doomed!

I really must write this on a more regular basis...
My hand continues to hurt. My rib joined in the general pain merriment on thursday, so I'm not really enjoying muself at the moment. Added to this is the joy of trying to write a speech in Turkish, which I am due to deliver at the inaugural meeting of the Reading Turkish Organisation this sunday. Which I discovered, at half past ten last night, has not, shall we be say, been organised terribly well. A room has been booked, at The BBC Monitoring Centre in Caversham. It has no tables or chairs. There is no catering, apart from......guess what.....a kebab van! a hundred people are coming. There will be media coverage. The Turkish Ambassador may come.
This is going to be one COLLOSSAL fuck-up.
I may just stay at home on sunday.

pesky garden furniture.

I am currently nursing several bruised ribs and a sorely bruised arm, thanks to a large old wooden bench collapsing on me on sunday.We were at my dad's house for his retirement do, and I was standing on the damn thing, trying to retrieve a ball my son had been playing with, and it decided to first tip, then spilt in two, hurling me to the ground and itself on top of me. Ouch. My left hand is only just coming back to life.

More fun.

Charlie, the student who wrote so elegantly about ladyboys in his country description assignment and has been absent for the last two months, shuffled into view once again yesterday. He handed in his holiday assignment - a comparison of two countries. The opening paragraph does not fill me with hope:

As you can seen in the map of the world, China looks as cock, the head of cock is closed Russia, Mongolia and the Peninsula of Korea, its extremity rump approach the most of southeast asian.

Bloody hell.

zombie pontiff watch?

Rather worryingly, the BBC News website's current (4.25 p.m.) live feed link is titled 'watch Pope John Paul II lying in state'. Why? Is he going to start twitching? Are we expecting him to stagger to his feet again any minute, and start lurching towards the pilgrims?

drooling inanity.

For want of a better title. I've managed to avoid doing anything resembling real work for the last two and a half days, despite teaching five different classes in that time. I've just done it all on autopilot, a skill that has been carefully nurtured over years of instruction so I can give the appearance of imparting knowledge whilst being in something resembling a fugue state.

Chancellor Installation latest: I can easily imagine all the staff gathered for the installation, waiting patiently all day, and the delivery van doesn't come. Then the delivery blokes come up with some cock and bull story along the lines of, 'well, you was out, weren't ya? We rang and everything, but no answer, guv. We slipped a card under the door.'
Wondered idly whether the Chancellor comes with an extended warranty.

New TVU Chancellor Latest - Booze Boss Blags Top Don Spot

From the staff intranet page....

All staff are invited to the Installation Ceremony of the new Chancellor of TVU, Karan Bilimoria CBE DL.
Business entrepreneur Karan is the founder of Cobra Beer and has been a long term associate of TVU. Karan says of his appointment: "I am truly honoured to accept the Chancellorship of Thames Valley University and look forward to playing an active role in ensuring the University receives the recognition it deserves for the tremendous work it undertakes."

Crikey. Other universities get top academics and people of reknown; we get the bloke who makes you feel slighty less gassy after fifteen pints of his finest on top of a curry.

abandoned subs and so on

Cycling back home after a long day of trying to avoid work, I noticed that some careless soul had abondoned their Soviet-era submarine in the Thames. I did try to find a photo from the local rag, but the useless bastards haven't updated their site yet. Seeing as said sub appeared on April 1st, I suspect it's not all it appears to be.
Other ways to avoid doing meaningful work: Try going to D-Film. Make a film. Send it to a friend. Laugh.
Just had a message from Announcements Central informing me that 'The New Chancellor of the university is to be installed on May 6th', and inviting me to the installation ceremony. Images of some aged bugger in ermine being unloaded from the back of a delivery truck, then put on a pedestal and plugged in....
My Trinity Licentiate Diploma in TESOL is not going very well. In fact, it's not going at all at present. It is only with coming back to college that I now think I might finally get some time to actualy sit down and do the bloody thing. I was talking to one of my colleagues, who's also been doing it, and she was moaning about how hard it was. Then, as ever, the conversation turned towards sex.
'I don't think I could cope with an orgy,' she said. 'I'd always be looking over at other people, comparing myslef with the other women and wondering why x(her partner) isn't doing that and that to me! Besides, he's ever so jealous; He'd probably start a fight, and that would look ridiculous naked.'

still alive!

..me, that is. Alright, I know I've missed a month or so, but I have my reasons - mainly work related, in that I've been horrendously busy. Still, it's the beginning of the spring/summer term now, and time to start winding down.
And you can always rely on a dead pope to delay a general election and piss on Prince Charles' wedding fireworks....