I've had my holiday head on for the past week, and haven't really got an awful lot done at all. What I did do got wiped off the college's main servers, and is, according to the IT bod, 'irretrievable'. Arse. There's hardly anyone around now, so I shall leave soon.

and another one!

Just perusing the personal statement of one of my students, who is making a deferred UCAS entry for 2008, I came across the following:

In my leisure time, I occasionally write poems filled with grief and misery

Blimey. And he always seemed such a happy chap.

hmm.

from the staff governor's newsletter, regarding the new Vice-Chancellor's inauguration:

The VC’s inaugural presentation

I do not wish to regurgitate Professor John’s presentation here as no doubt he will want to do that himself and to much better effect.

I don't think he expressed himself in the way he intended.

And on the flooding front, talk of a wartime spirit being engendered is inevitable, as is finding a veteran to speak (from the BBC):

Long queues formed in supermarket car parks on Wednesday as people waited to collect their daily ration of six two-litre bottles of water.
At the Tesco in Quedgeley residents said the crisis had fostered a war-time spirit.
Reginald Davies, 91, who fought during the Second World War, said: "I did five days without water in Burma.
"I've seen men go mad from thirst. This is nothing. The worst thing is getting out of bed in the morning at 91 to get water."

Damp.

Don't you just hate those days full of humidity when your hair goes all frizzy? That's what mine's been like since the incessant bloody flooding began. Fortunately, nothing has happened in Reading - yet: Apparently, the Thames is expected to reach a peak sometime tonight. Cycling in through Caversham, I noticed that a few shops had sandbags to hand outside, although it all looked a bit scrappy and pathetic. The news is full of people, looking for someone to blame. Um, God, perhaps? Human activity, leading to extreme weather events due to global warming? Gordon Brown? He's certainly not had a good start to being Prime Minister: Crap Terrorists attacking, shitty summer weather and the worst flooding since at least 1947. Any more of this, and I can see that the people around him will slowly start to edge away, just in case he leaves the Curse of Brown (or should that be The Brown Mark?) on their heads.

wetness and disappointment and a moment of pleasant surprise.

I have just spent half an hour in the locker room trying to dry myself out after quite possibly the wettest cycle ride I have ever had coming into work. It's July, for God's sake! I drove Angus up to school this morning, rather than do our usual walk up. As we parked, I noticed that the other children going to school didn't have their uniforms on. Most had different costumes, mainly of the circus persuasion. I knew something round the circus theme was going on that week, and I had asked Angus specifically if Friday was a No Uniform day, twice. Both times he said no.
'Angus, is it a no uniform day?'
'Yes.'
'Why did you lie to me?'
'Why not? It's not as if we've got circus clothes anyway.'
At that, I must admit I blew my top at him. What angered and disappointed me most is that he deliberately and to my face lied about it. I still feel really annoyed now. The question is, what to do about it?
Anyway, fuming about that, I came home, got the cycle out, and was soaked within a hundred metres of leaving the house. I went into my local corner shop to get a newspaper, and as I was paying for it, I was pleasantly surprised to see that they sold RAKI! Bottles of Sari Zeybek, which is one of the quality ones, with a price label to match. £24. Ouch.

One of those days.

I've had a fairly crappy day of it. I couldn't seem to make any headway with my studying; It felt more like doodling at the edges of my mind. This was partly because of being interrupted by various things like having to do an interview and placement test for a student, and from a sudden sense of ennui sweeping up out of nowhere. It left me feeling frustrated an annoyed with myself. In addition, I had to take some new students on a tour of the town and take a couple of them to the police station to be registered; Somewhere along the way, I managed to lose my passcard, thanks to a gust of wind, of all things - it caught my passcard holder, which I had hanging round my neck, and flung it behind me, but I didn't notice the loss until later. Despite retracing my steps, there was no sign of the bloody thing. The students who needed to register hadn't completed their forms; One of them didn't have enough money, so I ended up lending her some, and the other didn't know his address. Instead, he produced the menu from a Chinese Takeaway restaurant somewhere in south Reading, and said to the desk clerk, 'I here with friend two day'. Fortunately it had the address on that, so she accepted it, but told him to return once he'd found himself a permanent gaff.
Overall, a niggly, annoying day, and one that might usually be expected to leave me fuming, yet strangely, and pleasantly, I found myself in a relatively philosophical and calm mood about it all.
Why, I don't know, but certainly the opportunity to immerse myself in study has had a beneficial effect, just as writing does. It's the stretching, and importantly, the focusing, of my mental capabilities that does it.
Anyway, I think that this will be the pic I'll put on my profile:


