Blogs: the world's foremost procrastination tool

The weather isn't cooperating. I woke up this morning pleased as punch to see that it was grey, blustery, rainy and generally perfect for staying indoors to get more work done (and there's plenty of it to do, too). But noooooooo, the sky cleared and although it's still a bit windy there's a lot of blue sky and sunshine up there. Damn. Well, it ought to be good for running anyway, if not for the concentration...

Honestly, this place is reminding me more and more of places like Martinique. No, not because of the omnipresent French (who I'm sure are here solely to annoy the British), but because it rains torrentially for a few hours overnight then clears up miraculously by morning, then the cycle repeats. Of course the similarity ends there. I haven't been there yet but somehow I doubt the beaches of Brighton are as attractive and warm.

Before I go too much further I should add, in reference to Wednesday's post about the unnecessarily loud noises: yes, I am aware it's Diwali. C'mon, a person can't live in Vancouver and/or London (or both) for as long as I have and not be the least bit clued up as to what Diwali is or what time of year it happens. And previous posts to the contrary, I'm not against people having fun or even being outrageously loud and obnoxious. I just wish they wouldn't do it at ungodly hours of the night/morning. And maybe not seven days a week either; I'd limit it to, say, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

Perhaps it's just the way the campus is built, i.e. with lots of flat concrete surfaces conducive to amplifying eches, or the way sound carries over the relatively flat terrain surrounding Harrow, or both, but the firecrackers they sell over here sound more like, well, er, bombs. If like me you're living in a strange land unaccustomed to such noises and have been filled with media horror stories of events like 7/7, this can be a recipe for almost certain underpant-soiling. I have very little experience with large-scale random violence (barring perhaps the October Crisis) and prefer to keep it that way, thank you.

(By the way if this is what it's like at Diwali, I can't wait for Guy Fawkes Day.)

* * *

News flash: Republican says something intelligent/truthful!

"Only in an election year this complicated can Republicans be happy that Mark Foley knocked the Iraq war off the front page."

-- Mark Campbell, a Republican strategist representing several Congressional candidates, quoted in a recent New York Times story.

Of course his choice of the term "complicated" is a sadly obvious euphemism, but there you go. With the mid-terms just around the corner (U.S. congressionals, not Westminster's I mean*) this kind of chaotic disarray and bad press would ordinarily have me singing and dancing in the aisles, but for one small but crucial detail: the Democrats couldn't snatch election victory from the jaws of defeat if someone pounded it up their collective arse with a wooden mallet. Loathe them or despise them, the one thing Republicans uniformly excel at is sidelining internal differences long enough to organize and get out the vote. History shows that Democrats absolutely suck at this, and I'm sorry to report I see no evidence to suggest this will change anytime soon. And anyway we still have two more years of George W. Monkey-boy; who knows what further damage he and his ideologically retarded puppeteers will be able to inflict on the world in that time span. (Did you see that great item on Craig Ferguson the other night about the President's drinking problem? Priceless.) I suppose I should be grateful Shrub and Darth Cheney are limited by law to two terms of office, although it wouldn't surprise me to learn that they're working to rewrite the rules on that, too.

* * *

One of these days I'm going to post my running list of things that are cheap in the U.K. and those that I find expensive relative to Canada. But in the meantime let me say that one of the items fitting the former category is cheese. The British love their cheese and it certainly is plentiful here. So the other day I decided that I was in the mood for some comfort food, and things like tuna melts and grilled cheese sandwiches struck me as particularly appropriate. So naturally this implied cheese, a commodity I eat rarely and consider a treat since it's so (artificially) expensive at home. As I wandered the aisles of the nearby Sainsbury's I came across one of the most extensive selections I have ever seen. (This was just what I saw in the aisles, too; there was more -- namely the premium and fresh, non-packaged stuff -- at a separate counter near the meat and fish.) I was stopped in my tracks by the sheer volume and variety, to say nothing of the relatively low price.

At first I was overwhelmed by the cornucopia of cheesy choice. But then I was blessed with an inspiration and its crumbly, creamy goodness beckoned: Wensleydale, of course.

* Our own mid-terms are looming too. Very quickly indeed. And so are my papers' deadlines (Ha! Apostrophize that, Postmodern Sass!) So I'd better stop procrastinating and get on with it. See you later.