Thanks to the wonders of wireless broadband and an extension lead, I'm writing this from the (dis-)comfort of my shed. The reason I'm in here is because a) I kitted it out as an office of sorts back in January and b) Nur, along with her friend Bilge, are doing an extensive clean of the house from top to bottom, and moaning about it. well, they bloody well decided to do it.
I am not what could be described as un lapin joyeaux at the moment. I am feeling very pissed off with work, and one incident in particular involving someone in a position senior to me. I am not going to say anything more about this at the moment, save to say that it has made me seriously consider whether I resign or not. However, I am not going to do anything in a fit of anger - that would be to harm none but myself: No, I am going to bide my time - for now. It is not the anger so much as the disappointment at an act done in an underhand way, and the knowledge that I can no longer rely on or trust this person in the way I would have done before.

Aspire, respire, perspire, expire.

Feet of clay - or more cheating bastards!

You'd expect those night-time dial-and-win programmes to cheat, and get people to call in at a pound a call and have no chance of getting through; You might raise your eyebrows at Richard and Judy doing it, but not be too shocked.
But Blue Peter - no, no, no - that's just wrong, all wrong!
Here's a winner we found earlier

untitled

This is one of those posts where I'm not exactly what I'm going to write. Rather, I'm allowing my fingers to caress each key, to follow the flow of the board until I get into a rhythm and then see what it reveals. I find that when I write, I eventually get into some kind of trance state and the words begins to write themselves. I even find I write more accurately - that is, my fingers become more sure of their stepping and I don't even have to correct my work as I go along. I read something by J.G. Ballard the other day, where he said that no truly great novel has so far been written on a computer.
Bollocks.
I bet someone said that a couple of years after the invention of the typewriter.
My own handwriting is utterly appalling - quite frequently, even I can't make it out. For that reason, I feel far more comfortable with a keyboard. I find it slows me down a bit, allows me pause for my fingers to catch up with the ever turbulent flow of my mind, until there's that sudden moment where they're working wonderfully well in unison and my conscious mind can sit back and marvel at what the rest of me is doing. The nearest analogy I can find is when I'm talking in Turkish at full flow, and the bit of me that's still thinking in English starts to give a running commentary:
' Hot Damn, boy, look at you do that whole Turkish thing! That's right, you're even getting the body gestures right!'
And so on.
It's something to do with an act of abstraction from the quotidian mental acts we all undergo, I suppose; A movement towards another place within that is somehow a sanctum sanctorum (Is that right?) from the usual experience. When I write at length, I withdraw further and further into this, a garden within the mind, that becomes wilder, denser, lusher the more I wander in. And the more I go in, the less I desire to come out again, yet at the same time I am aware of this other voice, my own director's commentary as it were, giving his opinion over what I'm doing.
Strangely, when I'm exploring this fecund jungle of my own imagination, he is largely positive; It is only when I'm stuck on the outside, lurching and limping through the mundanity, that he becomes an overwhelmingly negative voice, whether it be about me, or the apparent idiocies, folies and stupidities of others. Why this should be, I don't know, yet there it is.

Class

Panorama shot taken with k800.

in a fug.

ye gods, I'd forgotten how drained you feel. It's the sense of being in a permanent daze, of being a stupefied automaton at the thrall of something very small and very precious with a wail that is heartrending, soulrending, mindshredding and completely impossible to ignore. And the lengthening days, particularly the mornings, make it harder. Just like Angus, Sean is an early riser. I've spent the past few days wandering round in a haze of inattentive dullness, save for a few moments of clarity while, of all things, doing the shopping. Mind you, wandering round Tescos is enough to put anyone in a daze. Unpacking my things onto the conveyor belt before having them scanned and then repacking them (and before shoving them in the car, then dragging them home and unpacking them into new places, then unpacking them as and when and dumping the remains in one way shpae or form), it was as though all the sounds and voices came into sudden focus, as well as the colours and shapes around me, and I could almost sense the secret thoughts, worries, anger, anxieties, misery, joy and fears of those processing their shopping.
Anyway, I'm knackered.
Here's a pic.

Yes, this really is the large statue above what was the main entrance to Reading College. From the front, it looks fairly innocuous in a 1950's Socialist Realist kind of way. It's only when viewed from the west wing that it's revealed that he's having a quick one off his stone wrist.

With a statue like this...

What can you say about where i work?

post-inspection, all washed out

...which is pretty much all I have to say. The BC inspectors were fairly kind in their judgement on us: Certainly, the most important thing, the teaching, came out well. I'm now in the mood where I can't be arsed to do anything. Also utterly tired out as Sean had a v. uncomfortable night, thanks to a cough.

Angus

taken on, and posted directly from, my new sony ericsson k800. Good, isn't it?

wet sundays.

I am, quite simply, too bloody knackered. Let's hope son no. 2 grows up quickly so I can get a decent night's sleep. Time was I would have spent sunday mooching around, especially when it was a sopping wet one like today. There is a pleasure in stomping around the countryside on a wet day, but this is one of those where you need to be curled up in a chair with a decent book or three and a ready supply of wine. Crumpets may also possibly be involved somewhere along the line, as well as the smell of a roast dinner.
Nowadays, I can hardly move for the competing demands for my attention from various others - and indeed, just on cue, Sean has just woken up. Also, I have to make dinner for a guest who I drunkenly invited over after my mum's 60th birthday bash, and of which I had entirely forgotten until Nurel reminded me this morning. I miss those lazy, lounging days.