Sticking it to the man

Facing a £5-10 million deficit, Management is apparently fixated on a tidy desk policy. Well, they'll never take me alive! And in any case, my desk is organised psychologically. Location of any item is determined by proximity to me. Also - a picture of Nun Bowling, taken on my mobile phone.

I returned to the pub last night to meet Kate and Emma, which was most convivial. For my birthday, Kate presented me Dark Was The Night, a great US indie compilation, and some home-grown courgettes. Mmmmmmmmm

Irina has posted a few more photos here. She took this better one of Nun Bowling - click for a larger version:

Rejoice, rejoice

I believe that anyone who doesn't hold a grudge is simply lazy. So welcome to IsThatcherDeadYet.com - I've got music, beer and food ready for the street parties which will spontaneously break out all over the country.

"A hungry man is more interested in four sandwiches than four freedoms"

Miserable sods. I'm alone in the building, working on Threshold Concepts. There's been a meeting complete with a posh buffet in one of the classrooms, and all the lovely food is locked in there, taunting me, waiting to be thrown in the bin. It won't be long before my friend Richard arrives from Glasgow: he can smell a buffet from miles away and will happily chew through a door to get to one.

Which reminds me of one of my favourite jokes:

Q. What do you call a fat goth?

A. Vampire the Buffet Slayer.

Thankyewverymuchladiesangennelmen, still available for weddings, birthdays and barmitzvahs.

(Quote is by that cynical diplomat of the Golden Age, Henry Cabot Lodge).

A Good Christian Gentleman

Play this, and wonder why secularism is a growing force! First noted on crooksandliars.com

Today, I have mostly been listening to…

Your Girlfriend's Evil, by Zoot Horn, reproduced below for your aural pleasure.

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And Christy and Emily's Superstition album, which is a lovely mix of torchsong, folk and indie into which an awful lot of love has clearly gone. Recommended!

President Blair, I presume?!!!?

'Blair in frame to become first EU President' screams the Guardian headline: apparently the Minister for Europe has given him the UK government's support.

How do we all feel about this? Why would Europe want him? He was utterly weak on the matter of Britain joining monetary union. He negotiated opt-outs for Britain on worker protection - then boasted about it. He made Britain's former slavish devotion to US foreign policy look amateur, pretty much taking up residence on his knees in front of Bush's crotch. There's no way he can convince as Europe's public face, defender, cheerleader. His religious mania seems all-powering, he seemed reluctant to engage with genuine democracy - preferring goverment by cabal and quiet word - and he has blood on his hands in pursuit of wars most of the other European countries opposed. He shares none of Europe's commitments to moderating free-market capitalism - he's a messenger boy for the least progressive forces in world politics and economics, and he's not even very bright.

I can see why a youngish man with millions of pounds and a Messiah complex might want the job: what I can't see is why anyone else would want to enable this ambition. I know he's restrained his minions from sacking Gordon Brown, but nobody else owes him anything. I wish he'd just retire to one of his many mansions and shut up.

Ale and hearty

Morning all. Well, it's 2.30 but feels like the morning to me, as I took half the day off. I didn't even go swimming.

I had a quiet drink in my local, beautiful, Victorian gin-palace last night. Amazingly, pretty much everyone I know turned up, presented me with brilliant, thoughtful presents, and supplied me with as many foaming jugs of ale as I could manage. Laura's Nun Bowling set was pressed into much use, and I also received lots of book tokens, a pristine copy of Harold Laski's Faith, Reason and Civilisation from Alan and Helen (I collect Left Book Club volumes), a compass from Keiti and Co., some ace SF from Gabi, and British Potters' Marks from Emma. The reasoning behind that was my Stoke connections and a determination not to buy a book I already have! My colleagues forsook their partners and children, John came over from Shrewsbury and I was overwhelmed with everybody's kindness, so thanks. I'm especially grateful to the advice on how to meet girls from Gabi and Penny (the university's leading Women's Studies expert, and therefore One Who Knows).

I wasn't, therefore, feeling altogether hale this morning, hence the laziness. Neal and Dan cooked a fine, if unorthodox breakfast of mutton chops, aubergines, mushrooms and poached eggs, then I wandered into university to find that I had to go to union negotiating committee, which really did end the festivities. Now on with my PGCE essay…

Nun better

Laura's been in: more lovely presents, along the theme of The Culture, Cheese and Pineapple (which you're all joining, aren't you?). As well as a copy of John Burrow's wonderful A History of Histories, she gave me some miniature Marmite-flavoured cheeses, a French Scrabble birthday card, a tin of pineapple chunks and, in honour of my school days, miniature Nun Bowling, with nun-shaped skittles. These will be making an appearance in the pub later. Thanks!

The Silence of Sound

For a change in the summer months, I'm not alone in the office. It's rather pleasant - we're all quite relaxed, the place is in turmoil as offices are moved, and there's an end of term atmosphere, though term ended weeks ago. Our least favourite student, a serial cheat, has finally been defenestrated and it's raining - all in all, a perfect day.

One difference is the silence. I usually have music playing, but one of my office colleagues is a punk rocker (he's been in The Prefects and then The Nightingales for 30 years, and the other is an early music fan (Monteverdi for preference). I swing both ways in the this regard, but can't please both of them, so I've opted for silence. Perhaps it's a good thing - over-familiarity may breed contempt for everything other than the absolute best (e.g. The Field Mice - how do you like them apples, Cynical?, Reich, Tallis and Gorky's Zygotic Mynci), so perhaps playing less but paying more attention would be a useful exercise. I listened to Let's Active before they turned up this morning and was highly impressed. They're Mitch Easter's early-80s band, while he was producing seminal REM albums. Imagine indiepop mixed with Southern Gothic.

Sarah's just come into the office and presented me with another book! Hurrah! Archie Brown's The Rise and Fall of Communism, which was on my list.

'Just imagine having a job for pleasure'

… is the inscription on the back of Moomins Book 4, the front cover of which I reproduce below.

I love my job - teaching is brilliant when it goes well. Being paid to read books is pretty much all I've every wanted from life, but the constant hostility from management (who, let's not forget, should exist to further the needs of students and teachers) is wearing and depressing. Moomins cheers me up.

Brown paper parcels tied up with string…

Happy Bastille Day - how I love sharing a birthday with a purge of the idle rich.

I went straight to work from my parents today, and was greeted by two wondrous things. The first was a massive pile of parcels: seemingly all the books I've ordered recently have come in the same delivery. OK, it looks like I've bought myself a load of birthday presents, but I'm still childishly excited by opening parcels and smelling new paper.

One of the books was To Hell With Culture: Anarchism and Twentieth-Century Literature edited by H. Gustav Klaus and Stephen Knight, the latter of whom was one of my PhD external examiners. Funny that to buy the book at its cheapest (£25 second hand), it had to go from Wales to India and then be sent to me… Coincidentally, Knight wrote the definitive 'biography' of Robin Hood, and another of the books which arrived today was Adam Thorpe's revisionist Hodd. The others were the massive pile of OUP sale books (on medieval literature, modernism and the Victorians), Kiberd's new book on Joyce's Ulysses, and most wonderfully, the fourth volume of the Moomins strip cartoons. Just as a physical object, Drawn and Quarterly (PDF sample on that page) have produced a thing of beauty.

