Study Break

This weekend (with P away at his ex's 60th birthday party - yup, 60! That's 31 full years older than me... tee hee) has been devoted to my next essay, which is to do with Thatcher's 1987 comment about there being no such thing as society, and does the writing of Amis and Bracewell reflect this.

So yesterday was divided between the British Library and the university library and I felt quite pleased with myself. Although less so today, as my attempts to make sense of all my notes and photocopies has resulted in me 1) having a bath, 2) doing the washing up, 3) putting the washing on, 4) taking the recycling out and 5) ringing my Australian brother for a chat (he's well, by the way). Oh... and writing this.

But I did catch up with Caroline last night, and we enjoyed copious eating and drinking (mojitos and chips at Ballan's Cafe, and white wine and margheritas at Pizza Express) sandwiched around a trip to the cinema to see the dreadfully self-indulgent "A Guide To Recognising Your Saints". It was painfully self-conscious and agonisingly turgid in the director's attempts (I can't be bothered to look up his name) to immortalise on celluloid his true tale of tumultuous teenage years in downtown New York. The whole thing was predictable and painful, and the 'twist' was recognisable from the off. Yawn.

This morning, I watched "Enduring Love" on DVD in The Bed. Daire lent it to me on Thursday, assuring me it was "identical to the book" (which I haven't read) and telling me that by watching it I would qualify to come to the McEwan reading group tomorrow night. I'm not convinced. A quite enjoyable film though. Not sure about Daniel Craig but always nice to see Helen McCrory.

Oh, and Take That ticket latest: the eBay rush has inevitably died down and tickets are now going for a more, cough, reasonable £500 a pair. If push comes to shove, I haven't ruled out swallowing my pride and buying a more fairly priced pair nearer the time. But for now I've left a message with my second brother's former flatmate's ex-girlfriend (who's pretty significant with the largest tour promoter in the world) to see if she can help. And P has left a message with his friend in Dubai who was one of TT's backing dancers the first time around and, apparently, "still talks to Mark sometimes". We'll see... but I haven't given up hope.