Because book-lists always snag my attention, but this is a bit weird: Britain's classic novel wishlist revealed - how many of the 25 books have you read? YouGov have found the classic novels Brits are perhaps too intimidated by or busy to read. Have you read any of them? (I got 17 of them, largely due to having to read more Dickens than I might ( Read more... )

Spotted in an ad at the side of the escalator this a.m. 'Travel yourself interesting', to which I thought, no, it doesn't work like that and if you are not interesting to begin with, doing some kind of experience tourism bucket list will not make you so.
And this intersected with a post I was meditating based on these two links, which I had open in ( Read more... )

(Though, actually, at this time of year it's a bit darker than that suggests.)
Anyway, back to work, and everybody is going around looking a bit dazed after the really long break, especially as so many people didn't come in at all for the two days at the beginning of Christmas week.
What I had was a really, really restful break (in spite of the ( Read more... )

Also all this relaxation perhaps not entirely conducive to cerebration.
However, I have been given to think by a post on my rlist about those things that are never part of formal education for a particular profession but would be at least as, if not more useful, in the ongoing practice of that profession.
A short while ago someone tweeted something ( Read more... )

Day off. I did vaguely wonder at one point if I should use it to do RESEARCH at either the BL or LSE, but decided that I would stay at home and try and disinter some research-relevant things I know I have somewhere.

Plus, I was also intending to take yesterday morning off because I was scheduled to work late, but this was stymied by 2 things: I was ( Read more... )

At the moment this year feels remarkably unpressured, compared to last. I'm not starting the year with a book manuscript to do the final round of editing on followed by all the joy of seeing it through the press, and so far not the accumulation of Other Academic Stuff Of A Very Assorted Nature which made 2012 too much like a merry-go-round I wanted ( Read more... )

Yes, I'm back at Grayshott for a bout of self-indulgence and destressing.

So far today: steam-room (they've completely done up the steam-room!), cold plunge and relaxation in the relaxation room.

Delicious healthy lunch.

Vigorous walk on Ludshott Common in glorious weather - only niggle that there were only two of us besides the exercise instructor ( Read more... )

Today's walk on the common was like the realisation of Georgian poetry (not surprising, I suppose, given that in the early 1900s you couldn't spit in this area without hitting a poet or other literary figure or an occasional artist). It was glorious clear sunny and somewhat chill autumn weather. The trees have not yet quite started turning. It was ( Read more... )

I'm sure I've posted before about my problems with 'guided visualisation' as a technique of relaxation - a) I can't really visualise that well and b) I can't help bringing in tedious real-life details like the buzzing biting insects, the cowpats in the beautiful meadow, and those gulls making beautiful cries in the seascape crapping all over ( Read more... )