The other weird and wondrous thing this morning was receiving an email from Hilary Wright. It took me a few minutes to work out that this was my sister, returned from honeymoon and starting a new life with a new name. Regardless of your views on marriage and surnames, it felt like a significant moment even to those around her: I have a sister but after 26 years, her new position in the world and new relationship to us all are aurally and visibly announced.

34 - waist and years in perfect harmony (dammit)

I've popped home to receive birthday congratulations from the Aged Parents (copyright, the Mitfords). It's such a joy to be in the countryside rain. Everything's green, lush and wet. The cat's as pleased to see me, as pleased as any cat can be anyway, and the bantams are hopefully greedy, which equates to love in my world. 

Anyway, thanks to my dear youngest sister Helen, who made me my favourite biscuit cake, with my age picked out in Smarties. Coincidentally, it's her favourite cake too - she swears that's what she'll have for her wedding. Now she needs to persuade someone (and yes, he reads this blog), to POP THE QUESTION. Though perhaps marrying someone who loves biscuit cake this much is too much to ask. 

So, how to review the year in the time remaining before The Wire starts? What achievements do I have to my credit? I've gained several hundred pounds in books, some of which I've read. I've lost several hundred pounds of gelatine, most of which has stayed off. My hair's thinner and my fuse is shorter. I've attained two years' stability as far as work goes, though this may well change in September thanks to a combination of management evilitude and global political/economic stupidity. My fencing is improving and I'm doing a lot of refereeing and child protection stuff, so I'm doing my little bit for society. 

I'm also a lot angrier, which usually manifests itself in sarcasm and despair. Everybody tells me that people get more conservative as they get older. Not me. I get more and more militantly leftwing. Ten years ago I was a wishy-washy liberal. Now I'm a rock-solid Trotskyist with a streak of serious-minded anarchism - tolerance of what we allow to be done to us is gone. I'm also a failed Communist, in that I'm not in a party and do nothing to radically change society. Sure, I do my best to warp peoples' minds (sorry, enlighten people) through education, and I'm feeling my way in the union, but basically I just whine about stuff on my blog or in the pub. Still, I'm purer than the PFJ. Splitters!

Ah yes, the blog. Thanks to all of you. It's been going since November and I'm slowly gaining a readership. I love the fact that we often disagree (I'm looking at you on politics, Ewarwoowar), are from all over the place (Merciless, Intelliwench, The Quiet Life, SCW, The Deer Friend and lots of others) and now don't all see each other on a daily basis. You ignore my lefty rants and abuse my haircuts and taste in music and I love it. I'm no stylist, unlike lovely Cynical Ben, who can really write, but you're performing a valuable service. If I didn't unload on you, my office mates would have torn out my tongue long ago. I've found lots of people to respect and like on the web, such as all my fellow bloggers and superstars like Bad Science and Pharyngula, who remind me that there are other troublemaking lefties around who don't spend their time building rockets and planning to start again on some other planet (or Norway, which is my ideal). 

What else? I've read a lot of books, and bought a lot more, often recommended by you. For a seventh year in succession, I haven't managed to find a flat to live in, partly because the thought of buying enough shelves for books and records would bankrupt me, and partly because I'm a lazy man. I haven't been to Wales or Ireland enough this year, and have certainly spent too much time in the Black Country, though Dan has organised some brilliant walks (without the Map Twats, life would be utterly featureless, despite their perpetual harassment). I've religiously visited the upei.ca site every week in the hope that one of their English department teachers has a terrible accident (after reading all 8 volumes of Anne of Green Gables, and I've thrilled to the weekly sight of Stoke City slaying the pretty boys of the Premiership. It's been a weird sensation to be on the winning side in something. It's never happened to me in sport (playing or supporting) and definitely not in politics. I mourned Labour's wins under Blair because it covered the loss of all socialist ideals. 

So am I happy, all things considered? Yes. I'm fitter, better-read, and surrounded by great colleagues and brilliant friends, and unlike many, there's an overlap. I've almost done a PGCE and need to get on with some proper research. I'm still single (restrain your shock), but that enables me to get a lot more reading done and lo-fi listened to. 

Aims for the next year? Teach less, teach better. Move out. Pun more. Read more. Be funnier. Get thinner. Get out on my bike again, as Neal's restored it for my birthday - what a brilliant present. Write letters. See my distant friends more often. Stop whipping my arm back with every attack - people see it coming and referees don't like it. Cook more cool stuff. Remember birthdays, anniversaries and peoples' names. Lighten up. Perfect my ironing technique. Resemble David Mitchell less. Conduct ceaseless war on apostrophe abuse and superfluous wordage ('still continuing'? - deserves kneecapping). Add more heroes to my pantheon of Arthur Dent and Marvin the Paranoid Android. Say what I think. Devise an anti-SUV weapon. Upset more Christians and 'alternative' therapy adherents. Listen to the wind and merge with some waves. Climb every mountain, etc. etc. etc. 

Oh. It is my birthday now. Happy birthday to me. 

Torchwould or Torchwouldn't?

This probably won't mean much to you if you're outside the UK or not a nerd, but did any of you follow the special Torchwood shows last week? Apart from the actual content, I loved the media blitz of having them on every night for a whole week, as well as the rather good special episodes on Radio 4.

I confess to hating the previous series' of Torchwood - badly acted, poorly scripted, designed to shock what few remaining old gits are out there. Most viewers are no doubt fine with Welsh people, gay people and gay Welsh people and the actual plots came a distinct second best. It all felt very insubstantial.

None of this was the case with these specials. Though at times it felt like a Doctor Who series without the Doctor (it's a spin-off from that show), and the themes of homosexuality and family were central to the plot, what we got was an unsettling, highly-politicised drama (one government minister proposes sourcing the children demanded from aliens from poor schools: 'what are the league tables for?' - unsettlingly, she ends up in charge at the end, and not all the endings are happy or neat). I know that 'governing classes divorced from normal life' isn't exactly news, but it was done very well. Peter Capaldi ran the gamut from evil (to everybody else) to victim (of the PM) very convincingly, and it was an especial pleasure to see him play a civil servant different to his previous version, the foul-mouthed Malcolm in The Thick of It and In The Loop. He certainly blew whoever plays Captain Jack off the screen by not devoting every facial muscle to whatever emotion was required at any particular moment.

Apart from the plots, which did have the occasional hole, the whole thing was a model of the kind of event TV which still has the power to hook us (I'm also staying up four nights a week to watch The Wire on BBC2). This is, of course, partly the product of constant cross-media promotion and the freedom the BBC has. ITV's advertisers wouldn't have been happy with a lot of the content, and that channel's revenues wouldn't stretch to the expense anyway.

