Friday 16 September 2011

One last day of sanity

On Monday, the teaching period starts once more, as does the madness, the pressure and the excitement. No more quiet offices, no more slacking off. But the pleasure of bright-eyed students eager to mull over ideas and discover new texts - one has just called into the office to inquire whether she needs to prepare anything for next week's classes - a question I should perhaps be asking myself!

Which is why I spent most of this morning in sybaritic indulgence. Already shocked to the marrow by Stoke City surrendering its lead over Dynamo Kiev in extra time, I found myself glued to the last 200 pages of Maria Edgeworth's Patronage, and resigned myself to remaining in bed until all the ladies were married and all the gentlemen restored to their ranks and estates. I'm sure you're all as grateful as I am that equilibrium - to use the structuralist term - was duly restored, though at some cost to narrative plausibility.

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