Who is the Plashing Vole?

Most of you know anyway, but I'd rather be discreet because I don't want to get myself or anyone else in trouble, including my institution.

So I'm a little concerned that the High Court has determined that anonymous bloggers can be identified by the press - that blogging is a 'public activity' which doesn't carry the right to privacy. I guess this is logical, but it doesn't make me feel any more comfortable. I'm likely to be much more truthful when the threat of the sack doesn't hang over me, and having a secret identity, as well as being cool, means that readers don't treat me as their teacher.

All this has come about thanks to a case involving Nightjack, a police blogger who won the George Orwell Prize this year. There are lots of uniformed bloggers including paramedics and others - presumably the demands of the job, the strict rules, the requirement of obedience wthout question and the daily exposure to the best and worst of human life are conducive to good, critical blogging. Much better than my 'went to a committee today'… Added to that - copper tend to be very rightwing, which leads to strongly expressed, simplistic opinions which work well on blogs. Nightjack's conservative but interesting.

Pitch n Putt with Joyce and Beckett

Genius. Last bit of Bloomsday nonsense.

I'm an academic get me out of here

It's hot, stuffy and boring. One of our number is being driven to scavenge Marks and Spencer rather than face the bureaucracy. Others are loosening their ties or have simply launched themselves from the window ledges. Nothing appears to be happening in the world - even in Iran - and all you student bloggers are obviously outside.

I'm reading the English subject centre's Benchmarks for English degrees. Amazing what you're meant to know by the end of it!

So to break the boredom: one of my favourite bands of the early 80s (though I was quite young then) - The Pale Fountains

Death to… well, somebody. A recount, at least.

The Iranians are participating in the democratic process with some energy today. Follow it live here, or (if you must), at twitter (#iranelection).

I'm in the office (of course) avoiding looking at my final PGCE essay. Instead, I'm trying to quell the panic while I fail to understand what I should be doing with my Workload Allocation Form, Scholarly Activity Form, Appraisal Form and all the other things which document how much work I couldn't get out of last year, and how much labour will be extracted from me next year. What I really want to do is get back to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which is actually brilliant, though the author occasionally regresses to American English expressions and spellings. Still, Elizabeth Bennett is even feistier (and perhaps kinkier) than she was in Austen's first attempt.

A Clip Round the Ear?

Every night our screens are full of jovial coppers, with a voiceover telling us that these guys are the knights defending us against the darkness. This is what you can actually expect if you're a drunk idiot - 4 over-muscled, under-educated bruisers out to give someone a kicking. This is also why the police and government are outlawing taking pictures/video of police officers.

I fear those big words, Stephen said, which make us so unhappy.

Well, today is Bloom's Day, the annual celebration of James Joyce, named after his character Leopold Bloom of Ulysses fame. If you're in Dublin, as a couple of my readers are, you should be tracing the route he took today, from toilet to pub. I'm expecting to hear from Zoot Horn today, as he's Wolverhampton's - and thus the world's - premier Joyce expert.

Here's the opening line:

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.

But it isn't nearly as evocative as the opening of Finnegans (or Finnegan's) Wake:

riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodious vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.

Iranian election turns violent

Massive peaceful protest in Tehran has run into shooting from the security services - what a shame for a vibrant society. Situation ongoing, live coverage here.

Web = collective wisdom

This is of interest to students and staff at my institution only.

Amongst the Brazilian, Iranian, Slovenian and other surfers washing up on my blog today was someone from Surrey University, who googled 'Pebblepad is awful'.

They're absolutely right. It's the worst piece of software ever used. It's the child porn of software: unpleasant and unnecessary.

From balls to, well, more balls

Now 110-8 with 50 runs required from the last 9 balls.

Ho hum. Time to follow the House of Commons Speakers' Hustings live blog. Wonder if they have to do a comic turn as I did when standing for election at my old students' union?

Googly to silly mid on

Ireland look like they won't quite make it against Pakistan - required run rate of 17.something. Oh well - we mixed it with the big boys quite convincingly.

More dead tree media

I thought you might like to see the pile of books I got last week, just because it's aesthetically pleasing. My room is full, so I've had to get everything sent to my office for the last few months. At some point, colleagues' goodwill is going to run out. Then I'll be building a shelter with books on the ringroad…

Support the SOAS cleaners!

SOAS is the School of Oriental and African Studies, part of the University of London. Given that name, you'd think it would be good on multiculturalism.

You'd be wrong: the private cleaning contractor ISS (typical - give the dirty work to some grasping gangmaster), the university and the police got together to imprison and interrogate the cleaning staff about their immigration status - at their place of work. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that they waited until the end of the shift, to extract a few hours work without interruption. In response, the students have occupied the building.

OK, you might object to the presence of undocumented migrants working here. That would be fine, if it wasn't the case that illegal labour pays our way. We rely on slave labour all round the world to make cheap goods for us. Even the expensive goods, such as my lovely old Mac, are made in the cheapest, most exploitative conditions available to corporations. How many UK citizens do you know who deliver pizzas, sell kebabs, clean your offices? These things are too cheap because we don't want to pay people properly, especially those whom we never meet. My institution, at least, pays its cleaners direct - and get good service in return for proper conditions.

By contrast, cleaning, especially in London, is the preserve of the poorest, the most desperate. When they start to agitate about illegal pay levels, dangerous conditions, or unreasonable burdens, their employers sack them or, if they're feeling particularly vindictive, call the immigration service, as has happened in this case.

Yes, local people should have jobs - but a lot won't take 'menial' work, and many more won't take illegally-paid jobs (the minimum wage is £5.73, in case you want to check your wage packet) on principle, which is quite right. This country owes its colonial victims a lot more than £5+ an hour - and we need to run our economy justly and fairly. Until this happens, unscrupulous companies will employ the desperate to do what we won't, then cast them aside. Support the SOAS cleaners!

More dead wood

More books arrive. I can't vouch for their quality this time, as they're both recommendations from friends (including The Deer Friend).

They are: Trenton Stewart's The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey, and Jon McGregor's If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things. The first is a children's book, the second a work of literary fiction - which looks like a revival of the 'condition of England' tradition. I'm in the mood for something fun at the moment, so perhaps the first. Then perhaps something a little racier - life's a little dull at the moment, except for the things I wish were more dull!

President Strangelove, I presume?

Just back from a swim (good job I have flexible work hours). Despite possessing the hydrodynamic qualities of a brick with an eating disorder, I managed my 40 lengths of backstroke in 27 minutes, so I'm feeling triumphant. And sick.

