problem is that it's uninteresting gossip h...

I've just read a very interesting website , curated by a group of English literature students at some university. Despite not being able...

Following hard on the heels of Elizabeth Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (who at least didn't try to claim Irish ancestry, not having any sort of elec...

The highlight of the weekend - other than the Rapture of course - was seeing Karl Spain and Ed Byrne, the Irish stand-up comedians. Other th...

Well, neither I nor anyone I know was Raptured, which is a profound disappointment: though the high wind warnings and Wolves' continuing...

I sometimes write to my Member of Parliament. The previous one - Rob Marris - was a New Labour clone, but he was an honest and hardworking m...

I am, as you may know, knee deep in essay and dissertation marking. As always, work goes from the absurd to the wonderful (though nobody has...

A tiny bunch of the nuttiest wing of Christianity is wandering the airwaves announcing that tomorrow (21st of May) is the Rapture, when the...

Our illustrious MP made a cameo appearance in the city today. He oiled down to the local further education college to schmooze the kids the...

I saw the wonderful slowcore band Low last night, at Manchester University Students' Union (while the rest of the city went to see Rus...

Right, I'm off to Manchester to hang with the cool kids. Well, ex-cool kids: there won't be a single person at the Low gig with anyt...

I'm off to Manchester tonight, to see Low , a wonderful slowcore Mormon rock band (enticing, no?). Ben hates them, I think they're o...