Spent a few hours after I woke up today, tinkering with the Coleridge & Hughes essay before finally uploading it. Slightly regretting the ‘Shard as visionary fragment‘ pun now, but glad I got it out of my system. It had reached the point where I was taking the same words out only to put them back in again, over and over again.
What I am definitely proud of is just getting it done on time, and not missing a single class yet.
Currently reading Woolf’s A Room Of One’s Own. Stuffed full of engaging ideas, highly readable (particularly for a lecture) and – not a quality always associated with Ms W – quite funny in places. I can’t read the bit about ‘Shakespeare’s sister’ without thinking of the Smiths song that took its title from the piece, or the band that took their name in turn from the Smiths song.
Tonight’s classes: a seminar on gender in poetry (Mina Loy, Plath, Carol Ann Duffy), followed by a lecture on the uses of literary theory. Stayed around in the Birkbeck student union bar afterwards with fellow student Matthew and young MA friend Joseph R. Gin & tonic at only £2.50, plus you can stand on the roof outside and look over Bloomsbury.
Picking up new words to bandy about in essays all the time. Tonight’s is ‘valence’ – the capacity of something to unite, react, or interact with something else.
Not to be confused with ‘valance’, the skirt-like drapery thing that goes around the edge of a bed.
Or indeed, Holly Valance, who recently came fourth for draping herself around the edge of Strictly Come Dancing.Â
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Press release in my email box: “The Iron Lady has taken three times the box office achieved by The Queen“. What are they implying?
Radio listening: Enjoyed Mark Kermode’s review of the new Thatcher film, which quickly turned into a lengthy argument with his long-time foil Simon Mayo: ‘I’m saying you can’t make a film about Thatcher without doing the politics.’ ‘Yes you can’. ‘No you can’t. ‘Well they did’. ‘But it doesn’t work!’ And so on for about twenty minutes. I’ve yet to see it myself, but one thing to say in The Iron Lady’s favour – it’s certainly got people talking.
Tags: birkbeck, the iron lady, too tired, woolf
