I was in two minds about staying in the pub last night - but I was having a good time even if the prices have gone up. I met someone from my old stomping grounds (I should have recognised the accent) who talked about Gunthorpe Bridge - a place I haven't thought of for a couple of decades - and solved a couple of clues on the cryptic crossword. I ended up in a wide awake state accompanied by a neuralgia headache and toothache. I got to sleep eventually, with a pit stop at 4.30 which didn't help. The alarms awoke me for eight, but I fell asleep again.

This does not bode well for the weekend - I've scheduled meal breaks but as my fridge freezer doesn't work I'm buying food day by day. Need to get some tins in. Hopefully it'll be fixed tomorrow else I'll starve. And I know places are closing on Easter.

I have what appears to be known as an unproductive cough. I would have thought that that any cough would be unproductive, as it gets in the way and is pretty unpleasant, but then ( cut for potential TMI )

the_bottles finally visited this weekend, after blowing me out at least twice before, and we had a fun if boozy weekend. We spent Friday night in the Doves before adjourning to the Bell&, and wandering home to listen to some Mighty Boosh and Kitchens of Distinction. We went back via the Carps, with NW, who returned The_Bottles's Mighty Boosh CD and smashed the casserole dish I left with him at Christmas. Heigho.

Break to cough. Unproductively.

I had some very vivid dreams between initially waking at 7.30 and getting up at 10. But I'd better not share them as they are filed under "Abjection".

The 4am bedtime didn't exactly lead to us head off into town that early, but after beans on toast we hit Fopp, various charity shops, a second hand musical equipment shop and then the Doves on the way home. We headed off home for me to cook - a from-memory version of lamentables's Thai fish curry - and then returned to the drinking. I beat The_Bottles at chess, as I had the night before, and then was challenged by G to a game. At first it looked as if I was going to be thrashed, but I won from a position of only having a queen, a bishop and a rook and having taken about threee of his pawns. The rematch he won. Thence to the Bell& again, although we did consider an adjournment to the Old Brewery. Then I played some Amateur Transplants, followed by Tom Lehrer who he hadn't heard of, and finally Bonzo Dog Band as it seemed the natural progression.

We both emerged at about noon, and headed into town in search of a roast dinner. Alas the Dolphin was full, and so we had a reasonable alternative at Simple Simon's. Then we went to the Bell&, assuming that he would have to go for a train fairly soon. Well, we missed that one, by two pints. Then for another in the Hobgoblin, missing another train in the processs, and when I got back from the loo, another round appeared. Eventually we got up to west, to discover that I'd misread the timetable. Travelling from east was still a no-no - engineering works - but the timetable times for west were the times you'd start walking to west station, and thus were twenty minutes out. He could have caught an earlier train. But he wouldn't've.

I popped into the Doves, but left by nine to watch Louis Theroux, and planned an early night.

Meanwhile, I want to write. But I've got to put it off. Perhaps I can start the research for it.

Unproductive cough.

I dragged myself out of bed sometime during Desert Island Discs (how come if he's the most successful living composer, I've never heard of him? And what about McCartney?), may have had a bath, and wandered down to the Doves to see G, who was working a Barney and hasn't been at the Doves for weeks. N was there already, looking a little worse for wear, and Amanda was sat at the bar, looking radiant as ever. ( Read more... )

A newly recovered Uncle Pete came into the bar last night and asked about N. I mentioned to Pete that I was about to text N when ( Read more... )

I think there's something in the water at the moment.

Let's, for the sake of a label, call him Travis, although that's not his name. He was looking glum the other day, and my first assumption was that he had split up from his girlfriend. Nope, the reason was more life changing than that, and suddenly I'm called upon to give advice I feel distinctly unqualified to give. Walking back home from the Doves with NW, we were chatting about whether we'd given the right advice to Travis, and whether we'd given him too much of a hard time, and I also inadvertantly indicated that come Sunday night I'd be in need of a shoulder. Although I also said that I probably wouldn't be able to talk about it.

This is called ( foreshadowing )

I got called a dude on Saturday night, or, rather, Sunday morning. It's an occupational hazard that I'm going to run into students when I'm in town; it's a small place and I suppose they have as much right to be here as I have. As long as they let me get on with my stuff, and don't expect a bonus tutorial. In High Wycombe a couple of them worked in Tescos and I'd always end up at their till with a basket full of Reduced to Clear items. Ooops. Faintly embarrassing. There were some who used to hassle me for marks at the bus stop, but they got short shrift, and eventually learnt that they could at least ask how I was first.

A couple of months ago in the Bell and Crown, a first year student asked me whether her friend should apply for the job of head of department. This was hardly sensitive, given that at the time our head of department was terminally ill, although still very much alive and considered to be still in the post. We hadn't even begun to talk about replacing him, and we still haven't, some weeks after the funeral. But most of the time they're content to let you get on with your stuff, although perhaps E was right to say he wonders about the wisdom of being seen inebriated in public by them. I'm not convinced I have any authority to lose, and, after all, they're all supposed to be adults. I'm trying not to let it cramp what little style I have.

One problem is that there are a lot more of them than there are of me, and I certainly don't recognise half their faces. Unless they are looking bored, in a row with others looking bored, of course. So someone or other said hi to me outside the Bell and a couple of weeks ago, and I've no idea who it was, but I made nice back. I almost always see someone I know at the Orange Street Music Club, but they tend to be the smarter kids, and are fun enough to hang around with. Some of them are friends of friends, anyway.

The weird thing is when, as happened on Sunday, they feel the need to yell out "That's my lecturer!". It's not so much the implication of ownership, as the strangeness of them wanting other people to know. Why tell the world? So it was on Sunday - "That's dude's my lecturer!".

NW was amused. "They called you a dude, man," he said. "You're a dude."

Maybe I have to consider the possibility that I'm popular with them. H'mm.

Meanwhile today we had a powercut( Uh? )