Prohibit!

I spotted this sign outside a hotel in Tokyo.

Desperately seeking Utopia

Given that I'm hoping to escape Japan this year, I've been thinking about where to go next. This is partly academic (in more ways than one), as where I end up for the next couple of years will be dictated by both money and people with glasses who know better than me, rather than my own preferences. But thinking long-term, where should I go, given these criteria?

• Big enough to have cafes and at least a few restaurants serving dishes involving such morsels as rocket, scallops, and mash (though probably not all on one plate) 

• Small enough to get from one side to the other by public transport in about half an hour

• Decent wine 

• Streets with trees and stone or brick houses/flats

• At least two bookshops

• Sunny skies at least some of the time

• A university, for that toad we call work

Piste off

Yesterday, Timorous Beast had come home wearing a suit, tie, ski helmet and goggles. Earlier today, he'd sent me an excited email from work saying "Fourteen degrees in the mountains! Come with me and keep me warm."  So I knew something was up when he came home tonight, shot me a sideways glance and skulked off to the spare room, shoulders hunched. I pursued him to investigate.

"What's wrong?"

"Fucking hotels all booked"

Poor Beast. All helmet and no skiing.

As opposed to...?

Another great story gone awry

Perhaps reading all those typos in students' essays is taking its toll. As I was reading the BBC headlines, the breaking news flashing along the top of the screen caught my eye, "Tomato causes damage, injuries in Oklahoma". 

It was two or three minutes before the headline rolled around again to reveal that it was a tornado, not a tomato. Damn shame.

World peas

I bring you the top three amusing extracts from my undergraduates' book reports. Instead of the usual theme of general stupidity, this semester's competition was devoted to amusing misspellings and grammatical errors:

• I am a carpet, 30 meters long.

• Antarctica is a continent for science and peas.

• Forrest Gump is human drama and fanny story.
  

Excess

I went to a birthday party, drank too much wine, felt sick in the taxi, and then vomited in my boyfriend's hat. He wasn't wearing it at the time.