I’m too busy to do this but here I am

The minutes of the day are not fooling all the people all the time but I’m doing my best to turn in a day’s work. There’s no time to waste so I didn’t attend the medieval lectures or seminars and have nothing to stay about those, except I got my marks back for a mid-term assignment about the poem The Battle of Maldon. I got 62 (a B, same as 'To Autumn'), which is as I predicted. It says on the paper that I lost a lot of marks because I didn’t quote a historical source when I said that ‘so far as we might suppose’ the poem is an accurate description of the battle. There’s a good reason why I didn’t. The poem itself is the only existing source.

Anyway, this semester there is no final assignment for medieval English, rather a 2 hour exam, and I’m worried because I haven’t had a minute to look at the questions yet, but in theory the pre-submitted questions look doable.

Tuesday’s writer’s group meeting was...interesting. I should tell you about Zoe because although I said I wasn’t going to tell you anything about her she is more interesting than her play and if she would just walk around with a voice recorder in her pocket all day she would have the bare bones of one that is perhaps more interesting than the one she is keen to have produced. If she can just find a way of channelling her natural magnetism and nervous energy and become more empathic and self-aware I think she could turn that to good account. As life goes on one begins to see one’s own reflection...it’s called growing up, I guess.

If we scroll back about four meetings that was Zoe's first appearance and it was already well into the new group play. She came along and spent an hour talking about her play and everybody was ultra polite. To me it was a bit rich. Somebody who hadn’t bothered to show up to any other meetings gate crashed ours to talk about themselves for an hour. (On Tuesday last, before Zoe came, I briefly talked about my play for perhaps two minutes). So Zoe would periodically ask, “Am I talking too much?,” but having already told us that she suffered from severe bipolar mental disorder (we are frequently reminded) and that she hated bitchy people nobody dared say anything the least confrontational. For all I know, she may have spent another hour talking about her play. This was the day I was woozy from sleeping pills and excused myself. What I remember from that day was how she emphasised how incredibly disappointed she would be if her play wasn’t chosen.

The second time Zoe came the centre of gravity was as before. We had a long monologue, this time about her boyfriend and her hedonistic lifestyle and how she walked down the street topless (the other day) and didn’t see why she shouldn’t and it was all quite interesting but then we got onto discussing the group play she very quickly got bored and said send her the details because she didn’t know what we were talking about and left. What we were talking about was not complicated, it was a 1-minute-to-get-up- to-speed-on-it thing; but as soon as it wasn’t about her she was gone.

The third meeting (third counting from when Zoe first came) she didn’t show up to. It was in this meeting Nathanael said her play is not going to be chosen because she stated in the first meeting that she doesn’t think transsexuals are real women. I have to say, I think this is unfair of Nathanael and I didn’t realise it was in his gift to decide what plays do or don’t get put on (I guess it is). I didn’t see anything Zoe said that suggested she is unaccepting of transsexuals and their way of life, merely she doesn’t think that you can change your biology. (I guess you can a bit, but I think you’re stuck with your chromosomes). It’s just that her views about a specific doctrinal point ran contrary to Nathanael’s and we do tend to assume our political views are correct and suffer others to have different ones, until such as a time as others might see the light.

The fourth meeting Zoe showed up and spent another hour talking about her play. Note, this group is not really about our side projects... It’s more about our collaborative venture. And really the same speech was rolled out as before. She’d be devastated if it wasn’t put on, it would mean so much to her, it would mean the world and the producers would have 'total artistic control', but she didn’t want to pitch it herself because she was very very very anxious and she hated gossip and she was sorry about talking about others but she absolutely hated so and sos guts and she also hated such and such a person and she didn’t want to pitch it in front of them and she was a Wirraler (nice word) who lived 90 minutes away and she was no longer a student and probably couldn’t attend meetings in person in future but could she by social media? I don’t know how this lasted an hour, but it did. All through this time she never mentioned the fact that other people pitching plays might also have strong reasons to advance their cause (mine would be I’m 42 and it’s about time). The thing is, it’s what she really really really really wants and it would be so important for mental health, do we realise how many people on Bangor are on anti-depressants (yes, but how many really need to be) and how important an issue this is? She asked if Nathanael liked what she sent him. “Er, yeah. Looks good,” said Nathanael unconvincingly. She didn’t prize that open but seems to be aware it’s too long because she twice said she’d cut it down to an hour and Nathanael twice said “Oh no, 90 minutes is fine,” (because it must in fact be a minimum of 90 minutes) and she'd cut the sex scenes out of it because there was no point in having sex in plays, people were uncomfortable with it. 

