That funny time between Christmas and New Year

In the lull between Christmas and New Year I've been doing a lot of nothing. I've been reading some maths with a fair amount of success, and watching old Seinfelds that I bought on DVD for half price. Thrilling, eh?

There was a fun visit to Scarborough with some friends. For those of you who don't know, Scarborough is typical British seaside, almost to the point of being a cliche. It was freezing, but that didn't stop us from eating chips on the beach and going for nice walks around. There were even surfers out which, given the temperature and the drenching the sea was giving people on Marine Drive, was very brave. Looking back, we didn't do much, but it was lovely. Photos will appear.

My brother and his family are visiting at the moment, so tonight everyone's walking round on tippytoes trying to avoid waking up my little niece. Who's very cute, if you're one of the few people I haven't told this to a million times. I have yet to break out my secret weapon: a copy of The Gruffalo's Child that I bought in Scarborough (and was teased for). It will earn me much love.

Borderline

I know that I often bint on about how much I like something and leave lots of links to it lying around, which you might, possibly but probably not, want to look at. This post is another instance of the same. Only this time I really mean it:

Listen to this right now:
Borderline by Sufjan Stevens

I made the mp3 myself and found it difficult. Modernity has passed me by. Make my pain worthwhile and listen. It's a very very beautiful song.

Formalities

I'm disorganised. I haven't done any christmas shopping yet, or indeed any of the many things I wanted to do before christmas. There's a load of learning, marking, and preparation I want to do before the New Year and I'm pretty sure there won't be the slightest chance to get any of it done once the festivities start (not least because I will spend the most wonderful time of the year sleeping on the living room floor).

I'm currently enamoured of the new Bearsuit record, Team Ping Pong. These people are like a lo-fi version of Belle and Sebastian. Or more like three copies of the White Stripes where two of the Jacks are forced to play mid-80's Casio My First Keyboards. Anyhow, it's great, and the record clocks in at under 30 minutes! (This is a very good thing.) You can hear one track at the link at the bottom of this page.

Just to prove my point, Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground just came on over the speakers.

I also finished reading The Talented Mr Ripley. I'm a great fan of the film (though it's lukewarm for most people) but really had to read the book after being in Italy (where it's mostly set) last summer. Perhaps the bit I liked best was the description of Tom's reaction to Venice, because it was so close to what I thought: you expect Venice to be a tiny, a little bit of it like you see in the movies and the rest a sea of tat and shod. In fact the place is huge, all of it like the films only better. Can you tell that I liked Venice, despite the pouring rain (oh me it poured)? The book was good too.

Today: weekend Guardian -- I have my fingers crossed that Screen Burn will be about Space Cadets -- and then more learning about formal groups, which is as dull as it sounds but irritatingly necessary.

Photos!

You can now see various sorts of photos by following the "my photos" link on the right. When the page loads you should click on the icons on the left to look at each set.

Survival

On wednesday I survived my viva, so it should only be a matter of time before I get some sort of certificate in the post. (Well, not before I make corrections and submit the fancy-bound copies.)

Then yesterday, my friends in the maths department treated me to a surprise party. This was amazing. Sunil claimed to have arranged a pub trip, and on the way there Otonyo insisted we take a slight detour to `drop his bag off' at his flat, where the rest of the motley retinue lay in wait in the living room! It was great. I especially liked the following things: The banner. The party food. The fancy salmon. The cake, with its wondrous icing. The gingerbread. Otonyo's hospitality. The evil cunning plottingness of it all. You people are the best! Thanks!

Photographs will follow. Watch this space! (It's the postgrad christmas party tonight, so maybe there'll also be pictures and news from that.)

Short Short Stories and The Goblet of Fire

While rummaging through all of the rubbish on my bookshelf I found my copy of Short Short Stories by Dave Eggers. This is one of those little Penguin books you can get for dirt cheap, but it's based on a column that Dave Eggers wrote in the Guardian Magazine for about a year. Like it says, each week he wrote a single very short story. It was utter genius through and through, and made the Saturday Guardian something to truly look forward to (in much the same way as Screen Burn does for me now). Here are some of my favourite short short stories:


About the man uglier and scarier than Ratzinger

We can work it out.

They decide not to have any more death

In the name of fun and relaxation I went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire yesterday. Ageing being what it is, the child-actors now have troublingly deep voices (well, not Hermione) and, experience being what it is, they can now actually act. So it was enjoyable and fun and rather well-done, I thought. And in response I went home and began reading number 5 (borrowed from V) which is rather good so far. But huge.

My view = large picture!

This is my view. It's better than yours. Sorry if it takes an ice age to load: I put the spanking new camera on full resolution.

Paper!

Finally I have `finished' the damn thing. This means that I've posted it on the preprint server where it'll hang around until I submit it to a journal. (Another question which requires supervisor input.) Anyhow, my faith in the world means that I think you will all want to go and look at it (or be terrified by the title), so here's the link.

I also finished sending off a certain batch of applications, but didn't get around to doing it as properly as I intended. Never mind: the deadline has passed. I'm now going to (try to) relax, but I don't want to go too far because my viva (my final ever university exam?) is next wednesday. Urk.

For the photo-happy among you, I will relax by buying a digital camera! Expect to be bombarded with various views and random things.