THE GROVES

MICHAELMAS TERM


October 2006


1. This is my first day, and I arrive just in time to see a beauty parade, performed for the benefit of the new intake. Several members of the English Department march into the room and take a bow. Picture them now: one jolly farmer's wife, slightly flustered; a trainee bank manager; Mr Chips; two Jehovah's Witnesses; a medieval beauty who could be the Lady of Shalott; and here is the man who is to be my Personal Tutor. I can't decide if he looks more like the young Shakespeare or the Young Byron. Neither, I suspect, can he. The Creative Writing team can't compete in the beauty stakes: its members resemble Tolkien's dwarves and hobbits; short, fat, and hairy. But I remind myself that looks aren't everything...
SAYING OF THE DAY: 'Genesis you can get off the Internet.'




2. Pheasants and sheep scatter before me, as I turn in to the long drive leading to the university. The old banger in front is stuffed to the roof. Loose saucepans wash around in a sea of bursting bin bags. Perhaps, in three years time, I will be their academic equivalent, heaving with the stuff of knowledge.I jump out of the car and run to the lecture theatre and am ushered through a ground floor door into the crowded auditorium. I squeeze into a row near the front. After a few moments of anticipation, a phantom, which has been hovering in the wings, strides onto the podium. This is no fustianed pedagogue, but Byron and Elvis Presley rolled into one! My Personal Trainer, gorgeous in Regency frock coat, collarless shirt, blue jeans, shining ear-ring and with hair crulled in press, is doing a gig. In the front row, the Lady of Shalott rocks nervously in her chair and bites her nails. But she has no need to worry. He leaves the stage to a round of applause from the (largely female) audience. 'Lucky bastard', I think. He is in a state of innocence. He cannot know that his golden locks will soon turn to silver. By Friday I am done in. But at least I have learned that George Eliot can be googled; that one of my tutors has a dragon tattooed above her twin adipose hemispheres; that this is a text.




3. The time has come for my first seminar. When I look through the window of the appointed room, I think I have come to the wrong place. As a mature student, I am reassured by the sign outside: LEAVE YOUR WALKING FRAMES HERE and barge in. The atmosphere reminds me of a suburban library my mother used to take me to. All is hush and decorum. But then our learned tutor bursts through the door, strides across the room and perches cross-legged on the window ledge. He sports a moustache as thick as a broom. After pulling up the legs of his trousers, to save the creases, he beams at us and begins to talk. I can't place the accent; he doesn't actually say 'by eck, ey oop and by gum', but there is a smack of herring and cotton in it. His appearance is remarkable. There is something of the implacable tartar about him; he reminds me a little of Joe Stalin dressed as a Jehovah's Witness. He is imperturbable, unflappable, unstoppable and tells us about the Lady Chatterley trial. 'Would you allow your wife or servant to read it?' he chortles, 'would you?' Well, no, frankly I wouldn't... But I am reassured when he calls me 'old boy'. I am in safe hands. Thoughts of the gulag recede.




4. A HEATH. THUNDER. 'Any Christians? Anyone object to swearing? Any Aries males?' Is that the sound of sheep bells drifting in through the open window? No, it is the clanging of bangles as my lady tutor caracoles across the room. I am going to have to describe her outfit in detail. First there is the nose ring. Then there's the flouncey black lace mini skirt, the striped football socks, the unlaced Doc Martin's... When she stands up, which she frequently does, in order to demonstrate the finer points of her subject, her navel is revealed. Why is her belly button not pierced, I wonder? Everything else seems to be. When she turns around, her long black hair (grey roots) flying behind, and reaches up, as required by her balletic poses, a tattooed dragon shows itself above the cleft of her buttocks. What demi-devil or half-starved wretch would have dared to perform that operation, I wonder? Her name is unbelievable. She must have been to the lawyers for a deed poll. It's been lifted from Le Morte D'Arthur, it's straight out of The Mabinogion, it's... well, for once, discretion has got the better of me. Let's call her the Dark Lady.