Nathanael was actually very nice, making every effort to suggest all the possible options Zoe had for getting her play put on. In fact, it wasn’t until today that I realised just how flexible The Bangor University Writer’s group is. Technically, you don’t have to be a student or member of staff at Bangor Uni (Nathanael isn’t), you don’t have to attend in person and you can get a collaborator’s credit with the minimum of input. I do believe Nathanael himself would accept submissions from the coroner’s report of exhumed corpses. If the coroner said “We’ve found diamorphine in the body but otherwise she’s not saying much,” Nathanael would reply in his brisk, chipper manner “That’s fine. We’ll put some diamorphine in the play somewhere, not a problem at all.” 

As Zoe spoke I began to realise she is a likeable person behaving in a somewhat unreasonable manner and well, it’s just that sometimes you’re so wrapped up in yourself you don’t realise it. (I speak from experience). It’s not malicious, it’s just part of the process of self-development and she is two or three times more alive than the rest of us and if she just curb her tendency to speak endlessly...Or maybe if one of us had the courage to tell her let other speak. Maybe that’s it. I'm just writing a blog, take it with a pinch of...

Fun fact: Zoe tells us she was encouraged to finish her play by Lyle.

After Zoe talked about her play we read one of Nathan’s scenes (Nathan is not Nathanael), unfinished and Nathan absent. Nicholas, Bethany and I dived in and pulled it apart then Zoe essentially took over after being assured she would get a credit for the play and more or less made the scene hers and said what she wanted to do with it.

Anyway, after an hour and a half I made my excuses and left because we were off track. FYI, the play pitch is May 8^th and I’m entering an 18^th century tale written in Margate, except I’m going to double the length in 2 weeks, which is why I’m so busy, especially as I have end of term assignments, exam prep, a copywriting job and other business to contend with.

Thursday we had a happy seminar with Diane, though happy is a tremendously ambiguous word to stick on an infinitely complex series of thoughts, feelings and impulses that is a slice of human existence and I’m inspired by Buddhism to remember that I was still ultimately a suffering human being with little moment by moment ups and downs. But one ingredient of happiness is hope and the sunshine of hope was certainly peeping from behind a cloud. First of all, Diane had a spring in her step. She is never less than chirpy but she seemed genuinely pleased with our performance this semester. She started by saying that we had made tremendous strides forward in linguistic complexity and engagement, reflects very well on her if true. In so far as this applies to me I would say that was untrue, but it may well be the case with others. As I’ve mentioned, the course is about thinking outside of the box, novel approaches to writing and narrative styles and there was never a mind blown, didn’t think of that moment for me, in fact my hard drive is littered with novel non-fiction ideas, it's just a question of doing them. I guess it was nice to be reminded that I should do some of the things I do more often but it's kind of frustrating.

Diane said, “I just want you to know you are the A class.” For a moment I thought that was good news. Like we were going to get As for this semester. No, it just means that she thinks people who turn up to all the seminars will get As. I’m sure there is certainly a casual link between students who turn up to all seminars and lectures getting As but it’s not necessarily because they’re worth their while, rather because they’re serious students. I saw students on Thursday (in the screen writing and non-fiction seminar) I have not seen the whole semester and I think they’re onto something.

