I've had an old friend from Leicester up for the weekend, and we've just got in from a joint performance of Stainer's Crucifixion. You might remember me talking about the possibility of the performance this time last year. It was actually much better than I thought it would be, save for the dying tenor and the shite organist. The conductress was more than competent though, and the atmosphere was wonderful. I just wish that there could be more cross-parish interaction, particularly with music. In the light of falling church numbers, broadly irrelevant and unimportant as I consider that phenomenon, it is surely just natural behaviour to retrench and join together. This, I suppose, is a survival method.

Last night I went to a German play with Stuart, Michael and my friend from Leicester. Somehow, in spite of my overall dearth of friends, I managed to meet virtually all of them in one night. There was the large girl on my course, and then the drunk normal-sized girl on my course, lots of Stuart's coursemates, one of our friends from last year who came over from Leeds, one of last year's flat mates, etc. I also saw my friend from school, and it was really good to see him. I have been missing everyone recently, and it reminded me what good friends I will, hopefully, always have. They always say you make your best friends at university, but I've not been as close to anyone, except Stuart, as I have been to TEB and SS. I think I will probably always feel something so profound about our friendship that even the very thought of their handwriting will bring a lump to my throat. TEB and I will be graduating this time next year (give or take), and we will both be twenty.

Meanwhile, my driving test is coming up and insurance quotes have ranged between £1800 and £5500, which is a positive vomitation. The world may make me feel nauseous most of the time, but sometimes I can't help but love how wonderful everything is in its total fallibility.

A bottle of Cotes du Rhone is going down nicely. My room is a tip: I'm surrounded by dregs of coffee, an empty bottle of port, shedloads of pieces of paper, bags of rubbish in which there is probably a banana skin rotting somewhere, dirty clothes; the list goes on. I feel like I could be a true artist living in this chaos. Still, I am not a true artist, and if I was actually going to do anything seriously mentally demanding in the next few days I would certainly have to tidy this place up first. I'm listening to Late Junction on Radio 3 as well, which enhances my sense of being an artistic bohemian. I have just listened to a track called "Mop Head". I feel very worn down recently.

I've done very little today: the standard appointment of choir rehearsal was kept, but beyond that all I did was pop in to university to register provisionally for next year. My final year at university. Only four modules to go. How scary is that? Earlier I watched the Alan Clark Diaries on BBC2. It was very amusing once again; me and my flatmates were sat identically to this time last week. Go and check.

I came to my little laptop full of thoughts about what to write, full of enthusiasm about how worthwhile discussion and expression is. But, as so often happens, now that the keyboard is within my power, I do not particularly want to write anything. I can still remember what I was going to say, but of a sudden it seems monumentally irrelevant. Nothing really seems relevant at this moment in time. In fact, at this precise second, absolutely nothing seems to carry any significance at all, which is both destabilising and refreshing. Now and then I, as I'm sure everyone does, think back to how things were a few years ago. Personally, I mean, not cosmically. I came to university with so many high hopes and ideals about what grand and successful course my life was going to take. The experience itself has taught me valuable lessons about being more realistic. But at the same time I am reminded of the solitude and disillusionment that these lessons inevitably produce.

On the one hand, I have never been happier. All my dreams have been fulfilled in the last couple of years. I have a stable, mutual, intelligent, communicative relationship with someone that I love more deeply day by day. But on the other hand, this is precisely the problem. Things are so wonderful that they can never live up to the ideal in my mind — the ideal that is essentially based in a much more teenage, angsty, depressive mode of thinking. The fact is I'm still an immature teenager deep down, and my most ideal relationship is probably one with my own self-absorption. I don't think I've matured enough really to say that I've gone beyond that. Perhaps I'm being too harsh on myself; perhaps I'm just talking nonsense.

There's just something missing here. In spite of all the problems I had at home, and in spite of how much I hated school, there is still something uniquely homely about home. This is not home yet. I still get the urge to go back to Leicester where, for no real reason, I just feel more secure. I miss my old friends. I miss my old, teenage, angsty, idealist's dreams. It probably just comes down to the fact that I'm not quite ready to grow up yet.

I spent an hour of this evening, and therefore an hour of my life, which I am not all that happy to part with, watching a catastrophically awful Big Pile of Shit (or B.P.S.) on BBC2. Perhaps it served me right for even staying in the room when a prime-time programme about Noah's Ark came on, but something inside me was saying that It Must Get Good Soon. It seems a shame that all an hour of valuable religious programming will have ended up in is most of the population saying, "Well, that proves it then, religion's a load of shit," and those who are left being totally none the wiser as to what's just happened. After thousands of years of serious and profound religion and theology, it seems a shame that a programme can be produced which dealt with absolutely none of nineteenth and twentieth century theological and biblio-critical debate. Unfortunately, the BBC's Religion and Ethics programming chiefs seem to have decided that the whole of the country is too dumb, even on BBC2, to be interested in covering anything worthwhile. I despair, in a camp and lisping way...

