The Baking Mojo...

seems to have struck me with its mighty hammer and is now holding me in its thrall. A plan to entice folks to the meeting today with home-baked confectionery had me in the kitchen for a few hours on Sunday afternoon, pinny in place, and rolling pin at the ready! I made rocky road traybake, lemon and poppyseed shorty and caramel shorty! 


What scares me is as I was baking I was adjusting the recipes in my head - improving them! This is scary! I have already baked a lemon tea bread this week as well as a buttermilk raisin and walnut cake! I am indeed very popular just now! I got the recipes online at http://allrecipes.co.uk/ but I would use caution as they were far from perfect and need a little jiggling with. I wouldn't use the caramel shorty recipe again as I have made much nicer shorty! Oh and don't buy the caramel in the carnation tins! It is nowhere near as unctuous as homemade caramel! 

Due to a lack of attendees at said meeting today there was plenty left over to bribe my office mate with and the PG secretary - now everyone knows that the PG Secretary is the person you have to keep on side - s/he is your best friend!!! :D Luckily ours is an absolute treasure! 


*Oops slight sideslip into a day in the life of a domestic goddess there - quick smart back to academia! *


Feedback on the chapter was relatively positive. The bulk of it is* very good* but the introduction and conclusion are (and I quote) " far too generalised, speculative, assertive and unsupported to be presentable " - oh that doesn't sound good.


The plan is a rewrite of these parts of the chapter. The problem appears to be I am taking it for granted that the reader has a perfect grasp of the contextual matters which I discuss - so I need to be more emphatic and expansive about this aspect of the chapter. I am awash with information that what is common knowledge and what is more specialist knowledge has become rather blurred in my mind. I am hoping this is a relatively easy thing to sort out. 


Another spot of good news is I have been selected to take part in an internal teaching review panel for the School of Art History. This involves reading policy material the school has in place, attending a few pre review meetings and a pre review dinner, and then a day of reviewing with some feedback. And it pays! Well nothing to yell home about - I will not be absconding to Bermuda or anything like that - but it has a renumeration which is a bonus as when I applied I had no idea that this was the case. Hopefully it will be a useful experience and it is certain CV filler that is for sure! And this is becoming evermore important as the Ph.D biological clock ticks louder and louder, viva,viva,viva.....and then EEK! A JOB! 


No news yet on the two abstracts I put out for the two conferences in June. But I am off to the Imperial War Museum in Manchester (the birth town of British Suffrage) on Wednesday and will be popping in to see one of my closest friends along the way in the Wirral! Should be a good trip. Don McCullin is also exhibiting the largest exhibition of war photographs ever staged in Britain - which given my interest in war should prove interesting though it is slightly outside my area of expertise. http://north.iwm.org.uk/server/show/nav.24321 

The Rigours of Being a Committee Member! (it's not meant to be taken too seriously folks!)

"To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three people, two of whom are absent"
Robert Copeland

“Meetings are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.”
John Kenneth Galbraith

"If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and will never achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings"".
Dave Barry

Ah that good old institution the committee...

Brings that old light bulb joke to mind.

How many committee members does it take to change a lightbulb? "This topic was resumed from last week's discussion, but is incomplete pending resolution of some action items. It will be continued next week. Meanwhile ..." 

As usual the emails fly back and forth and very little ever seems to get resolved as each member has their own idea of what is 'desirable'.
Some emails are short, brusque and to the point, others ramble and are the "interweb" equivalent of a speaker who likes to hear the sound of their own voice!

I aim to be the first and usually end up being the latter!

I promised myself once I would never volunteer for anything ever again, I thought academia would be different but somehow it's the same as any committee, lots of talk and very little action. That's not a criticism of those involved as everyone wants to achieve the best possible outcome, but somehow the way it works it always ends up in a lot of to'ing and fro'ing ... ah I sometimes wish for the quiet life!

Review: 'The Children's Book' by A. S. Byatt.

I have had a great fondness for A. S. Byatt ever since reading her glorious book Possession: A Love Story on a postmodernism module back in my undergraduate days. It was on the reading list and it was the fattest paperback I had seen in a long time, which was guaranteed to make undergrads groan! We were all keen to open our reading lists to see SLIM paperbacks. It seemed an arduous task given the thickness of the book, the smallness of the text and the time constraints of a very demanding module! But it turned out to be nothing but sumptuous pleasure.

Byatt writes with a erudition that is lacking in a lot of modern novels. She has a capacity to seamlessly blend the here and now with the then and there, captivating her readers along the way. Byatt's ability to mix fantasy, fact and character with the intertextual use of myth, poetry and story telling is a rare and enviable skill in a writer.

The Children's Book is as equally delightful and captivating as Possession, similarly using history as the vertebrae for her plot. The pages burst with key period figures and integrates historical movements such as Fabianism, with personal context, putting flesh and bone on the dry and dusty figures that have become part and parcel of our cultural legacy. The imaginary rub shoulders with contemporaneous celebrity, giving the story a vitality and presence that is often lacking in historicised fiction. Byatt treats the period with a great deal of respect and gravitas. The emotional turmoil felt by many women during this era is replayed through several female characters, all of whom felt the pressure of a bifurcated life, the schism between professional and personal desire.