Finally, it's always good to see that the BBC isn't completely metropolitan. It is trying to move departments to Manchester, though this is more for public consumption than creativity: lots of presenters will no doubt be commuting from London. Meanwhile, BBC Wales/Cymru saved Doctor Who in spectacular fashion despite the lack of an obvious Welsh link. Unless 'Doctor Who?' was the standard response to his original name. 'Hi. I'm Dr. Meredydd ap Gwalchgwyn and I'll get rid of those Daleks for you'. And let's not forget the other, rather brilliant, Who spinoff, The Sarah Jane Mysteries.

The licence fee is £142.50, covering all BBC TV, radio and internet, plus the broadcasting network. Even if you hate half the output, that's astonishingly good value - and no advertising. By comparison, I spend a lot more than that on my mobile phone contract.

He's on the phone…

Steve Bell has something to say about the News of the World phone hacking scandal. None of it is exactly secret - Private Eye has tracked this stuff for years, and all newspapers get involved. There is, and Bell hits it on the head, a huge amount of collusion between politicians, the civil service, the police and the media - why else would the Prime Minister, David Cameron and pretty much everybody you read about be at the wedding of the Sun's editor? There is an establishment, and it's in the open. There's no conspiracy - they all have the common aim of remaining in charge.

(click for a larger version or see it here).

Swindon, come in Swindon

At the moment, British SF is the best in the world: M John Harrison, Gwyneth Jones, Ken MacLeod, China Miéville and loads of others are writing future/science fiction which examines the state of the world and humanity in fascinating, mindblowing ways: SF has always been a more profound genre than the literary pages allow. I'm interested in the hard-science and political versions, which is why I love MacLeod's work so much - many of his books represent an anarchist-Trotskyist Scottish galactic civilisation. What's not to love?

The Guardian has a piece on this theme today.

(Post title is from Eddy Izzard's riff on the British space expedition).

Cup a load of this…

Hello. What you all do over the weekend? The other Map Twats got drunk and abused me, and my indie icons, in foul terms.

I was at the Much Wenlock Olympian Games. It's a funny mix of comedy sports, children's events, and high-level fixtures, as my fencing match was. Outside was the Vintage Bicycle Race, inside was a decent event attracting quite a few international-level fencers! It's just a shame that the Women's Pig-Chasing event was phased out a few decades back. Surely, that should be an Olympic sport again? The Games were set up by the local doctor, who also founded schools, organised clean water, got the railway line extended to the village, and generally did everything he could to turn what was a slum into a model village (and now an incredibly expensive place to live). There is something hugely inspiring about seeing hundreds of people joining in, competing, working, or just visiting, an event that could so easily have died or been spoiled by commercialisation. The sun shone, we all worked hard, and there was a general sense of perfection. Then I went back to Wolverhampton and to feuds, litterers and atomised selfishness.

So anyway, I spent Saturday helping to set it up, was in the hall at the crack of dawn working again, and finally got to do some fencing some hours later. Thanks to some pure dumb luck, I managed to narrowly beat a couple of really good fencers, including a Cadet (youth) GBR lad and got a decent seeding of 6th. My first direct elimination fight was against the coach I sacked from my university squad a few years back, so there was a little tension. He's a recent veteran Sabre world champion, so he's pretty good, but I again scraped past him 15-14, having been 6-2 up at one point. Pure luck: his last hit missed and I timed my riposte well.

Then my luck ran out - in the quarter-finals I lost to an Army guy, Max Weedon, who had brilliant timing and telescopic arms. My awkward tricks got me a few points, but it was utterly one-sided. There were a couple of consolations though - he won the event, and he's a very nice guy, so it's impossible to be bitter. I came 5th overall and won this trophy (third time) for the best Shropshire fencer - then got on with taking the competition down, which with all the aches and pains, was far less pleasant than setting everything up.

One of these photos is from Wolverhampton. You decide which…

Those who are about to die salute you!

Well, it's five o'clock and time to go home. Instead of going to Helen's party tomorrow, I'm off to help set up the Much Wenlock Olympian Games fencing. There are loads of events this weekend, and it's one of Britain's cutest villages, so get yourselves down there. Good pubs, a good book shop, lots of sports (some more serious than others) and beautiful countryside. The fencing is on Sunday at William Brookes School if you want to cheer me on. I'm in charge of the entries, so I already know my name won't be on that trophy…

No representation without taxation

There are people in the House of Lords who don't pay tax. That's to say, they have a lifelong seat, with speaking and voting rights in the legislature without ever having to be elected, collecting attendance money and affecting the laws of this country, while hiding their money abroad. They don't contribute to the roads, health service, justice system, defence of the realm, environmental improvement or the education system, but reap all the rewards of living here and being listened to on whatever subject is on their minds.

There are also lots of tax exiles who live abroad but hand over large amounts of money to political parties to get their own way, such as Sean Connery, the Scottish Nationalist (Barbados Branch) amongst many others.

Lord Campbell-Savours moved an amendment to the Political Parties and Elections Bill outlawing this corrupt distortion of democracy. The government and the Tories are planning to allow this revolting practice to continue when the bill comes back to the Commons.

Lobby your MP: mail them, fax them, make a personal call. The rest of us pay taxes and get very little say in affairs - let's level the playing field. Contact your representative via They Work For You.

Work work work

I'm again spending the afternoon hiding boxes from management. They want us to do a lot of work, but appear to think that it's all virtual - there's a strict limit on the number of boxes colleagues are allowed to move, it seems. So there's an underground economy of space-selling.

Meanwhile, the university's full of students taking resits or handing in rewritten essays. I wouldn't mind, but they don't even look sorry! I've got to mark all this stuff… Unlike school (I remember a particularly impressive 4% in a maths exam - that's like, er, not many right if my calculations are right), I didn't fail stuff at university, by some amazing freak. Neal did - perhaps I wasn't having enough fun. Anyone else?

Doomed!

God what a depressing afternoon - 2.5 hours in a union meeting hearing of the most awful stuff being done to us by a management which seems to have taken Wall Street as its Bible. Plus I've been volunteered for a few more jobs… How's the cricket going?

Damn… more books

I've just received the very elegant Yearbook of the Association for Welsh Writing in English, Almanac, packed with excellent scholarly articles. This led to the OUP sale page, where I just slapped down £60 for The Oxford Companion to Chaucer, Modernism and Democracy, The Grounds of English Literature (about medieval lit) and The Oxford English Literary History: The Victorians. Mmmm… academic. Now I'm off to Amazon to order Hodd, Adam Thorpe's Robin Hood novel. Must stop this madness.

Mid-July Friday conundrum

What have you submitted to from politeness or for a quiet life?