Anyways, Diane seemed tickled pink by a piece of homework I’d done and it was just me doing my James walking round commenting on his environment thing. If my best piece of work done for her was just of a piece with the sort of things I was doing in Inner Mongolia what does that say? It says to me that it’s time to put up or shut up for James. If I can write, write. I think I’ve always pulled myself apart.

Karen Rullens (poetry) was ill on Friday. Third time this semester  and she hasn't made the other two classes up. I hope she's okay. She's a fragile little thing but a treasure. There's something Oxbridgey about her although her teaching is very simple. Brings some poems in that people don't like and asks them what they think of them. That's pretty much it with some elementary remarks about form.

I’ll leave you with this email. Note, it’s not addressed to me personally and indeed I haven’t had a professional conversation with Zoe since about September. Other than that, I once passed her in the road.

Hello! 

I am writing to you as your personal tutor to invite you to a short meeting next week. There is a sign up list on my door on the second floor of New Arts, Room 311. 

I hope that this has been a happy and productive year for you. I would love to hear about any notable successes, or just about how things are going. If things have been difficult, please come and let me know about anything we may be able to help with. It is especially important that you let me know any information that should be passed on to the Examination Boards if things have not gone as well as you had hoped in your assessments. 

If you are in the second year and I teach you currently, you can raise any personal tutor issues when you come to see me about your portfolio. 

Best wishes, 

Zoë (but not the same Zoe as above, ed.) 

This is what makes me sad about uni. Even to your tutor your name is 'hello' and you might be in the second year, she's not sure. See you or maybe don't see you around.

Let a thousand flowers wither

In the last week of the holiday I attended a 5 day novel camp. It comprised ten writers, one of whom is a graduate teaching assistant (with PHD) and another who is a master’s student that takes the second hour of my weekly scripting writing module. I cannot, in good conscience, say that I saw what I felt to be a high standard of writing from my peers. Juvenile question tags (a lot of people grimaced in this novel), nonsensical use of question tags (even when in agreement), overuse of question tags (needlessly saying who spoke when it’s obvious who’s speaking), adjectives that only young writers who will perhaps never evolve into professional ones seem to use (‘smirked’), cinema reels of a character’s second by second interior world without interesting plot development, a lot of people hesitating before they speak for no apparent reason. Fortunately, I ended up writing by far the bulk of my scenes for my character but I had to fight to maintain a certain standard and it ended up not being quite as high as a solo effort. Collaboration at its best is always better than working on one’s own; other people have skills and perspectives one simply doesn’t have. Moreover, interaction can hasten the creative process and foster novel creative practices. Indeed, I am surprised more books aren't collaborative efforts, albeit that in some sense anything that goes through a publishing house is collaborative. Now, here comes the but. BUT, it’s heart breaking when someone comes in making very simple errors whilst at the same time not adding anything that complements the scene artistically. Even the editor in the final edit was coming and making typos and clumsy edits (though one or two sensible) and I had to secretly go in and sweep up after him.

At one point the coordinator, an American professor, said, “If there are any issues write them down on these cards, it’s a chance to let off steam, you can rant as much as you like.” So I took her at her word. I do believe it’s my rants that got me in hot water.

At the end of the novel camp we all got an impassioned speech (or hissy-fit, depending on your point of view) on patriarchy. Lyle said the men in the group were acculturated to be leaders and confrontational and the women were acculturated to be passive and let themselves be dominated. As men it wasn’t entirely our fault, we should forgive ourselves for being oppressive and move on. As women it wasn’t entirely their fault. They should forgive themselves for not standing up for themselves and move on. This was a very serious issue. There was a crisis in the book publishing, 80 % of the women are readers and buyers but men get all the success, because women will read anything and men will only read books by men and...blah blah blah. And if we’re going to be writers our work is going to be edited so we need to trust each other. Mentioning no names, but looking at me three times.

As far as I can tell, there wasn’t much truth in this. Maybe some, but not much.

First of all...if 80 percent of the buyers market is women...doesn’t that mean they control what is successful, even if no men are reading female literature?