I was amused, in the midst of the fall and fall of Dasani water in Britain, to read the following typo on the product's website:

Dasani is the one of the purest waters around...

I can almost see someone sat at their computer, ready to type, "Dasani is the purest water...", but then thinking, No, that is probably actually not true. Furthermore, I am relieved to hear Steve J. Errey, a 'professional life coach', whatever one of those is, tell me that

As 85% of our brain and 60% of our body is made from water, keeping ourselves properly 'topped up' is vitally important. It's a case of garbage in, garbage out. Put a good product in your body and you'll get the best results simple as that! Don't undermine your health and motivation by not drinking enough good quality water I'm sure that Dasani - being the UK's first mainstream purified water - will contribute towards the clarity and focus that we all look for in our lives.

Well Steve, I'll sure be looking forward to that Coca-Cola Company-inspired clarity and focus so that I never, ever, have to consult you individually.

My usual Wednesday schedule fulfilled, I sit listening to some Durufle, having had a few drinks in front of The Alan Clark Diaries and Newsnight to relax. I wish I didn't have to work tomorrow.

Today has been beautiful. It felt like summer is here, though I'm told that it's going to get cold and windy tomorrow. It felt so nice. It reminds me of going out to lunch with old friends in Leicester, walking along canals and being attacked by ducks. I need some sunshine like a drug. There's something missing in my stomach. Sigh, sigh, sigh, I long for the summer and some brighter times. Winter is all darkness and death. I'm sure we should all sleep through it.

1. If you go out to buy a take-away at 8pm and the take-away is closed, it is possible you will end up sitting in the pub instead. Until 3.15am.
2. If you come back in at 4am on a Monday morning and are still hungry because the take-away was closed at 8pm, you can eat a pizza at home and get indigestion all night as a result.
3. Kids that scream very loudly in the street at 8am are annoying when you only went to sleep at 5am.

It's been a mucky old day here in Manchester. I woke up to grey skies, and the sun went down to black ones. It's rained, stopped raining, and rained again. I've not been in much of a writing mood recently. In fact, I've not really been in the mood to do anything these last few days. I'm supposed to be doing hours of pedal exercises but haven't touched an organ, so to speak, since Wednesday. I was working all of Thursday and Friday, me and Stuart had a bitchy-poof argument through Friday and Saturday, and I've spent all of today clicking links to websites but not really reading much. So far, I've been able to gather that my snooker friend Mark Selby isn't doing very well on the main tour this season, that England won the first Test in the West Indies, and how my M. P. voted in the abortion bill. In other words, I might as well have gone back to bed.

This city gets far more than its fair share of coverage on national news. If you've ever switched on the radio and the first word you hear is 'Manchester', then you've experienced what seems to happen to me every hour. Of course, the truth is that half of the country's broadcasting is done from this city. There are the BBC studios, which produce all of the religious material as well as a lot of the news and politics programmes. Since they can't be bothered to send people too far afield, whenever they want to 'find out what you think', as is the trend, they simply take a hand-held camera outside and stand in front of a pub opposite the studio. Unless you lived in South Manchester you'd never know. So, when the BBC find out what 'you' think, they're actually finding out what some people coming out of Zumbar think after a few bottles of dodgy Columbian bottled beer. Then there's the Guardian, which started here, and seems to have taken over the whole city in some sort of covert lefty plot. You'd never know, though. Local T. V. — Channel M (so imaginative) — is supposedly run by Salford University, but rumour has it that it is actually owned by the Guardian Group... along with the Manchester Evening News. And of course the Manchester Evening News also sponsors one of the city's main arenas, the M. E. N. Arena, surprisingly. Plus, the Guardian is on sale for only 20p throughout the city. I'm not sure if security has been so high for the Labour conference because they want to keep the Guardian away, or if they came to Manchester in the way that Silvio Berlusconi might pay laundry money to the Mafia. Of course, we will never know.

I seriously hate rain. I don't mind the cold, in fact, I quite like the cold, but I just hate rain. It gets you all wet, and, in this city, is almost always accompanied by strong winds which have bent even my most expensive of Tie Rack umbrellas into a lowly, broken, and ineffective shape. When it rains, I'm scared of going outside. If I'm outside when it rains, you can guarantee that when I get in I'll be in such a bad mood that I'll not do anything productive for about a week. You get the picture? I hate rain. I think I'm living in the wrong country. Though I also hate the heat. Any suggestions? Should I just kill myself now? Of course, asking these questions is futile, since I've not yet set up my Movable Type comments system. It's coming, my friends, I promise. Unfortunately, my host uses a bit of a weird CGI system, which means that working out system paths is quite a lot harder than it should be. This is the main problem at the moment.