Being a humble chap, I've often done the decent thing to avoid offence, but one occasion sticks in the mind (and gullet). I hate fish, gooseberries and raspberries. They all make me gag. When I was a young postgraduate, I was invited, with a young lady, to dinner at my favourite professor's home. Every course (I can't remember the starter), was something I absolutely hated. Not just disliked, but utterly hated. There was no way I was going to offend these lovely people, so I got on with it, and even said yes whenever seconds were offered. Meanwhile, said young lady giggled continuously, nudged me, and made unsubtle hints all the way through. I can't even think of that meal without shuddering - which makes me feel very guilty because apart from the food (which was beautifully cooked if you like that sort of thing), it was one of the high points of my social life so far…

So come on, what have you done to smooth the path?

Meanwhile, here's Cynical Ben. I must point out that I'm not teasing him with this photo: I just like the effect of the light.

If you go down to the woods today (redux)

Morning all. How was your day of from my incessant, vacuous ranting? Thanks to Emma for keeping me updated with cricket scores. England + Wales/Australia sounded like fun, and Ireland hammered Kenya!

We went to Cannock Chase for a good long ramble. No dogging involved at all. It's a weird place. Some of it is horrible commercial timber plantation, some bits are quite bleak, while other areas are idyllic. We saw green woodpeckers, buzzards, kestrels, rabbits, lots of bilberries and two types of deer (roe and fallow). Needless to say, they all evaded my camera very impressively - here are a couple of snatched shots of shy deer. The Map Twats didn't get away quite so easily - the full set's here

Obviously, being in the woods and on the heath didn't preclude me from buying books: Oxfam in Stafford is very impressive. I picked up an oldish translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, Nancy Mitford's lightweight Voltaire In Love, Michael Frayn's witty A Landing on the Sun and two very throwaway books for summer reading: The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies and Michael Dobbs' House of Cards.

Proper Caesar's Pet

I hate setting new devices up, and now regret being mean and not buying an iPhone because Macs just work.

Anyway, have a good day tomorrow: I won't be online - I'm taking a day off. They're hanging me the right way up. Cynical Ben, Radford Sallow, Neal and I are going bilberrying on Cannock Chase. Woo - and indeed - hoo! Someone text me exciting cricket scores and Tour de France news?

Gissa job. Go on, gissa job.

Sweet - my new phone's here, and my Dublin sister has jacked in her unfulfilling job, a week after my brother quit his for a new life as (cough) a lawyer, once he's done his conversion course. Add my newly unemployed New Zealand lawyer sister to the list and half my siblings are now scrounging dole scum, in the words of The League of Gentlemen. I, of course, am loving this. Having suffered the slings and arrows of these career-minded chaps and chapesses while I did an English degree, an MA in Welsh writing and then a PhD (Masculinity in four 1930s political Welsh novels), now I'm the one with a career(ish)! The worm's turned, the world's turned upside down etc. etc. etc. The family are going to hear about this for a long time to come.

Having laboured over Mark's collection of journals for hours (Sewanee Review 1966-1977 anyone), I've been rewarded with some fine books: The Trial of Lady Chatterley, Doctorow's Ragtime and Ballard's The Day of Creation. Good job I'm not being thrown out of my office.

In my absence the cricket has turned from the habitual England mediocrity into a brave stand by Collingwood and Pietersen. At least Pietersen went in his standard way - trying to be too clever. My least favourite player.

(Post title is from The Boys from the Blackstuff)

Mark ye but this

Mark has:

a three-legged cat

14,500 books

7 broken TVs

no ceilings

no number-plates

3 broken computers

one (semi-) working eye

no spectacles

and is a dear, dear friend and colleague. His research interests are porn, Charles Manson and other freaky stuff. And now he's completely knackered his back - can only shuffle, can't lift things etc - so I'm off to help him move office. He is, of course, in possession of the largest library in the university. See his library and cat here (and mine here)

Another stultifying politics post

Thanks to Kate, who sent me a petition about lobbying for the government to ignore. I don't know if you're aware that business groups, British and overseas, have an open sesame to government: anything they want, they get. They have meetings with ministers whenever they want, they lobby ministers and MPs to get laws weakened, and they second their staff to work in government (so that, for instance, the weapons procurement department of the Ministry of Defence is partly staffed by employees of companies selling weapons to … er … the MoD). The Business department seems to think that its job is to shill for the aviation industry rather than to govern in the interests of citizens. In return, failed ministers get nice fat directorships of companies dealing with the politician's former ministry. You and I will never be listened to with the same grovelling regard.

However, we might be able to reduce the influence these people have if there's a clear record of who's been lobbying. So here's a petition to sign.

I've just signed a petition to tell the government it's time to put a stop to lobbyists working in secret.

[http://38degrees.org.uk/page/s/lobbytransp]

Whether it's tobacco advertising, arms deals, GM food, or airport expansion, companies pay people to try to influence government. Currently we've no right to know what these lobbyists are up to.

A compulsory, public register would put a stop to that, and help clean up politics. The government has said it will make its mind up on this in the next few weeks: please sign now to help make sure they make the right decision.

[http://38degrees.org.uk/page/s/lobbytransp]

Environment saved

I was keeping this for Radio 4's Genius program, but the need is too urgent to wait for a new series.

I think that most of the drivers I know don't care about the damage they're doing to the environment and to the lungs of pedestrians because they're insulated from the immediate effects. Likewise, the exhaust fumes disperse and we don't really notice it any more.

So the way to shame people into driving less or driving cleaner cars is to increase the immediate effect of the pollution. I have the answer. Add harmless black dye to the exhaust so that each vehicle pumps out a foul black cloud proportionate to the pollution produced, so that everybody can see whose cars are poisoning them, and gains a visual index of the degree to which our air is polluted. Link it to another pump which exudes a revolting but harmless gas into the vehicle's cabin - I suggest the eggy deliciousness of human flatulence - in proportion to the engine output (for SUVs, I'd prefer to link the exhaust pipe to the air conditioning, but apparently that counts as murder).

Before long, the selfish bastards in urban SUVs will be rushing to buy Prius's as their clothes stink of bottom and passing pedestrians lob bricks at the filth factory speeding past. It won't cost drivers any more, it doesn't penalise people who have to drive for work, it simply emphasises the costs of how we run our society.

Ashes Fever

The first Ashes match has just started - follow it live here on the Guardian's wonderful 'over by over' coverage. If the play gets boring (unlikely), contributions from viewers are always fun. Also tomorrow, Ireland play Kenya in the first one-day international, which used to be the high-speed version until Twenty20 was invented.

(In case some of my readers are confused, I'm talking cricket. Googlies, Chinamen, silly mid-off and all that).

Shome mishtake shurely (which only makes sense if you read Private Eye)

I e-mailed this round to my Irish friends and family, though I'm not normally one for crude humour. Still, I think it's worth noting (thanks to Ewarwoowar, who saw it before me). Journalism at its finest!

Bow your heads

Morning. Natural Blues's grandfather has died: pop over there and sympathise in the way only caring atheists can. Shockingly, the news came via her sister's Facebook update - isn't that horrifying?

