Finished!

Ye gods, but I've finished the Thorn in the Flesh final editing process, hurrah! And I've now sent it off to Jackie so she can work her PDF magic for the Goldenford lists. Phew ... It's always a relief to get this part done. The thrill of completion is very satisfying indeed.

In the meantime, I've been slogging away at work too - including dealing with a raft of emails and minuting the Student Affairs Committee this lunchtime, and adding in an extra meeting for the Registrar into the fast filling-up January schedules. Well, there's only three weeks of term left, so we have to get the academics now before they all escape ... Not only that, but I've actually started writing the damn lunchtime meeting up too. Though don't ask me what it was about. I only take the notes - I don't follow them.

Mind you, we have our next tranche of Management Speak already biting at our ankles. And, in line with the technological university that we are (sadly!), we don't even have it in words. Just numbers. The new catch-phrase is ... um ... 10/100/10. Which we must all go round chanting like crazed mannequins until our heads implode. It apparently means that we're all working towards being the Number 10 university in the UK and the Number 100 internationally in the next 10 years. Well, I think that's what it means but, to be honest, I was too busy guffawing in disbelief as our poor manager was telling us. It could just as well mean we have 10 strange people saying 100 odd things across 10 different meetings. Which could well be the case. I say again that, frankly m'dears, the more management-speak there is, the less human I fear we become. And the more strategies and visions we have, the less we may well be in control of what's going on. I fear it anyway! Lord H also points out that, depending on when the launch of this new idea was, it could well be by now 10/100/9.997 recurring. Or some such figure. Mind you, if we're all becoming numbers now, please, please, please can I be Seven of Nine? In my dreams! The plot thickens, Watson ...

And talking of strangenesses in the woodwork, you may remember me talking about the woman that came up to me in Farnborough Bookshop and wanted to know why the Hamlet DVD wasn't filed under War Films & Military section. Lord H is much taken with this, and feels that we have a whole new way of reclassifying Shakespeare for the modern age - so that Julius Caesar would be shelved under Crime, and Romeo & Juliet under Alternative Medicine. Slap my thighs, Carruthers, but there may well be something in it ...

And there's good news on the hospital front: my friend in Intensive Care is now off the ventilator and breathing through a mask. Which is progress for sure! And she's waking up every now and again, so hurrah for that! I suspect she's getting better quicker than anticipated because the thought of another visit from me is just too much for her. By the time we pop in next week, she'll probably be at home watching TV at this rate.

Anyway, I'm off to watch "Heroes" now. Ye gods, but I feel I deserve it.

Today's nice things:

1. Finishing the Thorn edit
2. Laughing at work madnesses
3. Good hospital news.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website
Goldenford Publishers