Besides that, the mouthiest person and most confrontational person I had to deal with in the group happened to be a girl and the most flexible, self-effacing and gentle happened to be men (not me, admittedly). And in so far as I read at all I’ve been an avid reader of female novelists since I was a boy (Judy Blume, Jilly Cooper, Jane Austen, the Brontes, Sophie Kinsella) and the criticism in my index cards happened to be aimed at men. I repeat. I don’t mind my work being edited. It can be self-indulgent, wander off point and contain mistakes. All I ask is that if it is to be changed let it not be by somebody who has far less of a clue than I do. But I’m grateful to novel camp, because it made me realise that if ten people can write a novel in 350 hours I probably can alone and I might try it this summer. The downside is if it’s as bad as Ash in a Thunderstorm it might be a waste of time.

And so to this week. I’ve got a whole heap of assignments that are going to be due soon, plus a two hour exam, so I’m not going to say much. On Monday I had a late lunch with Kerry in Morrisons. I gave her a pink unicorn cuddly toy (freebie from Amazon). She seemed pleased with it and said she’d put it with her other ones, of which she has so many she’s lost count. I finally figured out a sensible ghost hunting plan. Simply choosing a hunt on a package tour that ends at 2 or 4 am and we can drive straight back from. I sent her some links to various options and she seemed interested but has gone off the radar this week, rather than get back to me on Tuesday, as she said she would. In truth, I think she’s got cold feet, and that’s a shame because I don’t often get the opportunity and I think it would be a fun trip.

Nicholas cancelled the writer’s group this week but I met up with Bethany and worked on a massage parlour scene with her in Pontio. We met for not much more than an hour but made good progress, voice recording three roleplays. I think Bethany is going to be a good writer. At 22 she’s timid and inexperienced, but she’s naturally sharp witted. No collaboration issues.

I don’t have much to say about the seminars and lectures these days. They are mostly a mild refresher of things I already know or don't need to. I attended a lecture on Piers Plowman on Tuesday but it was pointless because I’m not going to answer a question on this text in the exam and most of what we were told is obvious if one reads the text. Likewise, Diane’s non-fiction seminars are all about tactics for making your writing more creative but I don’t have a tactic supply chain problem. Perhaps a self-belief one, a where to focus one, but the actual tactics come naturally to me and have been absorbed from reading other writers. This week we had a girl come in and give us a short lecture on crime fiction. It consisted of her showing us two trailers, one southern fried crime and another somewhat darker. The whole idea was, there are different ways of presenting crime and had we thought about these and how it could feed into our own work? It really was that simple and I would humbly suggest that the tone of the lessons should be somewhat more advanced. Other than that, Diane has come in two weeks consecutively now gushing about how wonderful she thinks Stephen Hawking is and at the end of class she played a very loud YouTube video of some of Stephen Hawking’s dreary quotes turned into an MC rap which she thought was just the coolest thing ever. I don’t think she noticed that she was quite alone. I recognise the syndrome, because there were times in China where I thought I had a video or song which was the best thing since sliced bread and my students weren’t necessarily on the same page as I was.

The post that isn't a post

This is a post to say that I've been on the Easter recess since last week and as per the Christmas holiday I'm not going to blog the Easter holiday as it occurs. See you in a couple of weeks...

Feminist virtue signalling elephant ghosts that can think

The downing of lecterns is on hold. Trouble is, life sans lecture has now become an ingrained habit. I didn’t awake until half past noon on Monday and figured half an hour was a bit of a squeeze to get to the medieval English disquisition in a seemly fashion. 10.00am on Tuesday was also way too garish an hour to attend the second one. Of course, it’s connected to the student noise pollution affair; a true murder mystery that will thankfully never be written. I need to make peace with ear plugs. 

I did materialise at the Tuesday afternoon medieval English seminar. I can’t blame Sarah for talking to us like we’re six years old and might not know what the Bible or prayer beads are when we all turn up to class not having bothered to read The Pardoner’s Tale. She is exquisitely good humoured about it; I would say even comfortable. The exception I’ve found to the general rule that the teaching feels about GCSE level is when our cheerful tutor slipped in the word ‘heteronormative’, when explaining there is some suggestion the pardoner may not be heterosexual, but then is that really such a curveball? It feels like a high-falutin word to me, having been out of the country and extensive interaction with Brits so long, but these days I wouldn’t be surprised if such a term gets used in primary schools. Feminism and gender politics are a national focal point at the moment and are never far from discourse. Example: In Thursday’s class Matthew said he ‘had issues’ with the term ‘chick flick’. You routinely wear your feminism like good Communists quoted the Little Red Book or movie nuns make the sign of the cross. Hell, even in the generally polite post break up exchange of messages with my ex I was at one point pointedly accused of ‘mansplaining’ and Emma could hardly be accused of being a militant feminist. It’s just a thing now.

Tuesday evening is my 1 or 2 hour confab with writers. These meetings are an illustration of how it’s much better to simply write on your own unless you can somehow assemble a group of committed, talented, flexible writers who have genuine chemistry. Of course, for me it’s just about getting out the house, that is really why I am in attendance, to be with other human beings. But in writing terms I’m wondering why I don’t write the whole thing myself. I’ve come up with the concept in its entirety alone and many of the important characters (9 out of the original 12 if I recollect). Any that weren’t mine I could easily have matched and it’s just a long and winding formality, so far, making it a group effort. I hope that my analysis is incorrect, I very much hope that we can be more than the sum of our parts, and not less than, I hope that a herd of baby elephants tell me as much with their trunks in a cute video sent to me on social media. However, so far my faculties report that it’s not looking good. The others have chipped in interesting but thematically confused and irrelevant characters that are watering down the concept and the play looks like its going to be another studenty, episodic sketch show, rather than a properly plotted play that can be traditionally called ace. 

There are reasons to be half full. I am listened to when I make suggestions, so I can use a lot of my influence to keep getting the play back on track or at least what I imagine to be on track, I should humbly add. (Actually, I really don’t care where it goes or who suggests it goes there provided it is being propelled). Also, I liked Briony’s scene she wrote for the cruise play and I suggested that we collaborate on a scene in this one. I’m writing all the dialogue for two characters that have been allotted to me and the scenes that go with them, but rather than do all the lines for a third- which I could happily do- I thought it would be interesting if we worked together and played off each other. Plus, when I’m in a care home one day or on a park bench I can say I worked with a famous writer. Briony is way ahead of the game. She has an agent and is finishing her first novel. How is it that I am not? I don’t know. I’ve always known I’m talented but at the same time I feel paralysed by all kinds of existential things I can hardly express. I need an Alex Ferguson to throw a boot at me.

On Wednesday I went to the English school to tailor my course for next year. The website is as clear as darkness on how to compile your module choices- erroneously suggesting that virtually all of them are compulsory- and I ended up just asking Michelle in admin to pick some at random because I’d written too many on the form and I pretty much did not care what I ended up studying. Just as I turned into the stairwell I noticed a photocopy of a press article someone had stuck on the partition, headline: 

Let’s not give up on the idea that a good education is a search for the truth 

Sub-heading: 

Students who sue universities because their degrees didn’t lead to well-paid jobs forget they were there to learn how to think 

There was also the same article on the partition on the floor below, just in case you didn’t notice how bummed the professors are that you don’t appreciate their stratospheric opinion of themselves. It almost goes without saying that it came from you know what periodical. I think every time I’ve seen a newspaper clipping in Bangor (Dianne and Laura use them in their classes) it comes from... the Guardian. (How about the Financial Times? The Fortean Times? The Pyongyang Times?) And what does the Guardian stand for? Well, the Guardian supports the notion that we are essentially nothing more than a bunch of atoms and that intelligent aliens may exist, but if so, they’re somehow out there, not here. And I do not concur. If we actually were a bunch of atoms and nothing more would we even need to think? (The almost universal presumption that artificial intelligence will become self-aware I personally don’t hold to be a given). And if there is intelligent alien life, then it stands to reason that intelligent life could walk amongst us, superintend us, interfere with us, talk to us: without us even knowing. Funny that never occurred to Stephen- I'm your man if you want to know anything about aliens- Hawkings, who Diane was zeitgeistingly gushing over last week. Well I’m not flaming well gushing. He may have been a mean black hole whizz kid but from what I can tell you’d get as much sense out of a random person on the street when it came to anything outside that purview. But don’t take my word for it. Just ask people born two hundred years from now (when all the hype has died down).