Yet more foolish book purchases

After an afternoon in the art gallery tearoom swapping gossip, I've returned to buy books. I've balanced today's purchases: the fourth volume of the Moomins comic strip reprints, and Declan Kiberd's new book on Joyce, Ulysses and Us: The Art of Everyday Living.

I've also organised a new phone contract - much more expensive this year - and resisted my natural urge to get an iPhone (I'm a long-term Mac user). Self-denial!

Crueller Brother

An anonymous source sends me this snatched footage of Cruel Brother's latest performance. Go mad in the comments section, groupies.

Pies in our time

Mentioning my upcoming birthday (not for another week yet) is paying off handsomely. Not only have Owen and Bethan presented me with excellent books and stuff, Christine has come to my office bearing fine pie and quality real ales. So that's lunch sorted out anyway.

Stick that in your kettle

One of my distant superiors was involved in the design and defence of 'kettling', the police tactic of imprisoning legal protestors for long periods, allowing them out only if these innocent people surrender their details and images to cops for a database that's been declared illegal.

Well yah boo sucks to you, Professor: your methods have been described as 'inadequate' and outdated by the official report into the G20 events.

Some highlights:

Commanders appeared not to properly understand basic human rights laws or the legal requirements surrounding the use of kettling, the report said. However, O'Connor said this was the case for only some senior officers, and refused to identify those at fault.

It says police are currently failing in their human rights obligations, and describes public order policing guidance issued by the Association of Chief Police Officers – adopted by all forces across England and Wales – as "insufficient".

The national policy should be overhauled, it says, to "demonstrate explicit consideration of the facilitation of peaceful protest".

contrary to claims by senior Met officers ahead of the demonstrations, there was "no specific intelligence which suggested any planned intention to engage in co-ordinated and organised public disorder".

Despite that, senior commanders gave "no consideration" to the idea that the protests might be peaceful and planned how to deal "robustly" with unlawful activity.

Just to be clear: there are some individual officers behaving insensitively and criminally, but this report, and my point, is that there's a structural and institutional problem with policing when it comes to protest: the police force is far to the right of the population and shows no sign of recognising citizens' rights to peaceful protest.

Smile you bastards, or you're sacked

Sometimes the most oppressive aspects of life are the most stupid - Keihin Electric Express Railway Company are assessing their employees to make sure they're smiling properly and frequently, using some software

Railway workers of Japan: rise up, scowl, and overthrow the tyranny of enforced false joy! Our masters pay us to facilitate their profits. They have enough power without demanding that we pretend to enjoy it - it's an attempt to take over your souls.

Here in the UK, grumpy shop assistants are a cultural strength, from Open All Hours to Fawlty Towers to Black Books, never mind the distinct brand of misery dispensed by transport officials. Why should people on the minimum wage be forced to smile through the inanity and stupidity of the great British public? I respect the strength of mind of any employee who refuses to engage in this fraudulent attempt to persuade us that suffering terrible conditions on low pay is somehow the fulfilment of all their fantasies. Furthermore, the grumpy employee reminds us that there's a human in that uniform, not a robot on whom we can unload all our frustrations. They can treat us as badly with full legal immunity - they can't build enjoying it into our contracts.

So next time you're treated dismissively, rudely or surlily by a man or woman in a neon nylon suit, remind yourself that this is an act of class warfare and applaud their brave stand against the tyranny of simulated joy. Unhappiness is your right and mine.

You Gotta Roll With It (and some butter)

I'm no Oasis fan. I was for a while - working in a terrible pub (legal reasons prevent me from regaling you with the appalling things done to the 'food'), music played in one corner on a constant loop. Of the 90 minutes, the only two decent songs were Supersonic and Cigarettes and Alcohol (this was 1994), and I would time my passes around the tables to catch these thrilling, sneering, passionate songs.

It was, of course, all downhill after that, but I still have a soft spot for Noel Gallagher, on the strength of two comments he made:

'Michael Owen - he looks like a trainee CID officer' (Owen is a soccer player and CID is the plain-clothes detective police branch).

'Liam is a man with a fork in a world of soup'. I love this phrase and intend to use it all the time. Perhaps not when I'm marking.

Sheepy goodness

It's raining heavily so I'm a happy rodent.

Last night Neal and I had another in our now regular series of quality meals on Monday - they've come about because it's convenient for Neal to stay at mine and the boy can cook. Anybody looking for a house-husband? Last night consisted of fine vegetables supporting slow-cooked tender lamb chops marinaded and crusted with minted Greek yogurt. Then Neal got disgracefully drunk on very little beer, though he behaved rather better than Radford Sallow did a few weeks ago…

We watched Torchwood which was much better than its previous incarnations, then watched Panorama's exposé of the police's vendetta against environmentalists: the senior cops came across as shifty, badly-informed and occasionally dishonest. Watch it here if you're in the UK.

All These Worlds Are Yours…

I'm quite a fan of Doves, and really enjoyed their live set at Delamere Forest. They finished with this track, which they originally wrote as Sub Sub, their rave origin. I can't find a version online with the video from 2001 A Space Odyssey: someone help me out? There was just something euphoric but menacing about crunching guitars, driving beats and the repeated quotation on screen - All These Worlds Are Yours, because the second half of the sentence is 'except Europa'.

The Book Vole

Even going to a wedding allowed me to acquire more books: my mother gave me a 1930s edition of Somerset Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence, and my brother and his wife Bethan presented my with Mark Thomas's exposé of Coca-Cola Belching Out The Devil, some fine Moleskine notebooks, and a Warhol-esque Margaret Thatcher postcard.

Then I get to work and find deliveries of more fine books: Nick Turse's The Complex: How The Military Invades Our Everyday Lives, Habermas's The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Reeve's Fever Crumb, le Carré's A Most Wanted Man and finally Diana Wynne Jones's The Game. I must do some work this week, so will try to ignore them…

Popular Culture rears its ugly head

Ewarwoowar, who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of popular culture, is on about children's TV today - nostalgics should head over there. I didn't watch much, but must admit to enjoying Press Gang on many levels.

That's by the by: what I meant to mention was that Ewarwoowar directs our attention to Garfield Minus Garfield. I always hated Garfield - one-joke nonsense. Someone has a lazy, greedy cat. Garfield Minus Garfield, however, is wonderful. Without the recurrently lame punchline, there's a minimalist, Zen-like and even poignant quality to his owner's life which is entirely lacking in the original. Is this one of the rare cases (perhaps Cheers/Frasier) where the 'remix' or pastiche transcends the original? I definitely think this qualifies as art.

Give Cynical Ben a big virtual hug

Being at a wedding on Saturday, listening to my sister holding back the tears (of joy, presumably) as she said her vows, reminded me of being least worst best man at Cynical Ben's wedding almost a year ago. So overcome was he, that I had to give him a big hug before he could get the actual words out. He's not so cynical after all, even after I played Phil Barclay's 'Short Fat Ben' at the disco later…

He's also on magnificent blog form at the moment, both over at his place and in the comments section of mine. Jo deserves some kind of accolade for their 11 months of marriage…

Update: As Dan points out in the comments, it is indeed 23 months since Ben and Jo married - how time flies, and how senile I am. It was my brother who married last year. He managed to make his vows very confidently.

