Hello!

Just to say Hi and thanks for the message to Pol Curley, a chum from university days. Keep on reading my mangled burblings!

Found out that Sue's Funeral takes place next tuesday, at 11.30. Rather than send flowers, I'm going to donate to the hospital in Reading which looked after her. Besides that, I want to do something more: Raise money for cancer research or something, and think about some way to do it. And not just here, either - something that connects to Istanbul, and Nur's mum, who also died of cancer.

A phone conversation.

Me: ..so you're interested in part-time evening courses.
Possible student: Yes, yes I am. I'm an international student.
Me: Where are you from?
Possible student: Slough.

Blaaady 'Ell.

Forget the previous post. I'm in a skittish, restless mood, that's all. I don't have a class till 3.15 this afternoon, and I'm doing my best to appear busy.

I'm having fun trying to put Google's Adsense thing onto this site. Not. It would appear my template doesn't like the cut'n'paste code. Sod it, who needs ads anyway?
I was idling on the computer last night, interspersing surfing with playing minesweeper. What the fuck for? I don't want to waste any more of my life.

And they're off!

yay, the start of the real teaching today. I'm busy plotting how much of three hours' class time I can waste with vague exercises and bureaucracy. To my consternation, I've discovered that two elementary munchkins, who somehow managed to wangle a 5.0 in IELTS, are in my group. I'm laying bets on how long they last: Odds are they'll be off by the end of term. I asked one of them which university he wanted to go to. His brow furrowed. 'Universty?' 'Yes, which University would you like to go to?' 'Univesty?' 'UNIVERSITY' 'Ahh! Yes, I want go WAR-wick'. 'What do you want to study?''Account.''Why?''I like account ver'much.' Faackin' 'Ell.

Watched 'She's Gone' on ITV last night: I can't say I was impressed. The storyline - young woman goes missing, father goes in search of her, discovers all sorts of stuff along the way - has been covered many times and by better writers. The depiction of Istanbul and Turks was, to my mind, rather lazy and disingenuous. Apparently, much of the location filming was done in Malta, and it showed as well: shots purporting to be from a rooftop looking over the Golden Horn clearly weren't, the police vehicles weren't the ones used in Turkey, and many of the buildings, even though they had Turkish flags draped over them, weren't the sort you'd find in Istanbul. One very crap shot in the final couple of scenes: The buildings used for the backdrop were the same as those used for the prison in Midnight Express! The acting was largely wooden, apart from Ray Winstone, who did a good job as a confused, self-centred bear of a man.

Susan Gallantry.

...or just plain Sue. My dad's third wife. Sadly, she lost her battle with breast cancer this morning, at 4 a.m. Over the last five years, she showed incredible reserves of fortitude and courage in the face of an incredibly vicious, aggressive form of the disease. While she was afraid, and I certainly would have been, she never stopped trying. She was, I recall, incredibly nervous of meeting the rest of my dad's family at first, particularly my sister and me, as she was worried that we would reject her out of hand. Instead, she found herself welcomed, as she was a pleasant, kind woman. I tryuly believe that my dad found a great deal of peace and happiness with her, and the man who had in part disappeared in the years follwing his split up from my mum returned. For him, too, this has been a harsh trial, and this year in particular has been a cruel, evil bitch: My grandfather died back in February, while Nur's mum died at the same time.

Sue leaves behind my dad, her three children and a grandson.

Safe journey, Sue.

Booze and illness.

Bluh. I feel ill. Ill enough not to go into work yesterday. Cold/fever/sore throat kind of thing. Spent the day instead hunkered under blankets, drinking lemsip and making lentil soup. I thought the latter would make me feel better, which it would have done, had I not burnt my bloody throat while tasting it. As night came on, I decided a glass of wine would be the done thing. Knocked the sodding glass over. Arse.
On BBC Breakfast this morning, I blearily watched a news report about under age drinking, and 'David Blunkett's summer crackdown on binge drinking and violence'. From this sentence, I inferred two possibilities. Either A) David Blunkett is a one man crackdown team, dashing from bar to bar and terrorising all the munchkins with their cider and blacks, or b) Blunkett has a terrible binge drinking and violence problem of his own, and has sworn to forego both over the summer. The image of Blunkers off his head on alcopops, rampaging through the corridors of Whitehall, randomly and viciously passing legislation at terrified onlookers, crawled through my mind.
Well, it was early in the morning.
And I still feel ill.

Can this really be true?

Here's a link to one of Dave Egger's short stories in The Guardian. Is what he says really true? If so, then what the Hell are you doing, Mr and Mrs average American voter? Get the war monkey out, get Lurch in!

And so another hour of my life is sucked away...

.....by an utterly pointless 'team briefing', in this case the Learning Resource Centre's 'Learning Services Roadshow'. Apart from sounding like it's going to be presented by ageing DJs in fake satin bomber jackets, it covered an area of learning that has nothing whatsoever to do with my particular skill. It looked at assessing key skills requirements for the munchkins who get shunted onto the college after having failed their GCSEs. It was also shoddily presented, something that really gets up my nose as a lecturer. The powerpoint was just a repetition of what the presenter said; It failed to engage interest; It had a specific aim, was was largely aimed at the wrong target audience; In short, why the fuck was I there? And I have another one to endure this afternoon, the 'Campus Briefing and Update', which which take the best part of two hours to deliver, by none less than the director of the college, Lee. He resembles a dealer in quality used cars.

What a fantastic weekend! Weather-wise, I mean: I spent most of the time loitering in the garden, practising the age-old art of pottering, i.e. pretending to be busy. Tried to do a barbie last night, but didn't have enough charcoal.

Went out on Friday night, for Mike's leaving do -he's off to Romania today.

On hearing (but not seeing) the Festival

I didn't manage to get to the Reading Festival this year, due to lack of money. I still managed to hear some of the best bits, though, thanks to where I live: It's a valley about a mile and a half north of the site, and when the wind's in the right direction, the sound from the main stage bounces up from side to side. On a good night, you can individual whispers. The darkness sounded good, as did The Streets, but most memorable for me was staggering back from the pub at 11, listening to 50,000 people singing 'We Are The Champions'.
I am definitely going next year, come what may.