that is, of course, if the bloody profile thing will let me upload it.

Badgers!

Another danger in southern Iraq - man-eating badgers!

One of those posts....

..where I don't know what I'm going to write. Partly this is due to having had only four hours' sleep last night (something that has become depressingly routine since young Mr. Sean was born), and I'm feeling a bit frayed round the edges, and partly because I'm focusing on some of the more enjoyable aspects of my job, namely research, study and developing materials for class. I've mentioned before that summer is a good time to get things done in this job; There are fewer people round and the atmosphere is markedly more stress-free. Not entirely so, but more so. As for my summer, well, lack of money this year (babies are an expensive habit) precludes going off anywhere far. Hopefully we'll manage a few days by the sea, or something like that. And hopefully I'll get some hiking and climbing in, too. I'm trying to persuade Angus that he would like to come too, but he's resistant to the idea, even after I bought a tent and showed him how to pitch it. Anyway, what I suspect I'll be doing most of is research and study. As long as I can do it in the garden under blue skies and with a cold beer to hand.

Hurrah for good old English Ineptitude!

According to some news reports, the reason why last week's car bombs failed to go off was because the would-be bombers used NHS syringes as part of the detonation mechanism, and these failed to work.
There are times when it is necessary to be thankful for the total collapse of the manufacturing sector in this country and the knowhow that went with it. We can't even make things that move up and down in a tube properly anymore. Soon we'll be too crap to be worth bombing.

choices, choices....

Well, I've taken some more pics, but I'm not quite sure which one I should use in the profile. What do you think? Personally, I think they're all pretty ghastly; Either too cheesy, or in the case of the last one, I definitely look like I've just ripped someone's liver out with my bare hands and eaten it, possibly with fava beans and a nice Chianti.

Grim.

It has been brought to my attention that the photo I currently have on this blog makes me look far too grim, and the one on my newly-acquired Facebook page makes me look like a deeply sinister escaped convict, possibly holding a someone else's head behind my back. I've tried taking a few more with the intention of uploading them here; Unfortunately, I now look like a manically grinning deeply sinister excaped convict, possibly dressed in someone else's skin. Once I have better mugshot, I will put it on.

You don't have to be a self-absorbed fanatical islamist suicide bomber to work here, but it helps!

I can't help but feel that there was something mercifully crap and English about the attempted suicide bomb attacks over the past few days, namely that they all failed through a combination of happenstance, good luck, and classic bungling. It's a bit like when Tim Henman fails at Wimbledon; we're all rooting for him (except for those of us who think he's a tosser), yet we all know he's going to fail. Not that he's going to blow himself up on Centre Court, of course, although that might make him a bit more interesting. The two guys who tried to drive the land rover into Glasgow airport - a total bungle. The mystery driver who left the car outside the nightclub - what a foul-up. If you're going to go along the suicide bomber route, there's no point only going the half hog, as it were. This might apply to many things in life. Who knows - if they'd been successful, they could even have done that crap Henman gesture with the waggly fist.
Although, of course, it would be separated from the arm by a matter of several hundred metres.

A drama played out underwater.