Cut and dried (in another sense)

The Guardian reported the other day that circumcision (much more common in the US than in the UK) reduces the risk of contracting AIDS, according to double-blind trials.

Ben Goldacre, who writes a column in the Guardian about the media's reporting of science, amongst other things, takes issue with this report most amusingly:

Dear Editor,

your reporter Alex Renton claims there are double-blind trials to show that circumcision reduces the transmission of HIV. In a double-blind trial, neither the researcher nor the participant know whether they have had the intervention, in this case “circumcision”. However distracted I am by the lack of basic scientific literacy in British news media, I feel certain that if somebody cut the skin at the end of my penis off, I would notice, if not immediately, then at some stage in the years that followed.

Yours

Ben Goldacre
(Bad Science)

Cut and dried

Oh yes, one more point in response to Cynical Ben and others on this thread: my expensive professional haircut did not attract single ladies at the wedding, rendering Ben's theory redundant.

I'm getting quite freaked out now

The Mitchell and Vole mindmeld continues, as this sketch (from 16.08 if it doesn't start in the right place) demonstrates in a creepily accurate fashion (Demented is quite impressed by the similarity too). If anyone can find it on Youtube or similar, I'd love to post it - I've only found the BBC iPlayer version.

Demented - amateur DIY on university property is tricky. Hope you get away with it…

Marrying Mr (W)right

Actually, Dominic ruined what would have been a splendid pun by acquiring a PhD (in some fantastically esoteric field of mathematics) a few weeks ago, so congratulations. I'm still going to us it though. Still, girls, it proves that a PhD is a marital asset, doesn't it? DOESN'T IT?

The wedding was, as all weddings are, perfect. For me, this one was particularly perfect. It started in the pub, and ended with me managing to outsource a sister. I arrived in Stone to find the church locked. Couples were wandering around the station wondering where they'd get changed, so we all repaired to a fine local and took turns changing in the rudimentary loos while working out how we all knew Hilary. Unfortunately for my dear sister, several of them recognised me from her looks, though I'd like to think that they're more refined than mine. She certainly lacks the stubble and supplementary chins.

The nuptial mass was delightful - chatty priest, confused non-Catholics etc., though being on the front row meant that I couldn't hide a novel in my hymn book, as is my wont when pressed to attend such services. Still, Maria, the bridesmaid beside me, had a great line in gentle sarcasm which kept my mind off eternal damnation for a while.

The reception was a vast, sprawling affair held at the family home. I should plug some things at this point. The band were The Deadbeats, a talented and genial bunch who played stuff from every generation, and didn't give up until 6 a.m, or so I hear. To them I am indebted for the sight of seeing my venerable father do his chicken dance to Parklife, a song he's clearly never heard. Full marks for effort though.

Above all, please, please visit the Mudchute Kitchen if you're in London. It's the restaurant attached to Mudchute City Farm in Docklands. It's run by Philippa, one of Hilary's closest friends, who catered the wedding. Ladies and gentlemen, I could have wept, so good was the food. My mother grew the veg (and the flowers), and Philippa pit-roasted a lamb, accompanied by the most wonderful salads, vegetables, cakes and multiple kilos of cheese, washed down by stunning wines - including a twenty year-old Madeira - chosen by the Tate's wine buyer. Ales were barrels from Storm Brewing Co. in Macclesfield - well worth searching for.

The speeches were witty and warm - even my dad, whose favourite words are 'er' and 'mm', delivered from behind a newspaper. I lost the sweepstake for the best man's speech by some considerable distance - I suggested 13 minutes, Colm managed a magnificent 33 and a half, though in his defence, it was alternately witty, heartfelt and tender, and therefore worth every minute.

As to the social ambience - I hung with all my cool young cousins, graced the dancefloor once or twice, and made a dignified retreat around 2 a.m., finding myself a spot behind a sofa. Others camped out, or merely crashed where they fell, including the young gentleman pictured below, who was oblivious to the crashing of revellers breakfasting around him the next morning.

Any flies in my beer? Well, by the time thirty or so people had asked where my 'young lady' was, I was ready to yank their tongues out, chop them off and feed them to the chickens. Extra points for the well-meaning damnation of one older cousin who used the phrase 'well, not everybody can find someone, can they'. How my hands itched for a spade. Instead, I merely pointed out that all families need a slightly weird uncle…

Probably of interest only to family members, here are the photographs - click on 'Marrying Mr (W)right' (see, I told you I'd reuse that pun). If you know any of the people, or merely wish to have your say, click 'comment' and leave your witticisms.

Hail and Farewell

See you on Monday, when I'll have either lost a sister or gained a brother-in-law. It's a big Catholic wedding, followed by a hog and lamb roast presided over by a professional chef my sister's friends with. There'll be leaves around for the vegetarians, presumably. Don't expect too much commentary from me: no wi-fi in the church. Honestly, these people live in the Dark Ages, and not just ideologically and morally!

Grease is the word

It is in Iowa, where they're planning a Michael Jackson statue - in butter. At least it'll be the right colour.

More indie-schmindie to please Cynical Ben

Work's hardly happening today - I'm just yawning a lot and browsing for stuff. The associate dean's been in and looked slightly askance: Neal's nicked a colleague's desk even though he's a student at another institution, and I was playing Stereolab's Super-Electric very loud.

I'm feeling listless. It's hot and none of the books I ordered this week have arrived. Nor has my deluxe vinyl copy of God Help The Girl's album.

Anyone fancy Indietracks? It's a steam-train based twee festival in Derbyshire! Teenage Fanclub! Camera Obscura! The Frank and Walters! Other bands!

Confession Conundrum

None of us are cool. There's no such thing, to paraphrase Barthes again - we just all exist in a constantly shifting lake of codes. However, there are things we all do which don't fit our self-images, or the image we'd like others to have of us. Guilty pleasures, I guess. So now's your chance to 'fess up.

Cynical Ben is banned. He has three trillion opinions, and specialises in being contrary anyway. He expresses contempt for my music, my clothes (especially my woolly hat and my favourite DM shoes: 'amazing what you can get on the NHS' was his latest witticism) and pretty much anything else, even though we know that he'll change his mind in a week. He's also banned because he bought a copy of Space Jam. That's the kind of contrariness in which he specialises. Tease him and he'll get even more aggressive in his defence. That said, he does have magnificent taste in literature and cheese. OK, he's not banned. Just don't take him too seriously, that's all I'm saying.

