Apparently there are mutant ninja Catholics in my family tree. Or, possibly, just Calvinists. Either way, there's a hell of a lot of guilt going on. Things about which I am currently guilty: my lack of communication with the house agent in France because I'm afraid if I email her she'll say she's no longer my agent; the blasted-heath state of the ( Read more... )

I'm not entirely sure why Bleak House is my favourite Dickens novel, but there it is. I think my fondness for Esther, the main character for about a third of it, is akin to my liking for Mansfield Park's Fanny Price: they're both quiet, apparently submissive female figures who seem to conform to the stereotypes imposed on them by their world, while ( Read more... )

As promised, I trundled off to see Thor on Wednesday evening, which in the event was a bad idea. Not because it was a bad movie, but because Wednesday evening before a public holiday was unholy busy (I thought it would be safe with Thor being near the end of its run, but nuh-uh), and I have a well-defined bite-people response to crowds. It's also a ( Read more... )

Oh, Friday, allow me to love you and pet you and call you George, you have arrived not a moment too soon. It's official: this week has sucked. Also, blown. Also, I disown and disinherit it, it is no relation to me and I have never seen it before. Honestly, officer, it followed me home ( Read more... )

This is a very seasonal job which I am, to a greater or lesser degree of reluctant efficiency, holding down. Apart from the hellish frenzies of end-of-year, start-of-year and first-week-of-second-semester, aka Hellweek, it is characterised by what I can only describe as Doldrums around May/June, namely now. I have things to do, but they're not ( Read more... )

It's been a rude shock to come back to work after a ten-day break, particularly when my week has been rendered more than somewhat hideous by a continual stream of angsty student queries. My immediate response to a knock on my door has been instant, reflexive, homicidal rage, which I instantly have to choke down in order to be empathetic to their ( Read more... )

The discipline of English lit ( Read more... )

A tragic trend in modern youth ( Read more... )

Of student crimes unsavoury
The worst is to the apostrophe.

You'd think the wretched little twits
Could learn to tell their its from it's;
Or not, with doltishness excessive
Confuse the plural and possessive.

But since they do, I find it droll
To have them clubbed to death by trolls. This one courtesy of the last two weeks of marking, and of ( Read more... )

The tut room's video up and dies!
Ignoring plaintive student cries,
with hammer, club and guillotine
I pulverise the damned machine,
ensuring hatred, fear and dread
by making them read books instead.

Teaching was a far, far simpler thing in the days when we didn't have to teach film. That's all I have to say.