Delays and Circumstances

In recent times I've become very resistant to being autobiographical in the Quirky Muffin, preferring instead to write stories and reviews, but is that in line with the blog's original intent? Does the original intent even matter any more? Has the blog reached one of the earliest in will be a long string of existential crises?

We had an interruption to the Quirky Muffin earlier this week, and it was in large part down to my being a little sick, as well as starting a new job. Last week I was parachuted in as a temporary lecturer at Aberystwyth University for three months and of course it has been rather stressful getting started. In addition to my module I'm taking the opportunity to clean out my Statistics rust and learn R, and am remembering just how much Statistics there is to be forgotten! Masses and masses of the cursed subject, but it is very interesting. Viewed from a post-PhD perspective, Statistics is data management and analysis of the highest order. It's something to get back into and exploit in the future, although the murkiness of the future is best not contemplated at this time.

In addition to my sudden lecturer status or maybe because of it there was a small incident at the weekend and of course there had to be a visit to the accident and emergency department of the local hospital as a result. In the final analysis, but not that final thank you very much, there was not much wrong apart from over compression due to badly small trousers and a massive amount of gas wafting about the system seeking to cause an explosion. Baggy trousers from now on, and giant reductions in weight, if it can somehow be done without total physical and emotional collapse! There will be no eating disorders here, we don't do those. The nurse gave me a lovely turkey sandwich. Thank you, doctor and nurse! It almost made the six hours of waiting worthwhile. The seats at the hospital were terrible though, almost breaking my back and making walking almost unbearable for a couple of days. Shame on you, hospital!

Argh, it just feels wrong to talk explicitly about myself. There must be people out there who do this all the time, even lonelier than I, and sending a light out into the darkness to see if there's anyone there. There's a poignant part in the book 'Yes Man' by Danny Wallace (I must write about it), where he is wavering in his 'Yes Manifesto' and he searches the Internet for 'I wish I had said no' and then 'I wish I had said yes' and discovered the deep personal part of the Interwebs we all know and love. There are deeply personal and squeamishly emotional lives being laid bare out there, and it continues to happen, despite being terribly un-British. The Quirky Muffin will never be like that. This is a place of intellect, thought and total stupidity if only because those are my strengths as opposed to the emotional aspects of life.

My, 'Yes Man' is a good book. It will have to be covered eventually in concert with its predecessor and spiritual sibling 'Join Me' for a super-blog. They are funny, but also have a twinned melancholy that is emblematic of the ambiguity of all things real in the universe. None of his following books have ever touched those two primal texts, being somehow far more contrived than natural tales of real life events. It's quite similar to the developments in Tony Hawks books after he hitch-hiked around Ireland with a fridge, where contrivance overtook spontaneity in the tales being spun. Having said that I do love his 'One Hit Wonderland' and could well have just spoilt my own theory. Oh, boggle, we had better add some Tony Hawks to the book review lists too.

Coming up in the Quirky Muffin, now that the interruption is over? Some book reviews, stories, and less overt autobiographical content. What people learn about me remains in between the lines.

O.