I see that everybody's jumping up and down about Ahmedinejad's re-election (if such it is). Plenty of people are screaming that Iranians shouldn't vote for a man hellbent on nuclear weapons. Er… isn't that what the UK has done every four years since 1950? That the US electorate has done since 1945? Etc. etc. I happen to be a CND member - and all the NPT-compliant states have signed a treaty committing them to abolishing nuclear weapons. Just as I do absolutely nothing to help, so do the big states. Worse than that, we allow India, Pakistan (mmm, stable relations), Israel and several other states to have them without any commitment to abolishing them.

What steps have we taken to abolish them in our own countries? Well, Obama's actually talking about reductions, but that's about it. The UK is about to spend £20-30 billion we don't actually have, on replacing Trident. Apparently, the ability to kill hundreds of millions of people in a few minutes isn't quite enough. We need more, bigger, missile to deal with… er… those pesky guerillas in Afghanistan. No, that isn't right. There's a definite threat from, well, someone, which can only be dealt with by turning entire cities to molten glass, whole civilisations to rubble, sterilising huge chunks of the earth's surface. It's just that I can't think of one right now.

Why shouldn't Iran have nuclear weapons? They're caught up in an insane race with Israel. The intellectual justification's very simple. It's all about having a huge, barely metaphorical penis. When Labour MPs and others objected to Britain pursuing a nuclear weapon in the 1940s, Aneurin Bevan, the British Foreign Secretary, clearly saw the ability to kill millions of people as a replacement for the British Empire, a justification for Britain remaining a powerful state rather than becoming a calm, civilised Scandinavian-style democracy: without nukes, he said, 'you will send a Foreign Secretary, whoever he may be, naked into the conference chamber'.

So there you have it. Without a nuclear weapon, Iran is another weird country holding the oil we all depend on. With it, they can negotiate on a slightly more equal footing. I know this is the politics of the madhouse, but we're all inmates…

Down with the kids, for a weekend

I went to see Doves in a forest this weekend. Not the birds, but a popular beat combo named after a type of ecstasy pill distributed in the 1990s. Which is odd really, because beyond the occasional post-euphoric number, they're quite downbeat.

Being an idiot, I assumed a few things - like cold weather and a campsite near the venue. So I took along woolly t-shirts and my newish red DMs (which earned an accusation of National Front membership from Cynical Ben, because mentally he lives in the West Midlands circa 1981). It turned out that the campsite (populated by students and refugees from the early 90s) was a good 5 miles away.

Despite John's ability to break his new tent and lose tentpegs, he proved a genial tentmate for a Manchester United fan. He neither tried to 'tap me up' or 'unsettle' me in any way. We ate fine steaks and then took the hour and a half trek with good humour, despite the hilarious drive-by abuse from people in SUVs. Amazing that possession of a dangerous, poisonous lump of metal gives these morons a sense of superiority.

Obviously we missed the support band, Delphic, which was a shame. But Doves were just right for the occasion - the sun set gently as their melancholic notes wafted over the Cheshire countryside. The beer was no more expensive than a trendy pub of the kind I tend not to frequent, and the mellow aroma of cheap grass filled the air. The weather was balmy - I wore only a t-shirt (on my torso) and didn't feel at all cold. I've put a few pictures here. Meanwhile, a taster including Cynical Ben's bottom - being a ground-dwelling mammal, my view is rather limited at these events.

The journey back was equally lovely, though everybody's feet ached, and we weren't overly pleased to be greeted at 1.30 by the drunken voices of public school students comparing A-levels or whatever they do - I jammed in my headphones and listened to some John Adams until they lapsed into sullen silence, about 2 hours later.

Sunday brought a large breakfast, some quality cheese purchases in Chester, a sweaty journey home, and blissful unconsciousness for twelve hours. All in all, the perfect weekend.

Plus de liaisons

Hello again? Did you all cope with the searing heat this weekend? I found it quite difficult. Anything above 23% makes me feel like a polar bear in a microwave.

So. On Friday, after a few ales in the Great Western, a select band of us ended up at the Little Civic, Wolverhampton's premier indie dive to mark its last night.

Few people attended Mozart's funeral, so fallen was his reputation. This was the mood in the Little Civic. The five of us danced to the finest cuts of indie beef, as the DJ indulged our whims for the very last time. Scattered around the edges were a very few onlookers, and once in a while, drunk wandered in looking for Yates's, scorned us and left. I've been attending these Friday nights for almost ten years now, have seen the Nightingales and many other bands play the upstairs room in search of that elusive break: then, indie kids danced, rejecting the mockery of those with shaven heads and checked shirts. Now, it's a sad outpost of a lost culture. The boards are going up, the turntable is long defunct, the Field Mice will echo mournfully round an abandoned building long after the DJ departs. A moment of silence please, for another distinctive, shabby, wonderful place.

Weep, you brutes

I'm off home now - the first time in months that I've gone home before 7 p.m. Before I go, I'd like to plug a song I heard for the first time today.

Unfortunately, I can't post The Deer Friend (vocals) with Zoot Horn (guitar) performing 'Waltzing's for Dreamers' utterly heartbreakingly, as this blog can't do sound files. Instead, here's Richard Thompson's original, followed by June Tabor's slow, sadder version - which is still not as evocative as Deer/Horn's version (see what I did there?). I thought I knew a lot of Thompson's stuff, but he always has something more to surprise us. I've just had to buy the Tabor album, The Quiet Eye.

Have a good weekend. I'm calling into the Great Western later, then off to Doves at Delamere Forest tomorrow, so won't be blogging at all until Monday.

Another colossal, brilliant, waste of time

Welcome to The 'Spill - the overflow from the Guardian's Readers Recommend. Obsessives live there. I'm coming home!

Boötes Call

Zoot Horn suggests a trip to somewhere dark on the morning or evening of June 27th to see the Boötes meteor shower. Who's up for it?

Hey løøk. I can gö all mëtål and Nördîc!

Everybody's a critic

The Guardian's reviewer didn't like Kröd Mandöon and the Sword of Fire (BBC2) very much. Did you watch it? I did, and thought it bearable - some funny one-liners and a decent enough idea, as though someone had gone through Terry Pratchett's bin. However, it paled somewhat because a couple of days previously, I'd listened to Radio 4's parody of sword and sorcery tales, Elvenquest. Like virtually all of that channel's 'comedy', it's pretty weak, but it's a hell of a lot better than Krüd (though the presence of Julius from The Thick of It helped).