I've three essays to do in the next week or so. Two don't really matter, but one does. I've not got the questions for the first one yet, and it's in on Tuesday. For some reason, I'm not that bothered. I can get them tomorrow and then fudge it. It's only a degree, after all. So how was your day?

From: Marquis Rose
Subject: Extend your piece of mind

Extended vehicle warranty that exceeds your expectations

The unfortunate reality of owning a auto is the fact that it will eventually breakdown, so if you have been considered purchasing an extended auto warranty now is the time to do it!

We are the vehicles warranty experts

• Furthermore, this farce with BT Broadband happened to us once too.

The fundamental premise of terrorism — that terrorists wish to create terror — makes our governments' reactions to it seems somewhat curious. A fact of life — that if someone is intent on causing mayhem, then no-one can stop them — should also tell us that, if people feel sufficiently antagonised and angered that they wish to cause terrorist mayhem, then they will do so, just as they have throughout history. Terrorism is nothing new, so we shouldn't believe that it is when Bush/Blair tell us that this is a 'new threat'. Crap.

I don't suggest that we should not tackle terrorism directly. But it should not be the centre of our efforts, simply because logic dictates that antagonised people will continue to be produced so long as the cause of their antagonism is constant. In a world where the majority are poor and view the rich West, rightly or wrongly, as the problem, terrorism will be as strong as it is today. So let's change that.

Listening to Radio 4 tonight, I am struck by this thought: in one hundred years, all the voices in the world will have changed.

A busy day — I'm tired. Choir went quite well. Everything is very hectic during Lent. We have Stations of the Cross at 7pm every Wednesday, which is dull and boring in the extreme. Preceding that I give a girl a singing lesson — she's not bad, but is always distracted and one gets the impression that her parents want her to have lessons more than she does. I've not learnt the teaching techniques to resolve her distraction yet, but hopefully I will one day. A shortened choir practice follows the service. I would like more time to work on some of the music for Easter, but I suppose there is never really enough time. PG, my organ tutor, wanted me to sing in a chamber choir for a concert in Bolton in a few weeks, but I've had to decline because rehearsals for that clash with my own choir practices. It's a shame, I'd have liked to do some singing. I have a million pedal exercises to do to get my pedalling up to speed; it feels like slow progress, but I expect that, as with anything that feels like slow progress, there will come a day when I will suddenly realise that lots of the things I have been working towards are actually there.

Our house is too hot because we have not really adjusted the heating properly to the warmer weather (though it is freezing tonight), so I have my window open. Light always reflects off of the glazed bricks in the street next to us in a lovely way. I love the old Victorian glazed brown bricks. They have a feeling of persistence about them which affirms that their existence is solid and age-old.

For the last two days I've been trying to relax by slobbing in front of the television in my pyjamas and eating Frisps. I also drank some wine last night and some beer and gin today. I am certainly feeling more fortified. Tomorrow I'll be back to uni after a two week skive. I expect that I'll have no idea what's going on, since that seems to happen in most of my courses at some point, usually because I've not gone. It all seems to work out OK in the end, though.

• What planet is this man on?

The Conservative Party is on the verge of returning to power, co-chairman Liam Fox has predicted. In his opening speech to the spring party conference - the first under Mr Howard's leadership - he said that at last the Conservatives looked like a party which could effectively govern the country.

• One of the more dignified reports appearing in Student Direct! A prestigious visitor is coming to Manchester University:

The man celebrated for discovering the first scientifically recorded case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck is coming to the University of Manchester to share his wisdom on the subject.

Dr Kees Moeliker who last year won an Ig Noble prize — awarded for the world's most original research — for his unusual discovery, is coming to Manchester as part of the Ig Noble Tour 2004. Dr Moeliker says that he observed the phenomenon while working at the Museum of Natural History in Rotterdam, and explained that during his acceptance speech he had seen a duck fly into the building and fall to its death, whereupon a male duck "mounted the corpse and raped it. For more than an hour."

• Meanwhile, Alistair Campbell gave an interview to the newspaper this week, (presumably this made his job quite a lot easier) in which he complains that (in the press):

Politics are increasingly being packaged as something they're not, and it seems like a madhouse at times... My grievance is with the kind of reporting which means that newspapers in this country routinely get things wrong.

