Is it wrong to have a crush on an Archers character?

Is it? Anyway, haven't updated in ages...but I meant to post this at the end of June:

Anyway, I left Oxford on Saturday bringing to a close four often stressful but wonderful years. Walking through the Oxonian streets last week and looking at buildings I would never see day-to-day again tugged on my heartstrings, not so much tugged - it felt more like a trapeize artist was doing violent somersaults on them. On Friday we had a leavers' formal preceeded by a champagne reception. First of all this was my third champers reception in a week, to which Catherine sagely opined "You know you're at Oxford when you groan at the thought of another champagne reception". First of all I don't even like champagne, I have never understood why it has become the drink of high society: fashionable because it is expensive, expensive because it is fashionable. I can think of far more delicious things to drink. So whilst I'm drinking this stuff that I have to pretend to like in polite society the Principal of Somerville College DBE sweeps in and complements our respective choices of tie. In an attempt to show how consummate I am in such refined company I engage her in conversation. A cordial dialogue ensues during which one-by-one each of my friends effortlessly slink away. I expected her to flutter from person to person. She didn't. Awkward conversation ensued for several minutes during which time my glass was refilled 3 times by waiters.

Fizz going to my head. Sweating profusely. Awkward silence.

"Mrs Thatcher is recovering well." Dame Fi remarked. What do you say to that? To your college principal and a knight of the realm? "Shit, will she never die? I've a bottle of dom perrignon I've been waiting to crack out. I don't like champagne I just thought it would add to the gaity of the day when it comes." Instead the noise I make can best be described as a thoughtful hum, wincing as if someone were squeezing my balls. After what seemed like an hour but which was probably ten minutes, the catering manager saved me by informing us that dinner was "to be served shortly"

No More Hiroshimas

I just burnt my knee ironing. Ouch.

I was actually quite surprised how easily my skin completely burnt off. Bizarrely, it made me think of what it must have been like on a somewhat larger and and more lethal scale for those in Hiroshima in 1945. I'm not entirely sure if I just made some sort of profound connection with a common humanity or I am just completely vain by associating a cataclysmic event with a minor domestic accident.

Tomorrow I shall do some hoovering which hopefully won't remind me of the Rwandan genocide.

The Most Disturbing Thing You'll See Today?

Yes. Yes it is.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2009/jun/15/piers-morgan-burger-king

Plastic Bag Guilt

It is a scenario we have all become familiar with: you’re walking home when you realize “ooops! I think I run out of milk/toilet roll/whaling harpoons. Better pop into Sainsbo’s”. It being an impromptu shop you have come ill prepared – no cotton bag. Reaching the checkout you are served by an unusually chirpy assistant ‘ah, they must be new,’ you smile to yourself. Yet to have the life drained out of them, not a drone just yet. Supermarkets usually conduct lobotomies on their employees only at their first appraisal I hear.

“That’s £10.95, please”
You flash your debit card.
“Any cash-back?”
“No thanks.”
“Enter your pin please”
Punch ****
“Do you need a bag?”
“Yes please”

All of sudden you previously friendly interlocutor pulls a face as if you have just shat in Al Gore’s face.

I call this “plastic bag guilt”. Now don’t get me wrong I’m all for saving the environment, reducing waste, cutting CO2 emissions, recycling, paddy fields, polar bears, ice caps, Joan Rivers’ face yada yada yada. Hell I even voted Green in the Euro elections. But you know what? I don’t have cotton bags on my person all of the time – I barely have room in my pockets for the Holy Trinity of keys, phone, wallet. Where do you suggest that I keep a stash of canvas bags? In my underpants? This would give me impressive girth but may attract the wrong sort of attention.

In all seriousness, I do use canvas bag probably 90% of the time I go shopping and I think it is great that people are more conscious of how their habit affects the environment, but it annoys me that society has made using plastic bags THE cardinal eco-sin. It seems like people have chosen to concentrate on one of the easiest habits to change rather than confronting more challenging ones. There are so many things that we do on a day-to-day basis that have a greater adverse effect to the environment. Next time you are at the supermarket, don’t just think about your carrier bags ponder on the amount of meat you eat. Eating just one vegetarian meal a week can significantly reduce your carbon footprint. It’s actually surprisingly easy, and although I’m not ready to give up on bacon sandwiches just yet, one meal a week is barely anything. A good veggie curry - mmmmmmm.

Shitfuckbollocks

I have an exam today, this afternoon in fact. So what better way to spend the last few hours before it procrastinating on the internet and updating a blog which, because of the last 2 months spent encased in the library, I have neglected to update. Apart from my beautiful niece, born just before my encarceration in Somerville College library lower extension began, nothing has happend in my life except maths. The worst part is that this year was entirely optional - so all this pain, stress and boredom is entirely self-inflicted.

How can I have been working for so long and feel like I know so little? Why do I never have any self-confidence?

Ok, so this post was rather self-pitying but I just wanted people to know that I'm still alive and that on Monday I enter a land which I always thought was mythical - a life that does not consist of losing 3 months of each spring/early summer to revision and exams.

May listen to some motivational music to psyche self up... Toodles!