Luckily, the next show was the new series of Mitchell and Webb, which was much stronger than the last, and, as you'll expect if you know that Mitchell is my physical and spiritual doppelgänger, it was a strange experience. I particularly enjoyed the Mitchell talking doll, which uttered lines extremely similar to those I use in seminars ('that was a particularly banal contribution…').

Just a little longer

I'm not a vindictive man. Well, I'm not usually a vindictive man. OK, sometimes I can be non-vindictive. Now is not one of those times. I just noticed that Margaret Thatcher has broken an arm. That's what happens when a woman in her eighties greets the BNP's victory with the traditional stiff-armed salute.

Before you all start whinging about how cruel it is to take pleasure in the pain of an old woman, I should point out that she is the most damaging, actually evil individual every to take control of this country. I have mixed views on Oliver Cromwell even though he massacred thousands of Irishmen in cold blood. I don't have the slightest tinge of sympathy for Thatcher. Brought up to despise anyone poor, foreign, or who saw the world differently, she allowed her personal prejudices to develop into an ideology which simultaneously yearned for the past while encouraging her friends to make money by making the world worse - culturally, educationally, enviromentally, politically. She supported Apartheid South Africa, despised the working classes, took tea with Pinochet and never met a fascist or hereditary despot she didn't like. She literally denied the existence of community ('there are individual men and women, and there are families') and did her best to destroy the organic communities which grew out of stable employment.

Her lessons that greed, selfishness, wealth, consumption and individualism are the only standards by which success should be judged is at the root of our atrophied education system, our stunted NHS, our poor public services, our low-tax, low-pay economy, our awful railways and clogged roads: Blair and Brown are her spawn, the reason why there's no space in the current political system to discuss collective effort for collective gain.

I haven't the space and time to cover her crimes against humanity - but I do think that any minor bit of pain and suffering is nothing compared with what she's done to us. When she dies, I'm holding a massive party. Every year, I'll visit her grave to make sure she's still dead, and water the wreaths with poison.

A Friday Friday conundrum this time

It's so late! Sorry everybody, I've had a load of work to do, and I got caught up in the Guardian's Readers Recommend shenanigans - see if you can work out who I am, as I've picked a different username for reasons that now escape me. I'm around page 7.

So anyway, I was wallowing up and down in the pool with all the grace of an escaped bouncy castle, and wondered why I was doing this - the answer, of course, is so that I can slave away for some of you for an extra few years rather than gratefully accepting the massive heart-attack which was pencilled in for about 2015. So today's question is:

What do you do unwillingly, because they're good for you, or because others expect it of you?

(Were it not swimming, I could put 'turn up for work', though actually when things are going well, it's brilliant). I also go to Mass at Christmas with the family simply for a quiet life, and (this may amaze you), I often shut up when internally I'm screaming with fury and have something very offensive to say. My PGCE colleagues called me Mr Angry, which seems most unfair.

Au revoir

That's it for today - I'm enjoying England's abject collapse against South Africa, but I'm hungry and there's ironing to do. See you all tomorrow.

Irish eyes aren't smiling

So Ireland go out to New Zealand, comprehensively beaten - but then very few of Ireland's team are professional cricketers (or Irish, come to think of it). It was fun mixing it with the big boys though, and getting further than Australia in a sport a long way down the national pecking order (football, hurling, rugby, soccer, horse-racing, golf - yuck) is very funny.

I'm still not convinced by Twenty20 - it's the equivalent of table football. Give me the slow, thoughtful strategy of a Test match, occasionally enlivened by a wicked spell of fast bowling or the deviousness of a good spinner.

'ello 'ello 'ello part 324 - Only in Texas

Pharyngula notes that 'hello' has now been officially replaced in a Texan county by 'heaven-o' because of the first satanic syllable of the traditional greeting. Think it'll catch on? Any alternative suggestions? What other words will we have to dump to stay on God's good side?

The doctor is out - of his mind

Here's a bit of fun. The American Medical Association is desperate to stop Obama founding national health insurance because it's 'socialist' - the argument they've deployed since 1900. The plan isn't even nearly a proper National Health Service such as ours, tired though it is. We only got it because the Labour government gave in to the doctors and 'stuffed their mouths with gold' - but anything which smacks of sensible collective provision is pretty much communist in US political debates.

So here's Ronald Reagan, then a famous actor and aspiring politician, warning that government health insurance will lead to the gulags

Kiwi jam

The New Zealanders are giving Ireland a pasting - 38/0 from only 3.1 overs. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

Warped dilithium crystals

This is available on a t-shirt from xkcd.com - the mouseover on the website says 'bonus points if you can identify the science'. Neal took one look, muttered something about blackbody radiation and is now explaining the maths and telling the tragic tale of Boltzmann's Constant, which helps explain why this curve isn't a straight line (his critique of classical physics was vindicated a couple of months after his death - the little k is his constant in this equation). It plots the energy carried by a photon of light by its frequency (though light's a particle too). A blackbody radiator radiates all the heat/light it absorbs.

I shall buy Neal the t-shirt in honour of his superior nerding.

Poor Emma

That petulant idiot savant Ronaldo has gone to Real Madrid for £80m. Meanwhile, my eyes are on Ireland v. New Zealand this afternoon. It should be good. New Zealand play great strategic cricket (Vettori's my favourite bowler) but they may not be cut out for the agricultural style demanded by Twenty20.

Live coverage here.

War, on drugs

Paul Flynn castigates the idiocy of the Afghan policy - the result of eight years of war is that 95% of heroin in Britain comes from a country flooded with Western troops, the same proportion as when the Taliban ran the country. The only difference is that heroin is now massively cheaper than it was then. A victory for capitalism, at least.

They think it's all over…

I didn't watch the football match last night because I was talking to interesting people and didn't want to watch a charmless bunch of thugs treat an amateur team like idiots.

Radio 4's sports commentator this morning posed the question 'what's the secret of England's success'? Could it possibly be that scoring 6 against a team with no professional players from a country comprising 'rugged mountains dissected by narrow valleys', only 2.13% of which is flat enough to grow crops, and a population of 83,000 - about that of Stratford-on-Avon or slightly more than the capacity of Old Trafford, isn't that great really?

Outplayed and outgunned

Last night was a tale of bravery, tactics, guile and determination. In every area, we were completely outclassed. We must bow down to the master and accept that we will always be amateurs.

To what do I refer? To Ireland's loss in the Twenty20 (we've still qualified for the last eight though)? To England's victory over mighty Andorra?