On Wednesday evening I caught up with Kerry on Facecrook. As far as I can tell she’s been off the radar for two weeks because her boyfriend has been making non-committal noises and she was so depressed she refused to leave her dorm. I’m sure come the Easter holiday that problem will be sorted for a while. Fun fact: she has said that she’d like to go ghost hunting with me and I wasn’t sure if she was serious but she confirmed she is still interested. Can you imagine? I might actually have a few minutes of fun this year... 

On Thursday after Diane’s non-fiction seminar I told Kerry I was going to Morrison’s and she said she’d tag along. I thought she had shopping of her own to do, but she was apparently keeping me company, which was nice. (What a wonderfully euphemistic word ‘nice’ is). She told me that she doesn’t smoke but during her recent serotonin crisis she chain smoked three days straight. I raised the ghost investigation again. It was kind of embarrassing but I do most of my ghost hunting in hotel rooms and...well, you can imagine the rest. I really don’t know what is going on in her mind. Does she know this? Would she run a mile if I suggested sharing a room with twin beds? Should I book two rooms and pay for both (kind of pointless when ghost investigating). So I was saying, have you thought of what sort of place you’d like to go? It could be somewhere outside (castle ruins, spooky woods), it could be somewhere inside... And do you mind going any place with someone my age? She said she had no problem with that (she is 20), but I still don't know if she approves of a possible hotel room investigation.  I am slowly beginning to appreciate that like she told me she is autistic. She’s friendly but not overly chatty and I tend to think if she was "normal" she wouldn't be walking around Morrison's with this strange 42 year old.

As for me, here’s a funny thing. I don’t use ghost hunting as an excuse to (try to) jump a girl’s bones, I just use girls as a shield to hide from ghosts.

One line

The strike continued another week, I saw a rat in Tesco Extra car park, I drove my car up a snowy hill at 4.00 AM and was lucky to reach the top.

Strikes and stripes

The strike is still on and though my professors didn’t seem to be caught up in it- it seems a couple of them are- and I didn’t have medieval English last week. I can’t say that bothers me. The slides for the lectures and seminar are online and it gave me a bit of extra time on my essay on The Battle of Maldon, which I was moderately pleased with.

That said, I used a freebie word-processor called LibreOffice and when I saved the document the layout of the essay got screwed up slightly when it was saved in Microsoft Word (which it usually doesn’t do) and I didn’t realise this until it was too late. When you submit your essay to TurnitIn it lets you preview it, but guess what, the preview is the size of a matchbox, so all you can really see is that it’s the right or wrong document. Then when it’s submitted you can see it full size. So that means I will needlessly lose marks.

If that seems like the most boring thing you’ve read all week, how about this? Prague has just re-elected Miloš Zeman for another presidential term.

No, you’re right, that is mildly more interesting than my news. I guess something did happen on Tuesday in the writing group, but I'm still trying to digest it. We had a new member who explicitly said a number of times is not a fan of gossip, so I am happy to respect that and not say anything about them, besides a couple of general things. One is, I turned up to the meeting suffering the strangely delayed ill effects of two sleeping pills I'd taken the day before and found it hard to maintain my usual level of alertness. Our new member wanted to talk about a play they've written- something to do with a transsexual, a hot topic amongst young progressives in the UK- and did so for a full hour before I left- the business of writing our group play apparently adjourned. So I sat with chin on hand trying to focus and admittedly analysing our intriguing new playwright more than I was their play. At one point this person turned to me and said, "Are you all right?" but it seemed more out of vexation than concern, judging by the non-response to my sleeping pill explanation. I left shortly after the hour mark and went to get some sleep.

