Listening
Latest TTC course was Modern British Drama by Peter Saccio. Very short course: only eight 45-minute lectures. Quite selective: he discusses a handful of playwrights, going into one or two of their plays in some detail. Oscar Wilde, Noel Coward, George Bernard Shaw, John Osborne, Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, Caryl Churchill, David Hare.

American lecturer, a bit US-centric: in such a short course it's annoying that he has to waste precious time explaining who Margaret Thatcher was and such. Still interesting though: he's a very passionate enthusiast as well as well-informed, and a very good communicator. Worth a listen if you're interested in the subject.

Steam
Grabbed a kabocha squash the other day. Quite impressed. Tastes like a proper marrow, but is small enough to provide part of one meal's veg intake. Buying a whole marrow can be somewhat excessive. if you live alone. Also it apparently lasts for ages, which is another big bonus.

Didn't like the skin much though: apparently some people eat it but it seemed a bit dry and papery.

Wondering what other convenient vegetables there are that I'm missing...

Me
Grandmother's taken a turn for the worse. Going down to Bristol again for the day on Monday.

Tuesday: get some currency and some shopping.

Off to Spain on Wednesday. Never got around to booking a Madrid-Barcelona train in advance from the UK agent, (wish they'd take online orders instead of only accepting phone calls in business hours). Kind of stressing over the prospect of getting train/bus/plane tickets when there with my almost non-existent Spanish.

Also haven't booked the hotels yet.

Xmas shopping is more or less completed though due to the magic of Amazon. Decided to get my nephews' presents sent directly to them, though I'm seeing them at my parents' place just before Xmas: don't really want to make them lug the stuff all the way back to Belfast.

Masturbation
Tagged my Shelfari books. I'm sure it must make you go blind if you look through your own tag cloud too much.

Woohoo, the HuSi archive is back! (For now at least) Was really bugging me to have a year's worth of diaries and book reviews unavailable. (Hey Google, look here . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . )

Web
YouTube. Stoned cop's 911 call. Philip Glass animations on Sesame Street. Making armour [MeFi]

Send your future self an email (repeat?)

Economics. Laffer on the Laffer Curve:

I've never said all tax cuts pay for themselves. I never even said Reagan's tax cuts would pay for themselves...

I like Clinton and I like Bush as economic presidents.

Decline of Buffalo:

In general, when cities shrink, poverty isn’t far behind, for two reasons-- one obvious, the other subtler. The obvious reason: urban populations fall because of relocation of industry and drop in labor demand; as jobs vanish, people living in a city get poorer. The subtler reason: declining areas also become magnets for poor people, attracted by cheap housing. This is exactly what happened to Buffalo, whose median home value is just $61,000, far below the state average of $260,000. More than 10 percent of Buffalo’s residents in 2000, it’s worth noting, had moved there since 1995. The influx of the poor reinforces a city’s downward spiral, since it drives up public expenditures while doing little to expand the local tax base.