A busy time for me means jumping from project to project, writing here, marking there, picking up this, that, and then more and more stuff arrives by email until all the balls are in the air and you think, phew. I bought a new book today that I need just to keep up with a PhD student, and my own reading, of course. This is an old picture I have posted before but this was the state of my desk this morning, editing the Lyrical Future of Nostalgia essay (hopefully for publication) and the problem I have is that at 6500 words I could write tons more. Never mind, though, this desk is one of my favourite places in the whole world. Its comfy, easy on the eye, cluttered with stuff the kids have bought me over the years and all the books I really like are in easy access. But its peaceful demeanour is all a disguise which hides the fact that we had a sleepless night. Dan was stuck in Dubai, first the plane to Tanzania was late, then they sat on it for 3 hours, then it was cancelled. Emirates had no contingency, they had no hotel and so he spent the night in the terminal, with instructions to check every hour, which he kept us posted on. But now, fingers crossed, he has boarded and is on his way - fingers crossed too that he is now in the air. Life is full of ups and downs and then a sleepless night becomes a minor blip in the roller-coaster of Brighton life; this song is like a plane timetable, unreliable, I know this because I have kissed some classy girls in bars, oh yes:
