Hobbits

How has it gone unnoticed for this long that Emperor Akihito is a surviving member of the Flores species Homo Floresiensis?

Foiled again

After her many shenanigans in Tokyo, Screechy eventually moved, with her husband, to Washington DC, and I moved here to England. We stay in touch occasionally, but I did not expect to see her again, since we are no longer colleagues nor living on the same continent.

A couple of weeks ago, she contacted me about a conference taking place next year in Spain and asked if I wanted to present with her. The conference is not in her field, so why she'd want to fly half way round the world to present on something she's not an expert in is unclear. Perhaps that's why she needs me.

I had already submitted a proposal to present myself and was looking forward to a screech-free weekend of drinking roija and shoveling manchego into my face. But I had the perfect get-out clause: the deadline was looming for any further proposals. "I'm sorry" I replied. "We don't have enough data and there's just not enough time to do it before the deadline."

Two days later, she emailed me back. "Hurrah! They've changed the deadline!"

4.00 am in Hovisville

I’ve read an easy chapter on semantics. I’ve read a dense and inaccessible chapter on syntactic parsing, not understanding any of it. I’ve listened to Beethoven. I’ve listened to Glasvegas. I’ve got up and checked my email. I’ve decided that 2.30 in the morning is a good time to search for sample questionnaires online. I’ve searched Google images for ‘facial disfigurement’. (Nothing whatsoever to do with my research; it’s just one of the places my mind goes when I’m awake and alone at three in the morning). I’ve lain in the dark and graduated from thoughts on how best to get a bird feeder up the tree outside my window, via the incessant pain in my head, to my imminent failure to complete my PhD, consequent financial ruin and early and in some way humiliating death. And surprise surprise, I’m still awake.

Quote of the day

Will Self, upon being asked if he'd be going to see the film adaptation of Dan Brown's Angels and Demons:

"I'd sooner have my buttocks fret-sawed off, varnished and sold in a provincial gift shop."

Whatever can go wrong...

I had ordered the bike in June, but by the time I was summoned to collect it, November was thrashing Hovisville with all its angry might and darkness was upon the town by three in the afternoon. The rain was torrential and unrelenting, but having waited this long, I was loathe miss my chance.

The new bike is a strange fish. For one thing, it’s pink. Aside from that, it’s not the sit-up-and-beg Dutch or Japanese style that I’m used to. It has 14 gears and forces me to lean forward to reach the handlebars, making it impossible to carry an umbrella.

So with my head exposed, I set off through the hailstones towards home. Such was the fury of the weather, that by the time I’d got to the end of the street, my jeans were waterlogged and my bra was wet. I could barely see where I was going for the rain in my eyes.

In such conditions, I felt it unwise to stay on the road, so veered towards the pavement only to realise, too late, that the smooth slope I’d seen ahead of me was actually a large brown puddle with a kerb submerged beneath it. To stop in time, I had to brake and bring my feet to rest in ankle-deep water. Cursing, I lifted the bike and myself free, trailing great streams of water as I went.

With around 300 meters to go, I noticed that the road ahead was flooded. Passing cars were, with a pleasing hiss, casting a graceful, five-foot arc of filthy water across the narrow strip of pavement I was about to cross.

In retrospect, I don’t know why I bothered to brake, since I was already soaked to the skin. But once the wheels were set in motion, they were doomed to continue, skidding across the piles of sopping leaves, and delivering me, chest-and-mobile-phone first into the freezing deluge I’d been so keen to avoid.

I like to think the arc I created matched that of the finest Ford Mondeo.

Epistemological heuristic didacticism

When I taught English, I would be asked questions like “What does the mean?” When I taught writing skills, I would be asked “What does refute mean?” But it’s all ballooning out of control now. The little bastards are asking questions like “What’s the difference between dialectic, dialogic and didactic?” I’ve had to look stuff up! This is not on!

West coast main line

When I moved to England, I missed the earthquakes that had been such a regular feature of life in Japan. Some would make Timorous Beast cry out in the night. Some would rattle the room for ten seconds before disappearing as suddenly as they’d arrived, leaving a sickening sway in their wake. Others would gently shake the furniture and remind us of the busy earth beneath.

Now I live next to the railway line. At night, the trains snort into my dreams, shaking the building. Sometimes I feel I’m in Tokyo and reach out to touch Timorous Beast’s hand.