I can't leave off the Jury Service Experience without saying something about the drama of it all. You can see why theatre and film are attracted to the action of the courtroom: The problem is, it's just like it is in the movies, but as if the script was written by Samuel Beckett while in a catatonic trance. Hence my describing it as a slow regal procession.
And of course, everyone is aware that they are not merely being their mere selves, they are acting out the roles of themselves too. Oftentimes they protest too much, or meekly overabase themselves, in order to look more honest or sincere or incapable of hurting a fly.The presiding magistrate, like a bewigged deus ex machina, will occasionally make a wry coment to the prosecution or defence team, or now and then turn and smile kindly at the jury, while giving some point about the action in the courtroom at that moment. In the attempted murder case, the prosecuting barrister was full of dramatic self-importance; He swung his gown in such a way, gesticulated with one neat hand, flourishing a gleaming pen. He would suck in his cheeks expressively while listening to the defence, then flip a page loudly and blow out air, before pouting finely over another point in the story. When it came to cross-examining the defendent, he would reduce his voice to a quivering whisper, before bringing to a crashing wall of booming noise, batting away the man's story and denouncing his tale as preposterous.
I had to feel sorry for the Defence barrister. I got the impression that she was relatively inexperienced, and she didn't want to play along with the drama. At times, she visibly reddened, as if embarrassed by the flimsy story she had to defend, or as if ashamed at the blatant lies she was forced to try and persuade us were true. Also, for whatever reason, the judge didn't seem to like her whatsoever. There was certainly a frisson of animosity whenever she (the judge) said 'thank you, that is enough' or even, at one stage, curtly barked 'sit down!'.

And the verdict was..

Standing up to deliver the verdict, I unexpectedly found myself feeling somewhat nervous. To my left was the large dock, made of a light-coloured wood, with thick, unbreakable glass panels stretching to the ceiling; Inside was the defendant, a burly man with sand-blond hair and sand-blasted face, set in an impassive expression.
'Please answer the following question yes or no,' said the Usher. 'Have you reached a verdict upon which you are all agreed?'
'Yes.'

It had taken about an hour of wrangling in the jury room to get our decision unanimous. I had had my mind made up by the evidence by the previous day; A couple of jurors, however, still had reservations. It wasn't as if all the necessary evidence had been found, and the prosecution's case relied upon three principal witnesses, plus the unreliable narrative of the victim in the case.

'On count one, do you find the defendent guilty or not guilty of attempted murder?'

Over the past few days, some of the witnesses, including the victim, had used screens to preserve their anonymity. The events in question had taken place in Milton Keynes. In short, a drunken argument and a certain degree of animosity towards Travellers had led to a fight outside a pub, which the defendent had lost; In revenge, he later walked back into the pub, and stabbed the victim in 'the posterior chest, six inches below the axilla'. After stabbing the victim, he calmly walked out, returning some three hours later to warn the landlord that 'no fucking pikeys allowed in here'. He then went to the hospital, presumably to find his victim, where he was arrested. In subsequent questioning, under legal advice, he answered 'no comment' to the questions put to him.

'Not Guilty.'

Although the witnesses seemed to have inconsistencies in their recollection of what they had seen, one thing stood out; an arm flying, a glint of something in a hand, the hand connecting with the side of the body, the victim suddenly falling back, and realising what had happened after only a few seconds, saying 'I've been stabbed!'

'On the second count, do you find the defendent guilty or not guilty of wounding with intent?'

The defence case relied solely on the defendent himself. His version was that the other man had had a screwdriver in his hand, and that he'd knocked it out of the way - 'he must have stabbed himself.' How someone stabs themself in their own back, six inches beneath the armpit, is beyond me. During cross-examination, it became clear that this was a man with a very long history of hurting and maiming others. Maybe that was why I was nervous.

'Guilty.'

Delivering that single word meant that we had just changed his life. Although the actual sentence will not be delivered for a couple of weeks, it will inevitably be a custodial sentence, considering the man's history. And although there was a satisfaction from seeing the case end, I can't say it was an enjoyable thing. The defendent may have hurt, wounded and intimidated others, yet I took no pleasure from the idea of someone else going to prison.