Category Archives: Interior

Jun 06 2020
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Daily Post, Interior

Away (but not away)

Friday 5th June 2020, 8.35pm (day 3,207)

Not away, 5/6/20

On this day last year I was in Corfu. Today, I should have been in Tromsø at the “Creating Knowledge” conference. The stats of this blog show that over the last nine years or so I have subsisted on a diet of a lot of travel, mainly for work but with a healthy amount of personal exploration thrown in. Not this year, though. And what with the devastation that this will wreak to airlines and the welcoming nature of immigration counters around the world (that was irony), who knows? Perhaps this will be a permanent shift. We will have to see.

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Jun 03 2020
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Daily Post, Interior

Concept for a movie mash-up

Wednesday 3rd June 2020, 6.30pm (day 3,205)

Alien Shogun, 3/6/20

A deeply dull day. By the evening I was reduced to casting my eye around the randomly organised piles of DVDs around the place and playing mash-up games, cross-fertilising. I’d pitch this one to Hollywood, but probably someone has already done a screenplay.

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May 27 2020
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Daily Post, Interior

Place of work

Wednesday 27th May 2020, 1.05pm (day 3,198)

Rocking chair, 27/5/20

Even under conditions of normality I was due an unexciting week at home, whatever the weather. It’s Marking Season.

But a day spent sat in an attic, on a rocking chair covered in a white shawl, while the sun beats down outside? Bugger me. Didn’t middle age come on fast.

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May 27 2020
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Daily Post, Interior

Planning the reality transition

Tuesday 26th May 2020, 3.10pm (day 3,197)

Planning semester 1, 26/5/20

After yesterday’s explosion of freedom, a day spent entirely at home and mostly marking. Here, however, are my notes as to how the next teaching semester is going to pan out, following instructions from the holy of holies (UoM) regarding how they see Paranoia transitioning back to a sense of reality. We start teaching late October, apparently — and some face-to-face. I welcome that. But it’s still months away.

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May 24 2020
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Daily Post, Interior

Kalamata olives (and meeple)

Sunday 24th May 2020, 3.45pm (day 3,195)

Kalamata olive, 24/5/20

Lockdown notwithstanding, I live in a middle class enclave, so the olives are still flowing. I am middle class enough to say, ‘thankfully’.

In the background, a meeple from today’s Sunday afternoon distraction, Carcassonne; I like the two star-shapes complementing each other.

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May 17 2020
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Daily Post, Interior

Planning activities

Sunday 17th May 2020, 5.40pm (day 3,188)

Walk planning, 17/5/20

I know I am not the only one to whom this has happened, but I have lost all the little things, outside my immediate home, that gave my life pleasure. Except one — and that one thing is walking, experiencing the countryside. I spent the day reading, planning, looking forward. That’s a large part of the fun, in fact.

And yes, I need the reading glasses to do it. So they can take their rightful place on the stage.

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May 16 2020
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Daily Post, Interior

Kitchen abstract

Friday 15th May 2020, 6.25pm (day 3,186)

Kitchen abstract, 15/5/20

And so it has come to this after eight weeks of lockdown — abstract shapes in the washing-up bowl. And on a Friday evening too. But they are pleasing shapes, at least to me.

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May 11 2020
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Daily Post, Interior

Capitalism at home

Sunday 10th May 2020, 4.45pm (day 3,181)

Mine a Million, 10/5/20

With greatly inferior weather to yesterday, and little else available to bring pleasure to a Sunday, so we turned to another one of the board game stash, stripping a developing country of its natural resources in the pursuit of profit. Simulated, of course. Joe won — what that suggests for the future of the world, I have no idea.

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May 02 2020
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Daily Post, Interior

Fresh bread

Saturday 2nd May 2020, 5.55pm (day 3,173)

Rye bread, 2/5/20

During the Great Hebden Bridge Flour Famine of early April 2020 I panic-bought some organic rye flour, at a ridiculous price, when it seemed to be the only bag of flour available in the town. Subsequently, I have tried making pizza with it, and then batter, and both were dismal failures. Then today, Clare suggested the entirely logical approach of making rye bread with it. At this it — and she — was a roaring success. There will be more of this.

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May 02 2020
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Daily Post, Interior

The last class of the year

Friday 1st May 2020, 9.25am (day 3,172)

Online teaching space, 1/5/20

It was my last scheduled teaching of the semester today. Normally we would have concluded this significant moment in the academic year by some kind of group photo, as on 4th May 2018, and said our goodbyes, at least amongst those I will not be supervising over the summer. There can be none of that this year. I sit in a room and talk to a laptop for an hour and twenty minutes and take questions here and there and that’s it. I do plenty of distance teaching anyway, so it’s not that I’m pissed off about this as such — but I miss people, and if you claim not to, then I worry for your sanity.

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