My confession. Despite my well-documented objections to policing methods, and to soap operas, and my love of high-concept drama, I also love watching The Bill. I know it's often very poor, and little better than any number of cheap soaps, but there's still something compelling about it. They react to current stories very quickly and rarely take the easy dramatic or narrative option. It depends on the writers in any particular week of course, and it's definitely less political than when it started, but it's still more than a rest home for ex-soap actors. I particularly enjoyed the special episodes done jointly with SOKO Leipzig, the German equivalent, though it was embarrassing that all the Germans had flawless English while the UK actors couldn't manage a word of German.

So there we are. I'm not nearly so suave and sophisticated as you might have thought (if you've had a lobotomy recently). Your turn!

Hair today, gone tomorrow…

Morning all. I've had a very pleasant start to the day - a swim with Neal, a walk in the rain (at last) and a decent breakfast at the Romanian-Italian place. I didn't get round to a haircut or ticket-buying, so they're on the list for today.

Did I ever mention that I divide the world into haircuts and hairstyles? Everybody needs a haircut at some point. It's just sensible management. However, hairstyles are the mark of a mind with too little to occupy it. Hairstyles are a desperate attempt to catch up with ephemerality, of a need to comply with the arbitrary whims of a soi-disant élite. I know that, like all matters of appearance, they consist of a complex social code (I've read my Barthes on movie hairstyles), but I just can't help thinking that anyone that bothered about their appearance has too much time on their hands.

I should probably confess to my hair history. I had a pudding bowl cut, thanks to my mother, as did all my siblings regardless of gender or wishes. After that, I grew my jet black hair nearly down to my waist, which at least distracted from my face and went well with the skinny frame, black DMs, black jeans, black shirt and black biker jacket. Yes, I was a student. After a while, however, the black became brown and the locks became sparse. I decided that the Francis Rossi look wasn't for me, and chopped it all off for a short-back-and-sides, which is sensible but just doesn't work when moshing.

Anyone else want to confess to particularly egregious choices?

Work sucks

That's quite enough for one day. I'm off to buy tickets for The Unthanks (formerly Rachel Unthank and the Winterset, a very creepy folk band) and for Marcus Brigstocke, who makes my feeble attempts at sarcasm seem very amateur indeed. His rants are easily available on the web and are well worthy finding, such as this one:

I'm also off to get a hair cut. Not sure which one though, buy shoe polish, choose and air a suit and all the stuff I need to do for my sister's wedding on Saturday. I'm hoping for rain - I suspect she isn't.

Book nerd heaven

You may know that I love LibraryThing: now some lovely people have taken on a Herculean task. They plan to found a webpage for each, individual book, forming an open library. I'd love to join in.

If you believe… they put a man on the moon

Sorry for the REM reference

Today, as the Guardian's special section reminds me, is the fortieth anniversary of the moon landings. How do you feel about it? Ten years ago, I had nothing but awe for such an amazing achievement - and I still feel that way for the most part. However, in between, I've done a lot of reading. I've learned how the space programme was motivated solely by a need to dominate the Soviets, about how it was manned by pretty unrepentant Nazi rocket scientists drawing on the skills developed in the 1940s, about how it cost a massive chunk of the US GNP, and how its scientific benefits have been massively overexaggerated by NASA spinners.

The Soviets took a pragmatic approach: near earth orbits are great for science, there's nothing on the moon. So did the Europeans for that matter - manned space flight is like getting a taxi down to the shops. We might make Mars but that's as far as it goes, so let's put our energy into satellites, telescopes and probes.

And yet - the romance lingers, perhaps even intensified by the failure of our space race. Once the cold war ended, it turned out that the motivation (and money) dissipated. Instead, we're in the post-space age. Will our grandchildren remember that men walked on the moon? Will they have the energy to care, inbetween long treks for water and trying to eke out a subsistence living on a ruined earth? Perhaps the dominant mode will be anger, at the waste of multiple billions on a giant penis when millions of people starved.

Perhaps, though, the dominant mood will be melancholy. J. G. Ballard's Hello America and Myths of the Near Future depict a California and Florida of abandoned space centres, emptied pools, men and women spiritually hollowed out by the loss of technological purpose.

Displacement activity

Things to do today: read some incredibly boring papers on Threshold Concepts. Sort the entries for the Much Wenlock Olympian Games (helped inspire Baron de Coubertin to refound the international version - places still available) and do some proper work. But it's too hot…

Meanwhile, here's a lovely bit of melancholic Australian chamber-pop from one of my favourites: The Paradise Motel.

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Five finger shuffle

I've downloaded the iPod OS 3.0, for very little purpose other than being a Mac obsessive, though shake-to-shuffle is quite cool. So I'm taking a few minutes to change what's on the iPod, and it's a bit strange. I'm happily chopping albums up, dumping old favourites, and generally doing things I would normally consider philistine - like losing the 3rd movement of Elgar's Cello Concerto because it's weaker than the other 3 even though structurally the piece needs them all. Of course, the iPod's normally on shuffle, so I wouldn't notice, but it is interesting to note how listening habits have been changed by technology. I do still listen to complete pieces at home and work though - Monteverdi's Vespers today (the Gardiner recording).

Poetry corner

Cynical Ben is versifying. They're pretty good, especially the one about Neal - it sums him up.

Are any of you old enough to remember when Mark and Lard had the evening Radio 1 slot? Amongst the cornucopia of delights was Poetry Corner: Simon Armitage, John Hegley (now doing Yorkshire Tea adverts) and many other leftfield cleverclogs. It certainly persuaded me that poetry could be cool.

O Cruel Brother, Where Art Thou?

Our conference finished with a bravura performance from Cruel Brother - Richard Thompson, REM and Michael Jackson covers performed brilliantly under the stern critical gaze of their colleagues. Here are a few pictures and more posted here. Gerry's slide guitar was particularly great.

Give us your feckin' money

University fees up to £3,200: grants and loans stay where they are. David Lammy, the minister in charge (ho ho) says 'difficult choices have to be made'. Students will have to make difficult choices about whether to bother with university or not. Difficult choices by almost universally-Oxbridge educated ministers have been avoided: Trident, higher taxes for the rich, more inheritance tax etc. etc. etc: none of these difficult choices have been made.

Rich kids won't notice a few hundred more - everybody else, like Wolverhampton students will struggle, especially as jobs will be scarce.

Another blow to the proletariat from the Labour Party then. Fucking shameful.

Now the day is ended…

Finally, our reward for the day - a speech from the Dean (ahem) and a performance by our house band, Cruel Brother, unfortunately sans Deer Friend, who has decamped to Berlin and then Egypt. Perhaps some beer may be forthcoming too.

US Election finally ends

Congratulations to Al Franken, committed lefty (by US standards anyway) and comedian, who was finally declared the winner of the Minnesota Senatorial race by the Supreme Court, despite the increasingly ridiculous refusal of Norm Coleman to admit he'd lost.

It's important because it takes the Democrats to 60 (including 2 pro-democrat independents), which can stop the Republicans killing legislation through filibustering (talking until time runs out). Now the Dems can get on with founding a first world health service, if the lobbyists don't ruin it.