• Fingertip on the pulse! I guess stories like this are a bit passé for 2004, but never mind: Woman finds fingertip in salad.

I was playing around on Google to see how well Newfred shows up, when I stumbled upon this page. My archive page for June last year comes up on a search for "Fcuk glasses".

Is this the right nozzle?
Stop calling me darling.
I said stop calling me darling, darling.
Why?
Clean it yourself.
The manager is playing pool even though he gets paid more than me.
I wonder how deep that hole in the floor is. Shall I drop a spoon down it to see?
I think Dave is small enough to have fallen down that hole.
Why am I so happy?
Ow.
Is this another scally?
Stop calling me darling.
Shut up.
I'm pouring beer which smells of ass.
I'm sure I know you.
It's a nice day outside.
It is always winter in the pub.
Did you not understand? How many more times do you need me to explain this mind-numbingly simple concept?
Lots of the male staff here have bigger tits than any woman in here.
Stop calling me love.
And you.
Does it bridge the class divide if I call you 'mate', or does it not work in a nasalised form?
I should be hung over.
The one day we have coffee cups, no-one put out the coffee menus. That makes sense.
If you give me a tip, I can get an extra topping on my jacket potato at lunch.
I shouldn't have had that extra topping on my jacket potato at lunch.
Oh no, it's the annoying homosexual.
I'm going home.

In the light of failing health which has been apparent to any listeners to Letter from America for some months, Alistair Cooke has thrown in the towel after fifty-eight years in broadcasting. I will certainly miss his balanced and intelligent insights into current affairs. Read more here.

"This is a great day in the history of Iraq, an unforgettable day," states a Western-suited American appointee earlier today. The occasion is described as 'jubilant', though if I mute the T. V. I can imagine that the press conference is really in reaction to the death of a great leader. The provisional constitution is a day late, and this belies an atmosphere which feels altogether forced. So what are you imagining now? This must be another anti-democratic diatribe about the Middle East. Nearly a year on from Iraqi 'liberation', it seems appropriate to reflect on what has happened in Iraq since.

The Iraq war, revisited: Motives and outcomes

We might never, in Britain, get a proper answer from a proper inquiry about why we went to war in Iraq. But, perhaps we don't really need one. Is it so hard to use our own minds to work through the question? It is not a case of structural or governmental analysis, but of a broader view of what is happening in the dynamics of internationalism.

From straightforward observation, we can see that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, nor was it linked to international terrorism. Therefore, the central reason given by the coalition for military action in Iraq was false. Perhaps it was a conscious lie, perhaps it was not. We all know how easy it is to deceive ourselves. We all have human faults. Similarly, from straightforward historical analysis, we can see that war is primarily a matter of power, of interests, and of material needs. War is a vehicle of conflict inherent in our humanity.

Conclude what you will; but to my mind, the Iraq war was a matter of exertion of power in a context which facilitated the kind of action which the U. S. and U. K. would probably have liked to get over and done with some years ago. Iraq was weak, the coalition were strong; the weak, naturally, must give way. We can make value judgements about war as much as we want, and there are serious ethical arguments to be made on each side of wars which seek to depose dictators. These are important debates, but they are, like it or not, peripheral. Wars are political.

So what was the politics behind the war? Undoubtedly democracy in Iraq was a genuine incentive. But this alone would never be enough. It must have been clear to everyone that a war, whatever the desired long-term outcomes, would, in the short term, cause massive damage, unrest, conflict, and increased terrorism. There was the question around oil, which was probably part of the general background to the Iraq war, but was not itself the whole picture. But above all, there is a Western agenda to cultivate democracy, freedom, and economic development wherever possible. Again, make value judgements at will, but for now, I'm just stating what seems to me to be the case. There are no doubt conflicting agendas around the world, but the West's is prevalent purely because of its power.

Democracy in Iraq: The provisional constitution

Coalition countries never sought to imply that Iraqi reconstitution after war would be a simple or peaceful task. The surge in terrorism, sectarianism, and overall conflict in Iraq has been a surprise to no-one. It was wrong that Iraq was ever connected to world terrorism. The link was made because it convinced the U. S., and to a lesser extent, U. K., citizens that, in a post-2001 world, there was a threat.