Of course not. Last night we welcomed the external examiners to our august institution. Every subject has an academic from another institution to check that we're teaching well, marking properly, offering good courses - usually they're amazed by the amount of work we do and the quality (they teach 2-3 modules a year: I taught 11 this year, two of them double). Last night in the Hogshead was like a Staff Ball - the only people there without PhDs were the bar staff.

So what was this comprehensive defeat? It was the annual competition to persuade one of my colleagues (no names, to save his blushes) to buy us a drink. I have to admit that we failed utterly. At every stage we were outfoxed. He disappeared just as we entered the bar, and reappeared only when we were safely ensconced around a table, foamy pints overflowing. As we approached the critical stage of the next round, he disappeared for a second and reappeared with his own pint, despite our enthusiastic joshing about whose round it was (I eventually admitted defeat and made the trek to the bar).

By the crucial point of the third pint, we had pretty much accepted failure. Our tactics were reduced to leaving our now empty glasses on the table and staring at them silently. Once again, our foe managed to evade our clutches, spotting someone across the hostelry to whom he absolutely had to talk. He then left, victory assured for the seventh year running. Curses!

Needless to say, I'm not feeling entirely compos mentis this morning. Exhaustion and slight over-consumption of Ceres' bounty conspired against going swimming this morning. Despite this, I bonded with our externals over the twin joys of teaching and Stoke City.

Yet again, the Daily Mail treats you with contempt

Thanks to Mailwatch, which points out that this frightfully important story is illustrated by the worst bit of Photoshopping the world has ever seen. Quality journalism!

the final word on Twitter

If you use it, you're a Twunt.

If you go down to the woods today

…or more accurately, on Saturday, you'll meet me. Several thousand other people too, of course, because I'm going to see Doves (the band, not the birds) in Delamere Forest, Cheshire. It's going to be well cosmopolic.

I'm going with Cynical Ben, his patient wife, John and his better half, and we're all camping out. It may be drier and warmer than Ben's house at the moment, following his catastrophic boiler failure.

Off with their heads

I've always been a big fan of Tom Paine, the Norfolk thinker who made major contributions to the French and American revolutions with ideas he wanted to implement in Britain - where he's largely forgotten. He wouldn't have stood for any of the current nonsense, as this Guardian piece points out.

First they came for the teachers…

Lynne Horn, a Scots teacher, has been banned from running a blog about her work - she specialises in using educational technology to reach pupils, particularly boys. All other teachers in her area have received similar bans.

Her offence? A Tweet which ran thus:

"Have three Asperger's boys in S1 class: never a dull moment! Always offer an interesting take on things"

As far as I can see, this remark is neutral at worst, positive at best. Yet the outraged yokels are saying things like 'She should be teaching, not sitting at her computer' - though it's unlikely she left the classroom to twitter to her mates. Do these people think teaching isn't difficult or challenging? Apparently, teachers are allowed teaching-related blogs but nothing personal: there's an interesting legal point. Is the local authority really claiming the right to limit a teacher's right to run a blog about Scalextric, trainspotting or violin-making?

Free Lynne Horn (and let's hope my employers don't read Plashing Vole).

My library of love

Hurrah! 14 book in the post today, the ones I bought from Bananas.co.uk for £19 including postage. I was summoned to the secretary's office to collect this enormous box. In it were:

The Penguin Celebrations set: How I Live Now by Meg Rossoff (already got), Coe's What a Carve Up! (already got), Nick Hornby's How To Be Good (might be OK, not my usual taste), Marian Keyes' The Other Side of the Story (never heard of it), Ali Smith's The Accidental, Any Human Heart by William Boyd, Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything Is Illuminated, Matthew Kneale's English Passengers, Lewycka's A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, White Teeth by Zadie Smith, Heller's Notes on a Scandal, Hari Kunzru's The Impressionist, Barker's Regeneration and Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction.

So they're all very middlebrow and I've read a few of them, but they're all worth a go - and they look great in their uniform, retro designs.

What else came? Nicola Barker's odd Darkmans, Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty (mostly for the politics), Marjorie Blackman's Noughts and Crosses (good agitprop) and finally Eugenides' Middlesex.

Mmmmmarmite

Morning blogfans! I'm in meetings again today, but at least there are sandwiches provided. I'll do anything, frankly, for a free buffet. Quality isn't even important.

My shopping trip was less than successful. Determined to dress as a thrusting young blade, I ended up buying black DMs in a softer leather, and the plainest (though most expensive) black trousers I could find. The problem was that everything else I looked at made me look like an idiot out on a permanent stag weekend. Part of the problem, of course, is that despite doing a lot of swimming, I still have the corporeal equivalent of suburbs. I believe my navel has a separate postcode.

So I ended up with DMs and some rather nice Ted Baker trousers - I know nothing about labels, and unpicked any identifying marks.

The greatest bit of the evening was going to Malaysian Delight down by Chinatown. I eschewed the Coca-Cola wings, but opted for the Marmite Chicken main course. It was amazing. If the BNP take over, we'll never be able to eat this kind of fusion cooking. It was massive chunks of crispy chicken marinaded in sesame seeds and Marmite, served with wonderful rice and veg. I sat there for hours, reading Giles Foden's Turbulence and savouring the meaty, tangy goodness. I must ask them how they do it.

Education educashon educashun

Kate reminds me that there's now no government department with the word 'education' in its title. So much for 'education education education'. Instead, Mandelson's Business department is now responsible for research as The Guardian notes, so if you aren't designing weapons or commercial stuff, you may as well give up. How very Thatcherite.

Bore the BNP to death

Here's what to do about the BNP. Everybody knows they're smelly racist bastards, including people who voted for them.

So let's try a different approach. They're not just racist, they're morons and they're lazy. Whenever they win council seats, they fail to turn up, don't do the work (being a councillor is both boring and difficult) and get angry. My suggestion is that we tax the new MEPs with details. Ask Griffin where he thinks the PSBR should be set, how he feels about set-aside, whether gilt auctions are currently under-subscribed, or PFI penalty clauses: all the really boring, massively important things that you need to know about to be a decent political party. He can't blame Jews/Kosovans/homosexuals for any of those things! It'll show them up utterly because they've no ability to conceptualise the world in any way other than identity politics.

More twitter fun

Twitter for Paedophiles: Glitter.

Twitter for plumbers: Shitter.

For exercise fanatics (or engineers): Fitter

For tired university teachers: Bitter

For batsmen: Hitter

For coffee drinkers: Jitter

For the messy: Litter

Take a bite

I know I'll lose most of you now, but yesterday was a glorious one for Apple Mac users: new iPhones (time to get one), a stunning new OS coming in September, and radically upgraded laptops - I'll be replacing this 7 year-old iBook with one of these beasts in September, thanks to the education discount we can all get.

