"I just want my life back."

[sensaes]

It hasn't even been a full fortnight of Jury Service, and I've already hit the metaphorical Tony Hayward (late of BP) buffers. There's no 'novelty' to wear off, as this is my second time around on this particular freakshow carousel of delay and ineptitude. The Dickensian ghosts of the Marshalsea debtors' prison have been out in force this week, sidling up to me, and whispering bitter couplets of poignant, observational pithiness in my ear. The late, great John Mortimer might have made a hero out of Horace Rumpole, who always defended, and never prosecuted, but real-life counterparts are few, far between, and woefully absent from the current environs of my own ongoing servitude. Instead, on display has been the second-rate breakfast cereal variety of cross-examination - a shop's own brand take on Rice Crispies, minus the requisite (or at least hoped-for) snap, crackle, and pop of incisive evidential argument. "Contempt of court" has thus gained a more literal interpretation, and caustic application, since this negative view of the mismanaged proceedings, and closed-shop frustrations, is universally held among us.

In other matters, I'm afraid that the guilt of delay has spread - my apologies to you if you're waiting on replies and feedback. I'll catch up eventually. In the meantime, let me recommend George Leef's review of DIY U by Anya Kamenetz ("Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education"), which is a US-centric perspective on the now-global phenomenon of universities and academics staring up their own backsides in search of answers to all the dirty little questions people keep asking about the HE sector:

http://popecenter.org/clarion_call/article.html?id=2431

Ivan Illich (Deschooling Society) gets a mention, but don't let that put you off...