i’m very tense tonight. my arms are going into moro quite frequently, and my back aches. bed early tonight.

the library still hasnt got the biography of chaplain i asked for. i”n not complaning – i still think its remarkablre that i have access to any book I want. its by knneth s. lynn, who wrote an excellent biography of hemingway i read three years ago. I l=ooked hynn up on google: he was a conservative, although not a hard liner. this has taught me academic briliance has no reguard for politics, and somene might be conservative and still be invaluable. yes, i know the fact that i ofthen forget this shows how polittically immature I am, but hey, i’m learning.

this weekend, we went to visit kat amd mark in ushaw moor near durham. i like to visit my big bro – ok, we’ve dicagreed on one or two subjeeccts, but the fact remains that i’m dead proud of both my broothers. we got up early yesterday and drove up. i love car journeys – they give me a cjhance to read, think, etc.

got to their place – a smalll, homely terrace with fish – at about 11, and spwnt the rest of the day talking, wwatching football, drinking tea and readding my culture handout. m+k made a very nice lamb cobler, and I slept attheir place. (airbeds kick ass!)

this morning, mark helped me get dressed. it occcured to m that we hadn’t slept under the same roof since he left for oxford, when I was 15 or 16. hmm. I see far tooo little oof my brothers these days.. mum and dad slept in a local b+b.

having watched the australian open, we hadlunvh at a tres nice seaside resteraunt, ovvverlooking a calm north sea nder a blue sky. drove along the coast to the mouth of the tyne, round and back to shaw moor. we dropped m+k off, dad had a nap, and drove homee.

dad put radio 4 on. I must say the iraqi election seems to have gon ewell. I was against the invasion, but I believe democracy is the best form of government. for better or worse, iraq now has democracy, which is a good thing surely.

perhaps the yankss have been vindicated. hmm…

i’m currently working my way through the library’s collection of charlie chaplain films, and tonight I came across something quite, quite interesting. ‘a king in new york’ is one of chaplain’s later films – 1957, i think – and for once I was very impressed wwith it’s politicism. the film concernzs a depposed kingg who moves to new york. hre he’s a celebrity. while touring a school, he meets a young commnist, whose parents soon get tangled up in the mccarthy trials. the film has an anti-mccarthy feel, which given the times in which it was made, is both srprising and dangerous. chaplain himself was hauld in frront of those trials after the film was made, and I was surprised at the boldness of the film.

it’s certainly ignited my interest in ‘the little tramp’. i hope to get his biography from the library soon.

I fear the old addage is right – one can feel lonelyin a crowded room. for somee reason, i felt lonely at tonights disco. it started off ok – i went to the footie social, and had ben to the ffootie match earlier, but during the disco, i felt lonelyy. everyone was dancing, but i perched mmyyself on the pool table, watching. Fell off said table…bar staff madee executive dcision to send ‘matty’ home, couldn’t argue.

tired

i ache. went to the theatre last niight, as my friend nick said there was something good on. “cool,” i thought, “a relaxing night at the theatre”. while the thing i saw was in the theatre, it was not a play. there were no seats; the audience walked around a big box in the middle of the hall while four actresses climbed in and out of it, sayiing random lines it seemed. at one point we were ushered inside the box for more random line saying. all I could gather is that it was about a robbery at an art gallery. all the audience had to stand for the duration, about an our.

i ache all over.

in litle over 4 days i have finnished a 250-page book, which I haven’t done in ages. its such a great book, by turns life affirming and heatbreakingly tragic. I regret to say that it has imbued me with a distrust of medical doctors – the evidencce that anne macdonald was intelectually competent was abundant, bbut still the doctors of st nickolas’ (the hospital where she lived) refused to believe that she was anything other than severely retarded. apparently, shee had estimatd the speed of light from watching the moon landings, and had worked out pythagoras from the nappies they put her in. how ironic. I myst say that ii admire annes courage, and rosemarry crossley is now simething of a personal hero.

if reports that some 600 kids are still in long stay hospital are correct, it is surrely my/our duty to free them. annes and roses sheer determination and stubbonaess proove tha such feets are possible. whatt a great book. now, however, i must get back to studying…

this works aain, does it? good-o! well, better write something. first, libraries kick ass – been in the uni library lots this weeek. plus, they managed to get me a copy of the now out of print “annie’s coming out” from the british library. how cool is that?! its a seminal work on communication aids and disability rights; its also a bloody good read. I haven’t read for several hours straight since kenneth lynn’s biography of hemingway, but yesterday I read an entire afternoon away. bliss. next, alsager mmu won the interfaculty cup against man met. yaaay. went to see one of the football matches (boy’s 1sts), and we won 3-1. bill invited me along. yaay!

thursday night, the guys took me to a local pub for a bingo night run by a dubious-looking old man. had a great laugh making up on the spot poetry, chatting and getting drunk. last night, went to he charity disco in aid of the tsunami appeal. great fun. danced a lot. at one stage I had a girl on each arm. woohoo. pretty as [censored].

great fun!

if, last year, I saw that A is possible for me, and B is ‘normallly’ almost always an outcome of A first time, then nature demands ,that i go through B. therefore i reallise that everything following a natural course of events, and I tke it as proof that everything remains possible for me.

I can smile again.

lazy day today. been invited to a college footie match l8r, which I plan to go with mark s to. bill invited me. should be cool.

bought a copy of the independent today. we’re encouraged to do so for writing 1. needed a tabloid for purposes of dexterity, but i sure as hell aint gonna buy a trashy one. the lead today is on the courts marshal in iraq. we colonial british are back to old form, abusing native peoples in their own land. tea, anyone?

heart still hurts, but its on the mend. i feel rather cheerful. i can go back to ogleing girs without feeling guilty!

its pissing it down outside, and I’m sure as hell aint going out tonight. we just ordered a take-away pizza, kababs etc for our flat, to be picked up from reception by my home helper and unice, a mature a/b exchange student from oz who just moved in with us. i’m looking forward to a quiet night in,