Sex of course, just as in 1900, is a key feature as the complexities of familial and desirous relationships are confronted, mistakes are made and illegitimate children are created, much to the chagrin of the male protagonists involved. As a history of gender the book gives a fair account, never generalising, never assuming, but always bringing it down to the nuanced and complicated internalised feelings of the individual regardless of their sex. You will find no cliched characters within these pages.

I have loved every single syllable of Byatt's latest novel, chewing every ounce of juice out of each wordy morsel. It has been a revelation to me as this is the era in which I work and these are the concepts with which I juggle. She has blown the dust off suffrage, with vivid descriptions and intelligent arguments, always bringing the matter down to the individual; Byatt exposes the social herd for the myth it is. The use of the phantasmagorical, as in Possession gives the text a potent allegorical strength as the characters lives are played out in narrative and fairytale.

For anyone who loves intelligent literature, this book is a definite read.

Next on the cards: Mark Gatiss and The Lucifer Box Set which attracted me because of its Yellow Book cover and Beardsleyesque illustrations. Yummy!  

Driving ... and crying!

On the way in this morning, very early, I was overwhelmed by the gravity of the recent disaster in Haiti. Simon Cowell has released a single to raise money and it is a multi-artist version of REM's 'Everybody Hurts'. Now this is an emotive song anyway but when the lyrics become identified with a global tragedy on an unprecedented scale it takes on a greater significance. Stupidly I found myself crying! Now crying whilst driving is not to be advised under any circumstances! And this morning was no exception.

What is odd is I am not given to spontaneous outburst of feeling - or softies as I like to refer to them. Yes, on occasion the NSPCC advert may make me reach for the remote control before the floodgates open, so too the Dogs' Trust, but on the whole I am pretty reserved. I haven't watched any footage of the Haiti disaster purely because it is so distressing and I can do little about it. So why a song on the radio should cause such a maelstrom of feeling is a tad confusing.

Perhaps it's the incredibly early start this morning - I was here by 822! Great parking space though! :D

Still have that waiting room sensation that occurs when you are anticipating feedback, so today will be spent mulling things over. I have already spotted some secondary crit that should go in the chapter I have just submitted regarding Marsden's anarchism.

I have had a response form the literary agent I contacted regarding the Pink House. Writing in rhyme for children is apparently not a great idea as it is hard to get poetry published. Add to that the fact that I have included nonsense words and Scots dialect and you are looking at a very difficult manuscript to place. However the email was encouraging and gave me some niche publishers to contact and also invited me to submit for them - so all is not lost. I may make a writer yet!

This is a strange time for me, it is a twilight of sorts. I have just handed in a huge chunk of writing for the wringing out process. Basically my supervisor will squeeze all the excesses out of it and leave me with the creased remains. I shall then go about the process of rehydrating the concepts with a more nourishing brew of thought!

But what for now? Limbo? Purgatory? The waiting hours. It is hard to plan the next stage when you have no idea whether the work you have just handed in will be received well or not? So you sit and look at your plans, dig out the coloured pens and start thinking about what the next step should be.

This stage is accompanied by a lot of sighing; A LOT!

Then lightening strikes you and you realise that something you wrote in your last piece could have been expressed so much more succinctly than it has been, with more erudition, insight and mastery. But it is too late. Time cannot be stopped, the clock is ticking mercilessly towards the feedback.

You know you have to get on - pursue the dream, plunge forward into the blackness of the unwritten. Yet all you can seem to do is procrastinate, and even that you tend to put off until tomorrow!

At least the germs seem to be retreating from my body. A few stubborn snifflers are clinging on but the signs of good health are on the periphery waiting to march in victorious!

I read a scary, actually terrifying 'horoscope' yesterday which threatened that anything I wrote within the next two weeks could be the ruination of me, tarnish my reputation and be hazardous to my future career... which when your entire existences hinges upon the written word is rather petrifying! :-O Good job I set no store in horoscopes eh! ;-)

Oohhh so it is nearly Christmas ...

and I am here for the last time in the office to clear out anything I may need over the period it will be closed and to make sure that I don't forget anything precious!

Give then stack of books I am working from just now this is no easy task I can tell you!

However I do have 10,000 words and counting now - so the back of the piece is broken. Good job it isn't due in until mid-Jan. However mid-Jan comes around a lot quicker than you might think so I need to write some more definitely!

My mother arrives tomorrow - but her flight isn't until much later on so I hope I can get something done during the day!!!

The piece feels more coherent and on topic than most of what I have written lately so lets hope the supervisors think so too!

I am finding it hard to believe that this semester is almost at a close - where does the time disappear to?

Right - now for some work!!! :D If I can get over the last day of school feeling that seems to have settled in!

kindness is its own reward

After dragging myself out of my bed this morning, my tennis elbow throbbing and my body yelling "GO BACK TO SLEEP" I dragged myself into the office to find a wee gift sitting on my desk! From our cleaner. I was really surprised and quite touched.

As I was sitting at my desk she popped her head round the door unaware that I was in - she had been leaving me a note to tell me why she'd left me a pressie; apparently she has been having a very tough year and I always cheer her up! Me! I hadn't realised what affect a cheery good morning and a five minute chat can have on someone who might be feeling a little bit low.

It just goes to show you, appreciation can come from the most unlikely sources and kindness, which costs nothing, can be its own reward.

It has fair set me smiling for the day - and I told her.

Perhaps this is what's meant by the true meaning of Christmas?

"Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day. " H. Jackson Brown Junior.