Democracy is a loaded word. It can be good or bad, depending on your perspective. It is probably true that people who say Islam is incompatible with democracy are narrow-minded, and wrong. Some within Islam may oppose it, but that is a very different thing. Religion, as a reflection of society, must be seen simultaneously as processing, preventing, and promoting change, but also as a passive display of change which is going on beyond its realm. This is not to say there are not important questions to be addressed about democracy in particular, but I, as much as anyone, have been guilty of making more of the differences than the similarities between 'eastern' and 'western' culture. Though any universal and absolute statements must be treated with great caution, religious freedom, to take an obvious example in isolation, cannot really be seen as a bad thing in Iraq. Take the opposite situation; though stability may result from religious oppression, it is a forced stability. It is also true that individual personalities take different roles and forms in 'east' and 'west', but not to an extreme or absolute degree. The family is more powerful an institution and unit in middle eastern countries than in the west, but this is not to say that in the east an individual is defined solely by his/her family identity alone.

Democracy is a change which challenges middle eastern society greatly, but it is a challenge which can be met. Whether it should be met is, again, a question which can be asked, but is pretty irrelevant in the end. Politics demands that it be met, and Western power is behind this.

Other changes: The global context

There are many things changing in Iraq. Change will be resisted and promoted in turn, but change will continue relentlessly. Change happens. It is a fact. Ultimately, it is power which directs change and change which ascribes power. A mutual process. The development of democracy is one of these changes. Linked to that major question are issues of religion, economy, technology, and culture. The fact of global life today is, like it or not, one of international economy. National isolation is always an option, but almost certainly results in poverty of some degree. But this summary of global life today is necessarily a bastardisation. The west is not united; though there is much we share in common socially and internationally, difference and diversity are an important factor in our lives and in the functionality of internationalism. I agree that demands should be made on countries by others, since, in an increasingly global world, countries are not countries alone but are nations in society with others.

What does all this mean to Iraq and the Middle East? Well, it is undeniable that many in the West see middle eastern countries as the central problem of modern economic life. But what is probably less often acknowledged is that middle eastern countries, with equal justification, see western countries in exactly the same way. Power will settle and define differences. Iraq was invaded because it was in the Western interest, and the coalition possessed sufficient power to carry action through. Unfortunately, conflict is the natural result of this course of action. Civil war in Iraq is still not unlikely. The success of the new constitution will both be a defining factor in a new Iraq, as well as a reflection of the old one. It must be a balance between the modern demands of a global society of nations, as well as serving Iraq's own domestic needs and wishes. If it decides on a mode of strict Islamic rule, the West must accept that as a consequence of its own principles of democracy. If the U. S. suppresses this, then democracy will have suffered another defeat in Iraq.

Tony Blair has said himself that he views Iraq as a test case for middle eastern democracy. Today indeed is a significant day not only for Iraq but for the future of global composition. I become cautiously aware of human universals: desire for prosperity, richness, and of the problems caused when these are not fulfilled. Iraq, like humanity, is full of contradictions.

Two things I saw today:

• "Leading the way in telescopic bollard technology" written on the side of a van, surrounded by plastic cones. It's nice to know someone is.
• Someone in Blackwell's Music who, for an unknown reason, thought I was a member of staff. Since I happened to know the answer to his question, I played along. (I bought some organ music etc. from Blackwell's but managed to restrain myself from spending as much as I might. I got David Sanger's Play the Organ Volume 2 which is clearly excellent. I think it will be very helpful.)

We have so little time...

We have so little time,

It's going down the drain,

You must admit

We've crossed the line,

And lost the plot, a bit.

The second coming's nigh,

This war was seen by John,

And history is

just One Big Lie,

But Jesus is the biz.

Have you heard the radio?

These 'songs' are all just noise.

Back in my day

The concerto

Was wonderful and gay.

The end is near to me.

What, fifty, sixty, years?

My own end-time

Will always be

Apocalypse by wine.

We have so little time,

It's going down the drain,

You must admit

We've crossed the line,

And lost the plot, a bit.

Labels: poetry

Reading about the European Reformation(s) has revealed its charming linguistic legacy. 'Hocus pocus' and the 'Hokey cokey' are both satire on the latin mass, while the word 'puppet' was an insult to the papacy and the people around it. Just goes to show how much satire and humour has contributed to and been a part of all history. I find it curious how a sense of humour often seems to be shut out of academic study as it becomes far too clinical an activity. That's not to say that academic studies should themselves be a barrel of laughs, but that academic studies should not hesitate to take into account comedy and humour as part of the subject matter that is encompassed in their remit.

I got here. The bus was not as bad as I thought it would be, and I kept falling asleep anyway, so it went quite quickly. I don't think Banbury station had ever seen so many customers at once; I had to plough through crowded staircases to catch sight of the platform, and then leapt in a 1950s fashion on to the train as its doors closed. Eighteen minutes later I was in a taxi to my destination and, watching the colleges and trees pass me by, I felt refreshed that I'd got away. Manchester feels about 160 miles away, which is appropriate, since that is its approximate geographical distance from here.