What do they know of cricket, who only cricket know?

Asked C L R James. Very little, if we're talking about Australia, humiliated! I hope England and Wales (usually known as England) go out next. Today: Holland v. Pakistan live here. Can Holland beat Pakistan? Well, they beat England convincingly. Ireland, of course, qualified for the Super 8s already, by beating Bangladesh. This is how they did it:

Tamim's run-out was a comic affair. Niall O'Brien dashed around the stumps to collect Mahmudullah's nudge, Tamim was sent back and dropped his bat, and O'Brien's throw to the bowler's end deflected on to the stumps off the ample stomach of William McCallan.

A good shoeing

What are you all doing today? I'm stuck in this office for another hour (and had to miss a swim for the second time this week), then going to a union meeting to find out what fresh horrors the university has in store for us.

After that, I'm sorely tempted to go to Birmingham to buy some new Doc Martens, as my black boots have a massive rip in the soles and my black DM shoes are completely knackered. I'm left only with some new cherry red ones, some tired brown nubuck ones, the exhausted suede ones, a new pair of brown shoes (technically meant to be for women) and the sandals. Perhaps I should diversify a little, though DMs are just part of my 90s indie culture - early Blur, Steve Lamacq etc. I do have some posh leather-soled brown and black brogues for funerals and weddings, but I never wear them otherwise. Then there are my fencing shoes (shiny silver and black, not to be worn off the piste) and some 1990s Adidas fencing shoes which are very cool indeed. Your suggestions? I no longer yearn for flashiness, if I ever did, but don't want something too staid.

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)

Save me from extinction - all donations gratefully received

Yes: voles are recovering from your wanton carelessness and cruelty. Numbers have doubled recently (I can't embed this delightful video, unfortunately). I'm still endangered though, so any donations to either me, The Wildlife Trust for Birmingham and the Black Country, or The Watervole Project in London, which give special care to voles, will be gratefully received.

Meanwhile, Ireland have thrashed Bangladesh. Next up: India, later in the week. I'm off to nibble shoots now.

Free at last!

OK, that's a bit flippant - but the day long meetings are over and I never want to see a three-inch thick set of grade printouts ever again.

And I won't have to for another year. As long as my bosses don't read my blog, in which case I may not be around that long…

Did anyone want that printer by the way? The competition is to make me laugh. First one to genuinely amuse me gets it and whatever spare ink cartridges I have lying around.

Yet more booky-wooks

Hurrah! I'm dropping with exhaustion, but my spirits are revived by the arrival of five books today: Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger, China Miéville's The City and the City, and all three of Marilynne Robinson's novels: Gilead, Home and Housekeeping. One of them's coming to this meeting.

Bangladesh 137/8 (20/20 ov)

Ireland 58/1 (8.6/20 ov)

Celebrity guests

Neal and I had a celebrity rhyming slang dinner last night: J. G. Ballard and Alan were in attendance (i.e. a mallard and a partridge). Mmmm…

I'll get my coat. Again.

Howzat!

Emma reminds me that the titans of Ireland take on the Bangladesh minnows in the Twenty20 tournament today. Easy… I hope it's not all over by the time my next meeting ends around 4.30.

Bangladesh are in first - 27 for 1 from 3 overs, so they're scoring well.

Staring horror-struck into the celebrity mirror

I've now had time to review the David Mitchell interview you all kindly pointed out. The results are frightening. He's both creepy and absolutely right about everything. As am I.

We share a birthdate, background, opinions and quietly devastating good looks. Ahem.

Oh, and this in common:

One major change even Mitchell can't have avoided must have been his new attractiveness to the opposite sex. For one thing, he has undergone a quite dramatic, A-list-style weight loss

Your suggestions please

Using office materials and/or toenails, what's the quickest way to commit hara-kiri and end the pain of administration?

Today is shrouded in gloom

I won't be around much today - 2 four-hour meetings to check every student's grade. What joy that will be.

Meanwhile, contemplate this: that the British people have largely chosen the landed aristocracy, followed by petit-bourgeois racists in the form of UKIP, and a significant chunk have voted for racial violence, holocaust denial, pigmentation-based discrimination, Nazism and moronic anti-politics.

You'll soon find out that the Tories can't blame the poor for everything, UKIP can't blame Europeans and the BNP can't blame black people, Muslims and Jews. When they start cutting public services and handing them over to thugs and wideboys (I accept this process is already under way), just remember this: you voted for it. (Not my regular readers of course).

We're doomed to a miserable, reactionary, racist, capitalist future

I'm hating the election results. BNP won a seat (I won't be holidaying in Yorkshire/Humber, Lancashire or Stoke), the Greens haven't broken through, and WALES, of all places, has gone Tory: the country which had its language mocked and often banned by the Tories, the birthplace of Labour, the home of trades unionism and Chapel radicalism. I used to be so proud of Wales's previous status as a Tory-free zone. It's ashes now.

Ireland's the only country which has gone left. One amusing detail in Spain though: Alternativa Espanola, the fascist party which has strong ties to the British Conservatives, managed 0.12%. Let's do the same to the Tories next time.

Would you buy a house from these people?

Noted in South Wales (or to some people, south Wales) today: Crook and Blight estate agency! Perhaps rebranding is acceptable under particular circumstances…

Chigloo

On another post, Neal and Christine have been debating the merits of cheese-based Arctic scenes. This is a picture from the site to which Christine left a link:

The site recommends adding blue cubes of gelatine for added icy authenticity.

Evening all

I'm finally back from Caerdydd, tired and still enjoying the lovely rain. We came back via Abergavenny and Hereford then rural Shropshire, taking in rolling hills, small mountains, ruined abbeys and lots of beautiful architecture from every age. Though the knowledge that rural Britain is inhabited entirely by Tories gnaws away at me, I always feel a rush of joy when I reach those forgotten, unchanging landscapes along the borders.

What else happened today? I saw a red kite and lots of buzzards, and bumped into Mark Ramprakash in the car park. Though I'm a cricket fan, I didn't recognise him. Jen did: apparently he's been on some celebrity idiocy.

I've a little work to do tonight ready for the subject board - and it's election night. I'll not bore you with the details though. You can follow the whole misery live here.

Nerds + politics = possible Twitter justification

But only because a lot of people following the Irish council elections makes up for the national broadcaster's understandable limitations - follow it here as people Twitter the latest gossip/results.

OK, it's important for my new media teaching. It's Saturday night in the Welsh capital, and I'm thinking about work. What the hell has happened to me? (Answer: nothing. This is, unfortunately, the real me).

Porn by Twitter = Titter?

Pancake recipes (or idiots) = Twatter?

Drunks = Totter

Short, disapproving messages: Tutter.

Pork-based recipes: Trotter

Irish twitter - 'Tater

I'll get me coat…

You can take the boy out of Stoke

…but he's still most impressed by the Staffordshire pottery used in this posh hotel (Thistle Parc, Cardiff/Caerdydd). That's how to spot Stokies anywhere (that and the Stoke City shirt worn for all occasions). They turn over the plates.

Scrap Scrap Scrap

Brilliant. Ian Gibson, the brilliant, troublemaking MP for Norwich has resigned his seat to trigger a bye-election. Hope he runs as an independent socialist and wins.

BS Bingo!

'Umbrella of support' - complete with a picture of an umbrella in case we haven't seen one. Which is unlikely, as we're in Wales and it's been raining solidly for 12 hours…

I have allies - other people who've noted that this course is identical to all the others I've been on. The structure and exercises (breakout sessions ffs?) are literally the same as the conference I was at on Monday, about academic careers. Still, it's interesting to talk to people from other sports. I'm tempted to hang around with the swimmers, because they're fatter even than me.

The taste test

Time to discover whether this is a quality event: the buffet. Mmmmmmmm cheese

Update. Distinctly lacking on the caws front (that's Welsh for cheese), but very superior all round - olives, artichokes, beautiful pork in redcurrant sauce. I resisted the booze though, as we're all sportspeople whose bodies are temples (ahem).

Plenty of opportunities for bullshit bingo though.

Food processors are great!

I don't like advertising. Especially pro-pollution ads, so it annoys me when The Guardian, which cares about the environment, runs ads for airlines and SUVs etc - because they need the money. George Monbiot rants about it much better than I could (and without early Blur references in the title).

Sweet Caroline

Hard-faced rightwing, selfish careerist and mediocre minister Caroline Flint has stabbed Brown in the back, leaving the cabinet in a huff because she didn't get a promotion. In her resignation letter she tells GB 'You treated me as window dressing'. It's true that Brown et al. are a lads' club, but let's remind ourselves of Ms. Flint's recent media appearances: a multipage fashion shoot in Observer Woman while declaring that she didn't want to be judged by her appearance.

Will the reshuffle save the party (and therefore the country)? No. Same useless, failed faces, plus Alan Bloody Sugar (after Brown declared the end of Blair's celebrity-run regime).

Meanwhile in St. Ives, the Labour Candidates finished significantly behind Lord Toby Jug of the Monster Raving Loony Party.

Everybody's a critic

So, if you were at Cruel Brother last night, post your reviews here. If you weren't, why not? According to Neal, the room fell silent when The Deer Friend sang Joni Mitchell's A Case of You. I'm assuming that this is a positive response! How I wish I'd been there.

They're doing a short set at the Newhampton tonight if you just can't get enough.

Merch o Gaerdydd

Well, here I am in Cardiff. I'll resist the temptation to live-blog the UK School Games Team Managers' Orientation Day, as I'm not sure you could stand the excitement. There are a lot of tall, willowy, fit looking people in intimidating sports gear - Olympics this, World Championships that (I'm wearing my England Fencing hoodie, which is probably a bad choice in Wales). And there are swimmers, none of whom look like they're particularly aquatic, to put it kindly.

We came down in driving rain, through the most rural areas of Shropshire, Herefordshire and Wales - wonderful. Spring-summer brought out a rainbow of greens, the grey-honey stone was restful on the eyes, and every village had a name more evocative than the last - Stanton Lacy, Corfton Bache, St. Weonard's, Wormelow…

And now I'm in the poshest hotel I've ever been in. I feel like I'm messing the place up simply by sitting here!

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.

Well done, Wolverhampton University mathematician

Crappy formulae for 'most romantic day of the year' or whatever is bullshit which gives science a bad name.

So you can guess that I'm particularly pleased by news that one of my own colleagues has put her name to this modern branch of publicity-seeking charlatanry, as noted by Frank Swain (h/t to Ben Goldacre). Apparently the best pancake is defined mathematically, not by taste. Aaaaarrrrrgggghhh.

Some good news now: I'm keeping my English teaching job for another 2 years, despite this blog! Hurrah!

Go Prescott

Again, a buffoon I never rated has come out fighting: here's an extract (and yes, I'm afraid today will be politics-heavy).

But whilst I knew we were short of money I didn't realise we also lacked the will to fight these elections. The people responsible for this non-campaign – and make no mistake there was no campaign - were Harriet Harman, Caroline Flint, Douglas Alexander and yes, our former Communities Secretary Hazel Blears.

I kept asking the party what was the strategy, what was our message, what was the campaign? I became so concerned I actually wrote to Harriet. Her reply was less than satisfactory. These apparently were the 'messages.'

For the many v for the few
Grow your way out v cut your way out
On your side v on your own
Substantial leadership v insubstantial salesmanship

And that was it.

It seems the people responsible for our campaign were resigned to defeat and were prepared to use the excuse that we had no money.

Rhyme crimes

I've just received The Stuffed Owl, a brilliant anthology of bad poetry by lots of proper poets - Wordsworth etc. I shall use it for teaching purposes.

As we're in the middle of a financial crisis, I thought I'd share with you Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton's 'Financial Note', which is a shockingly poor response to an earlier series of bank failures.

A fortnight ago, a report about town

Made me most apprehensive. Alas and alas!

I at once wrote and warned you. Well, now let that pass

A run on the bank about five days ago

Confirm'd my forebodings too terribly, though,

I drove down to the City at once: found the door

Of the bank closed: the Bank had stopp'd payment at four.

Warrant out for McNab; but McNab was abroad:

Gone - we cannot tell where. I endeavour'd to get

Information: have learn'd nothing certain as yet-

Not even the way that old Ridley was gone:

Or with those securities what he had done:

Or whether they had been already call'd out:

If they are not, their fate is, I fear, past a doubt.

Treason doth never prosper

What's the reason? Why, if it prospers, none dare call it treason. (John Harington)

Well, I'm in the office for a few hours - need to write a module leader's report, if that excites you in any way. lair

Today is both glorious and tragic. Glorious in that I'm having a cup of tea with the Deer Friend, recently returned to these shores from a few weeks' grave-robbing in the pyramids. Weren't they a cheap rip-off of After Eights in the nineties?