Kerry didn’t show up at Diane’s class on Thursday, so I have no more news about her. The dinner never happened, I don’t know why, but the thought was really nice. Diane gives us a topic we have to write about each week and post on an internal blog. Guess what the buzzword was this (last) week? Strike.

I had a really crappy weekend- it feels like my life is all but on strike- and I finally got out of the funk I was in by going for a late night drive on Sunday. Drove across Menai bridge which is all lit up with red lights at night and was empty and into Anglesey. I drove through Beaumaris (for the first time) where my parents lived 45 years ago, a rather grand little town and completely empty at a little after midnight. Then I drove a bit further on and turned round. I stopped at Shell and put fifteen pounds in the tank. Four pints of milk was £2, so I didn’t bother. I was going to pull into the college road on the way back and give you a tour of the library but there was a Ford Transit blocking the entrance (trying to reverse) so I continued on. When I walked back to my accommodation block some young men were outside doing something to a car. Either they were trying to steal it or they were putting go faster stripes on it. I need some put on me.

Winter doesn't know it's beaten. We had an unexpected fall early Thursday morning.

It's reading week (again)

And because it's reading week this post will be a short one. To compensate, I made some rather uneventful videos on the arctic blast, which I have been sharing with some of you on a one to one basis. In lieu of a literary disclosure of normal proportions I will also post some random photos I've taken in the last few weeks. 

Otherwise, all I have to relate is a rather odd little tale about the Asian woman I've seen around on campus, who turned out to be Japanese. I got talking to her on Thursday and discovered she is a master's student studying psychology who also lives in my block. After chatting for a couple of minutes she asked if I would come to her poetry recital at The Harp Inn. To be honest, I didn't much want to hear a new acquaintance recite Japanese poetry but I agreed anyway and asked when her spot was and she said 9.00 PM. I duly arrived at 9.00. She was outside having a cigarette and confirmed she was just about to read her piece, so I went in, purchased a pint of cider (£2.50) and sat down at a table. 

In the far corner there was a large table a DJ had all his equipment laid out on, a turntable and large digital contraption. She went and sat beside him and for the next 37 minutes saying nothing and avoiding eye contact with me. A couple of times she got up to talk to other people, though. There was a silent European film about witches and monks in sepia on a screen behind them and that and the hypnotic music was the only thing I had to engage with. Nobody else was reading poetry and there was no microphone visible, or captive audience who looked like they were waiting for a performance. My fellow mature student resident of St Mary's never approached me to talk, either, and finally she got up to go out for another cigarette. As she walked right past me she gave me a strange look, as if I was some unwanted dog hanging round for scraps. Having finished my drink, I went to the loo and left, mystified.

I've turned in my film essay. According to the essay guidelines we have to quote from AT LEAST 9 recommended books on screenplay theory which we are somehow supposed to acquire and read in the month we were given to write the essay. (I couldn't read 9 books in a month if I did nothing else). As it turns out, I'm not sure I read one full page of a book, the first three weeks were just spent thinking about doing the essay and when I found myself with much work to do on the day it was due I just did my normal trick of opening a book at random and looking for a sentence or two to reference. I don't think the trick will work this time, so I'm going to predict a mark of 60. 

There is also an essay about The Battle of Maldon, an Old English poem about...The Battle of Maldon, which took place in 991 to do by March 9th. The poem's log line: We are so kicking ourselves because we had a tactical advantage that we threw away. Happens every week on the football field, but in the old days it involved being sliced to pieces.

The Fiat Punto survives the arctic blast

Japanese poetry, or not (It was darker than this, camera has over compensated)

Temperatures were just below zero during the day, but there was very little snow in Bangor

My workspace

Found in Catherine Rullens's poetry seminar

Night shopping with Emma (my car, not my ex)

Snow on mountains in background

Bangor town from university

On a Snowy mountain road in January