beset the road I was to wander in

[extemporanea]

Today should have been extremely annoying. On the downside (here we go again), the Army of Reconstruction more or less colonised the house this morning, deploying a painter in the Evil Landlord's bedroom and a clutch of noisy electricians in the roof (they stuck a foot through the guestroom ceiling). The otherwise nice and greatly appreciated charlady added to the chaos by vaccuming, washing etc, which entails me being chased out of my study at intervals while she cleans it. Escaping to campus was not much more encouraging, since the morning's library activities revealed that the two major, central works by Barthes have been nicked from the shelves. Semiotics, apparently, are not productive of honesty, strangely enough, since Barthes seems to espouse a rigorous and straightforward approach. (Unlike Derrida, who thinks in corkscrews, and would seem a likely candidate to inspire arson, embezzlement and grand theft auto). To crown it all, the nice editorial lady at the press that's (eventually) publishing my book, thinks that my proposed revisions are insufficiently radical and hints, terrifyingly, that time is not an issue and I should be committing to more far-ranging and long-term additions. I do not wish to spend the rest of my life doing this. It's beginning to annoy me.

On the upside, however, a jaunt to Makro this afternoon, with jo of jo&stv fame, was amazingly good fun. I love Makro. Its huge warehouse is piled with insane quantities of unlikely stuff in incredible juxtaposition: you go around the corner from office furniture and are in the middle of milk products. Plus, it has forklifts. Life with forklifts is complete. Also, the stv part of the dynamic duo cooked us Thai again this evening, and I am pleasantly full of excellent food and wine.

They didst with pitfall and with gin beset my road, but I bloody well had a good day anyway. Buggerit.