Stand not upon the order of your going

Damn. Just ordered another book, for £21: Klaus and Knight's 'To Hell with Culture': Anarchism in Twentieth Century British Literature: Anarchism and Twentieth-century British Literature. Stephen Knight was one of my PhD external examiners, and I'm a sucker for 'politics in literature' books. It's been an expensive day though…

Quick break now for coffee then a piece on Cromwell's internal political pressure which I'm particularly looking forward to.

It's Malcolm Wanklyn (buy this book or this one). He's got a very small audience which is desperately disappointing, as he's started with a fantastic review of his experience of deconstruction as it affected historiography, especially seventeenth-century history. The focus is the many Oliver Cromwell's: left hero, left villain, inspiration to Hitler and Mussolini, fundamentalist or freedom fighter, hammer of Scotland and Ireland etc. etc. Malcolm's concentrating on the military career and the various ways in which it can be seen. Malcolm sees OC as taken up by radical politicians (the Fiery Spirits) who saw him as God's General who would win the war and persuade the undecided that Cromwell was the tool of Godliness.

It turns out that Cromwell used these people to achieve power, and tamed their radicalism for his own ends. This draws on an existing debate about whether or not Cromwell was radical or not - he certainly crushed the leftists such as the Levellers and Diggers. He was certainly a tolerationist in the early years - he didn't agree with the Scottish Presbyterians that any minority Protestants and Catholics should be crushed.

Despite his later military successes, Cromwell's early martial victories were a mixture of being in the right place at the right time, down to other peoples' successes, and a good degree of spin as the Fiery Spirits sought their 'god's general' - trying Waller, the Earl of Manchester and the Earl of Essex first.

I should mention what a great speaker Malcolm is: enthusiastic, total command of his subject, rarely needs notes, dynamic delivery.

Final session is on Manorial Rights of Wreck - didn't catch by whom. Apparently, some lord of the manor has turned up a 12th century right to ownership anything out to sea as far as a barrel of Hambrough/Humber (no, me neither) can be seen floating on a clear day by a man on horseback from a clifftop (supposedly 3 miles!) - conflicting with all sorts of other laws. The speaker's a law lecturer who is a diver. He's found loads of excellent stuff, but before he could give it to a museum via the crown, the lord of the manor claimed ownership. The git. Anyway, it's raised a host of quite interesting legal questions.

Quick guide for you scavengers:

stuff above water - Wreck. Belongs to the owner or the lord of the manor if no owner turns up.

Below high water - belongs to the Lord High Admiralty since time immemorial, which legally means 1189. Common law jurisdiction follows the tide as it comes and goes.

A derelict is an abandoned vessel floating or sunk below low water - and belongs to the Admiralty in British waters. The Tubantia was a hot case - a Dutch ship sunk and believed to be carrying gold. Turned out it had a cargo of Edam!

Update - a Hambrough/humber barrel = corruption of Hamburg Barrel - a 45 gallon drum used by the Hanseatic League. Phew.

Bayonets out for the lads

Now we're on to a brilliant paper by Laura Ugolini on 'Middle-class men on the English Home Front 1914-1918'. One of my specialities is proletarian masculinity, so I'm particularly interested. She's working on how middle-class men, particularly those who didn't join the armed forces, redefined masculinity, given that fighting and manual labour were the standard definitions of masculinity.

Despite the huge pressure (white feathers delivered to 'cowards' etc.), these men found ways to defend themselves while remaining masculine in some way: looking after their families, investing in war loans and joining war-related civilian bodies - hoping these would be seen as manly, which they weren't. The volunteer groups, veterans' groups and so on were seen as physically weak, reserved for old people and not very serious. I wonder if the upper- and middle-class striekbreakers in the 1926 General Strike were up to the same thing.

Update: she sees new themes emerging in the General Strike period but isn't sure why. There are loads of ways of looking at these things. Some good questions from the floor (as usual, I ask something dull) which always lead her to more fascinating detail.

She's got some great propaganda and recruitment images too.

Live-blogging Staff Research Day

Now I'm listening to Cécile Benoit, doctoral student and French language assistant, discuss diversity, religion and primary education in Irish and British schools - it's very interesting because Ireland still outsources primary education to the Catholic Church (and to a lesser extent the Church in Ireland Anglicans), despite the increasing immigrant population of Dublin and the frequent sex scandals engulfing the church. She hasn't mentioned the decline of the Celtic Tiger and the recent reports, but it's still a very sophisticated account of the deal made (unwillingly) between the State and the Churches. The comparison with Birmingham, which deals with massively diverse intakes very differently, is fascinating. Ireland is only slowly becoming a diverse society, so has a lot to learn. She's just said only 1% of National (primary) schools cater for non-Christian children (one Jewish school and two Islamic ones), and only 7% are for non-Catholics - interesting position given the Constitution's commitment to equal opportunities. There are some multi-denominational schools.

Cécile is French, so I wonder if she'll raise the French model: strict secularism in state institutions (laïcité). It's what I'd introduce.

Update: she does like the French system but feels that laïcite is too distinctively French to be imported wholesale. She also thinks that the State/Church relationship won't change because the State was utterly complicit and in any case can't afford to properly nationalise the schools - shamefully.

Boo! Hiss!

Commiserations to Ben Goldacre, whose Bad Science book was pipped to the Samuel Johnson Prize by Leviathan, a book about whales. I'm sure it's very good, but can't help feeling that a panel containing an editor of the Telegraph was never going to vote for a book which excoriates poor science journalism - that paper is particularly guilty (and that's only one example).

They think it's all over… and it is.

Well, that's over. I managed to get through about 3 of my points and six of my pages in the allotted half hour - it's really hard trying to say what's exciting about something when the audience haven't even heard of the field, let alone the individual. Plus my signer (poor woman) had to cope with Welsh names and references without prior knowledge - she did magnificently, but I had to slow down hugely.

Still, I think it went OK, and one audience member clearly knew about post-1918 Welsh culture and asked some interesting questions. It's always a relief to get a question, especially the first one, because it suggests one hasn't completely wasted one's time.

The next presenter gave a historical overview of deaf artists, and he was followed by a fascinating paper on Diana Wynne Jones's The Game, which I'm now about to order.

I'm skipping the next session - I need a break. I should probably move though - the air conditioning's dripping on my computer.

Found

A l'Oréal Shocking Volume Waterproof Moisturizer thingy. Not exactly lost, more thrown from a car window by its owner because it was empty, in a stunning display of public citizenship.

I'm at a staff research conference this morning, in the Lighthouse cinema. I'm on first, which at least gets the boring stuff out of the way. We're already running late - one of the three organisers has arrived, only 20 minutes late.

I see the day as a trap. Our new management will be taking notes. Anyone conducting research which doesn't attract external funding will be sacked. Anyone think of ways to parlay Welsh literature into EU/corporate funding? I'm presenting on an untranslated 19th century Welsh clergyman and academic today. Try to restrain your excitement…