Tragic in that bitter, twisted, selfish, self-important, deluded, reactionary no-mark Blairites are stabbing Gordon Brown in the back. As I said before, I've never rated him as much more than a capitalist stooge, but I like dour, eeyoreish monsters. Now I feel sorry for him - the unwanted dog in the pound, whipped, beaten and beneath contempt.

Who the fuck are these people? Does Blears think she'll be a rallying point for the Blairites? Does Purnell think his moment has come at last? Frankly, I wouldn't recognise him if he was alone in a room with his name on the door - and I'm a politics obsessive. They're not saving the party by knifing the prime minister. They're making it clear to the country that they'd rather get some headlines by treating Brown like a gimp than run the country or make Labour electable again. They're clearly neither socialists nor Labour supporters, because all they're doing is helping the Tories. How does guaranteeing a Tory government help the working people of this country? Blears, Purnell and Hutton are traitors, pure and simple. Watch as they pick up lucrative directorships and turn their backs on the people who (mistakenly) elected them.

The Guardian's live-blogging the shenanigans here.

Thursday's Friday Conundrum

I'm off to Cardiff tomorrow, and so rather depressingly missing Cruel Brother Featuring The Deer Friend, but I urge you to attend. I don't know if I'll be online tomorrow or over the weekend as the posh hotel charges extra for wi-fi, the skinflints.

So Friday's Conundrum will have to go up early.

What words would you take back, and what words should you have said? What have you said/written/hinted to someone that you regret? What have you failed to say to someone that may have changed your life, their lives, or simply been the right thing to come out with? Feel free to post anonymously! I'll think about mine for a little longer, as I've only just come up with this one.

(I've only just popped into the office after a full day in Walsall: well worth it - remastered double CDs of Slanted and Enchanted and Terror Twilight).

One more hour

That's almost it. Last day of the PGCE. Only one more essay (on curriculum design) left to do. I'm at the Combermere tonight, but if you're around Walsall, there's a cheese and wine launch for the new Art and Food exhibition at the art gallery. Neal's going, and he's hot!

This be the worse

Damn. Just ordered my 24th book this week - The Stuffed Owl, an anthology of bad poetry. Should be fun.

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.

All quiet on the western front

I'm not ignoring you. I'm on a PGCE day with no power sockets within reach, and my poor old Mac can only last 15 minutes on battery power.

I'm actually having a brilliant day: the lecturer is interesting, interested and very independent-minded. We're discussing intellectual coherence and curriculum design. I won't name him her, or s/he'll be neutralised by the Borg that is the Executive. What's going on in the real world?

Another book dealer to empty my pockets

I use Amazon a lot, and ABE all the time. Now I've found bananas.co.uk - the clearance page for The Book People - and bought 18 new books for £19 including postage. Not quite as good as Cynical Ben, and it takes some effort to find the good stuff amongst the mainstream dross, but it's still excellent.

Damn - and now I've just bought all three of Marilynne Robinson's books from Amazon: Home, Housekeeping and Gilead. Wonder when I'll reach the point of owning more books than I can read in the course of my lifetime?

A quick plug

For two events: Cruel Brother (named after an old ballad, or the mirror of Pentangle's 'Cruel Sister' album, or Rachel Unthank and the Winterset's album of the same name?) and the Deer Friend are performing this weekend, at the Chindit on Friday night, and supporting an ex-member of Fairport Convention at the Newhampton Inn on Saturday. Highly recommended folk/rock stuff, everybody. I'll hopefully be at the Chindit, depending on whether I have to go to Cardiff that day or early on Saturday.

Before that, however: please vote tomorrow. As long as you aren't planning to vote UKIP, Tory or BNP. If you are, the elections are on Friday. I always try to vote at 7 a.m. so that the Tories are losing straight away.

It's not all work, work, work

Sometimes, I'm actually happy. Last night, Mark and I had to agree a project grade. We did so and then repaired to an hostelry and drank fine ales in the garden, while talking solely about books and possible research we could do together - two hours passed by without notice.

A fishy tale

Like fish, you ocean-raping bastards? In particular, do you eat tuna? If you do, spit it out and never touch it again.

One study suggests oceans will be stripped clean of all fish by 2048. Bluefin is imminently at risk of commercial extinction. The wildlife charity WWF forecasts that breeding stocks of the fish that migrate from the Atlantic to spawn will be wiped out in the Mediterranean by 2012.

Although the legal bluefin catch is set at 22,000 tonnes, conservationists suspect the actual catch is 60,000 tonnes, four times the maximum that marine scientists recommend. After studying catches and sales, Charles Clover, the environmental journalist behind the film The End of the Line, believes that businesses involved in the ransacking are deep-freezing 20,000 tonnes of bluefin a year for later use.

The fisheries body responsible for numbers, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), sanctioned a bluefin catch of 22,000 tonnes this year in defiance of its own scientists who advised no more than 8,500-15,000 tonnes.

WWF said the decision was a "disgrace". In fisheries circles, ICCAT is sometimes referred to as the International Conspiracy to Catch All Tuna. Rules forbidding the use of spotter planes to identify tuna shoals are flouted and boats are thought to have connections to organised crime in Italy.

Willie Mackenzie, a Greenpeace fish campaigner, said: "Mitsubishi are best known in the UK for making cars or electrical goods – and for most people it comes as a bit of a shock to find out they are one of the world's biggest traders in the endangered bluefin tuna. Bluefin tuna are as endangered as rhinos or tigers."

According to this shocking report, Mitsubishi's response to the coming extinction of these magnificent creatures is to kill as many as possible now and freeze them, rather than let anybody else catch them. Doesn't this just hasten extinction? Greedy dumb-asses.

Meanwhile, here's some time-lapse video of just what we've done to the planet (clue: nothing good). This one is what has happened to the Aral Sea:

Food for thought?

I had the worst meal ever yesterday - and I went to a boarding school for some of my youth. It was at Walsall Campus canteen. I requested the Yorkie Dinkie, assuming it would be roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

She picked up a frisbee of Yorkshire pudding and dropped two chunks of mashed potato into it with a dull thud. Sausages which looked like anatomical tribal warfare trophies followed, then a lump (literally) of gravy.

On sitting down, I realised that the Yorkie had to be torn by hand - cutlery was useless. The potato was semi-raw and barely mashed: my fillings had problems with the nuggets of raw potato hidden in the cold mash. The only thing lumpier than the mash was the gravy, which was clearly dredged from the bottom of a particularly polluted canal.

The piéce de résistance was the sausages. They looked like they'd spent too long on a sunbed - chocolate brown and clearly deep-fried. The only way to separate the crunchy outsides (impossible to cut into or chew) was to jam one fork through the crust, then employ a second fork to scrape out the barely-cooked 'meat' from the insides. The effort was wasted: the taste was similar to a discarded flip-flop coated in penguin guano. I managed two mouthfuls before giving up, gnawing disconsolately on the Yorkshire pudding in the same way Captain Scott tucked into his shoes towards the end. Next time I'm there (Thursday), I shall bring my own shoes and get them to put them in fryer. At least I know where they've been.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha bye bye Blears

Maybe this makes me sound bitter, but Hazel Blears' resignation is one of the happiest days of my life - like all my graduations rolled into one - because I'm a socialist and a Labour Party member (I know, these things are mutually exclusive, but I exist in a state of cognitive dissonance). I hope that my constant acid attacks on her has helped foster in her the sense that the people don't really like her - but I doubt it.

True to form, she's resigned in a way designed to make herself look good and Brown look useless. He is, of course, but she's a deserting rat keen to inflict as much damage as possible. He should have sacked her a long time ago: it would have been good for the government of this country, good for the party and good for his reputation: he'd have looked decisive.

She said that she wants to

"help the Labour party to reconnect with the British people, to remind them that our values are their values, that their hopes and dreams are ours too".

But the Guardian is, thankfully, less impressed by her low cunning:

In a move that seemed deliberately hostile, Blears confirmed her departure publicly 90 minutes before prime minister's questions.

Obviously she's talking total bollocks. She represents nobody except careerist rightwing political obsessive class traitors, despite her incessant whinging that she's working class (because her brother drives a bus). Let's hope she's consigned to the dustbin of history for ever, and that New Labour goes with her.

As to the leadership, I maintain my record of opposing every Labour leader since Clement Atlee (and he drifted sharply to the right). I hated Blair when he was Home Office shadow minister and saw Gordon as his capitalist fixer - and a man who betrayed his Maxtonite roots. I see no reason to re-evaluate that position. I'd like John McDonnell to take the leadership, out of romantic socialism. If not, Alan Johnson would appeal to the electorate but not to me. Perhaps Rhodri Morgan (or in English) should be invited in: he's the leader of Wales's 'Classic Labour', which has made that country a socialist paradise, he's a heavyweight intellectual and a populist speaker and organiser. Michael Foot's still alive too.

I almost forgot: meanwhile, Labour HQ has dumped Dr Ian Gibson, for selling his flat to his daughter. Ridiculous: most of the cabinet have behaved corruptly, whereas he hasn't. Of course, it couldn't be because he's a sane, rational, thoughtful and occasionally rebellious independent thinker. He's particularly good on science. The country will certainly miss his contribution to public life.

Dr Cowell Speaks

'Susan Boyle has no 'underlying mental problems', says 'Talent' judge'. Well that's OK then. Perhaps I'll get him to look at my paralysed hand and hunch.

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!

In your faces, reader rivals!

I won Cynical Ben's First Line Competition! I guessed eight books correctly, worked out that one of them was written by him, and failed miserably on the Leonora Carrington one (hangs head in shame).

Poor old Cynical returned from holiday to find his house had become an aquarium. Be nice to him.

If it quacks like a duck, it's not science

The Daily Telegraph has done democracy a massive favour by publishing all the MPs expenses claims.

But you can't keep a mentally-ill publication down. If you know even the slightest thing about science or journalism, I urge you not to click on this link (hat-tip to Ben Goldacre) because you'll start to self-harm, so great will be the anguish. If you meet Christopher Middleton, feel free to beat him to a bloody pulp. After all, he can be healed by sending a hair sample to a radionics specialist…

What are little Christopher's scientific qualifications? Well, he was Property Writer of the Year 2005, and describes himself as a 'modern manners journalist'. It would be very wrong of you to email him at CMidton@aol.com to question him further, or to leave skeptical questions on his website.

Great lost tracks

About to leave the office but had to spread the word: Into the White, by The Pixies. Kim Deal takes over vocals. Stunning.

I don't think we're in Wolverhampton any more, Toto

I promised photos of Bridgnorth, where the Map Twats descended on Christine and James, ate their Stinking Bishop (a phrase their ecclesiastical neighbours might misinterpret), drank their Pimms and left. I've added a couple of the conference I was at today. Please note that we borrowed the beer cans to add comedy value when I sent the photo to my boss. More pictures here, or click on the images for larger versions.

Mirror mirror

Thanks to Christine, who has pointed me here: I'll be contributing asap.

My island retreat

I've found a rival institution to lovely UPEI.ca: the University of the Faroes. When you're all fighting over the last tomato plant in Waterworld, I intend to be sitting in a tutorial chatting about books with some of the 130 students.

Meanwhile on another planet

Pro-Vice Chancellor for research at Sussex makes working there sound like paradise for staff - light workload for new staff in the first three years, no higher promotion for selfishly-behaved academics, strong defence of the higher education ethos, aims to be the employer of first choice… He even wanders about the campus inviting random colleagues for coffee, and makes sure he gets to know everybody, to the benefit of individual and and institution. If it's true, what a great place.

Yet more Stilton

Things are looking up - interesting colleagues, excellent cheeses for lunch. Simultaneously battling the dark forces of IT services, who've managed to do something debilitating to my e-mail access. The gits.

'Where do you want to go?'

…is illustrated with a railway track, and now we're on an 'icebreaker'. I say leave the ice alone. The bullshit bingo advances…

Now sticking post-its on the wall from academic speed-dating and standing by my patch of wall.

Update: now terrified. The only way to survive is to publish loads of stuff, sit on important committees, have children, teach massive amounts, raise external funding, be internationally renowned and wear severely modernist glasses - all as a young academic. We've just been told that the secret to a balanced career is to work only 9-5: our teaching hours are 9-9!

Carry On Up the Greasy Pole

You're in for a real treat today. I'm live-blogging from Aston University's lakeside conference centre, attending a conference on how to keep my job. I mean of course, how to plan an academic career. I'm with three other Wolverhampton teachers, so of course we're sitting at the back being sarcastic and munching pork scratchings. Our leaders here are virtually all white men, so the institutional conservatism of academia is clearly on my side!

I'll be counting clichés ('on the runway' has already appeared) and 'networking' - a term which makes me nauseous. Oh well, perhaps I'll meet glamorous single academics…