5. I am due at the Dairy for the last session. I haven't been there before and wish I'd examined the map. It must be part of the old farmyard at the end of the campus. I go to the wrong building. I am lost. Who should come along the gravel path but the Lady of Shalott, modest and innocent as the first rose of summer? I dare to ask her the way, and yes, she answers. Her voice is soft, gentle, and low, an excellent thing, and for a moment I fear I may have been struck by a sharp and golden arrow.... But it has stuck fast in my copy of George Eliot, with whom I have to spend the unreturning hour. Mr Chips is hosting a session on The Mill on the Floss. He calls and I must answer.




6. The floor of the Arnold Centre, where my lecture is due to take place, is covered with girls in leotards, lying on their backs with their legs in the air. This is not what I expected... Neither is the lecture. Four learned doctors each do a ten minute stint. The one in charge, who I haven't seen before, looks rather like Germaine Greer. Her stockings are not blue, but red. Over a bloomsburyish black skirt, she wears a bright orange top, and, below it, derry boots, if you can remember what they are. You could say that she pays little attention to the laws of fashion. She may have the thick rimmed spectacles and tilted jaw of the intellectual but she appears to like both her subject and her subjects, which is all right by me. The Lady of Shalott sidles in, ten minutes late, and sits in the front row, with her back to me. She turns and smiles enigmatically, as if she knows something that we don't. She is wearing a low cut Laura Ashley cocktail dress and little granny boots. From time to time she modestly adjusts the black strap of her bra. While Germaine speaks, the other speakers sit in a row at the side, rocking independently of each other and clutching their heads. It is like stumbling across an undiscovered Masaccio Judgement of the Damned.




7. I have never used a computer and have no wish to use one. I made this clear before accepting a place at 'The Groves', and was told that I would be able to get by. This is not the case. In order to get a timetable, I have to ask the ladies in the office for help. When it appears, I abase myself before them, as I can't make sense of it. They look astonished when I kneel down on the floor, something I am forced to do for lack of hands and space. But they say nothing. Now I have my glasses on, I see that I am expected to attend every day. This presents me with serious logistical problems and as I leave the office, in a sorrowful daze, I bump into the Dark Lady. 'I haven't marked your piece,' she says, 'it's in the wrong format.' Now any new student who fancies his chances as a writer wants people to look at his efforts. I feel snubbed. Two minutes later, we meet upstairs for her seminar. I am going to sulk. She begins. Today, the Dark Lady is clad entirely in black. One elbow of her long-sleeved dress has gone through. I ask myself if she has been to a funeral, or whether she has been engaging in some kind of activity on the carpet, or both. She turns on the flickering light. LIGHTNING! and we are back on the heath, waiting for any secret black and midnight hags who may wish to join us. As if to encourage them, she waves a wand-like pen in the direction of the board. I notice that she wears rings on both thumbs and on all her fingers except the ring finger. Is she trying to tell us something? She is. 'My second novel...' This is thrown in all too casually as if it's been said before and will be said again. 'Get a life,' she mutters to herself with a shake of the head. We students are trained to look out for signs and portents. There seem to be plenty of them up here on the heath. But don't get me wrong. I like the Dark Lady. She is a performer. She is cool.




8. The circus is about to begin. Germaine takes off her jacket and chats to her young, crop-headed companion. Her hands are on her hips in the hearty fashion of a wartime captain of lacrosse. She raises one open hand which hovers strangely over her head, and leaps into the air with an enthusiastic grin. RIGHT! she says, and off we go. Six minutes later, the Lady of Shalott glides in, a picture of innocence. Obligingly, she tilts her head in my direction. Today she looks tired, but she tries hard to look interested in the subject. With her eyebrows raised, she even goes without blinking for a full two minutes. This must surely be a sign of intelligence. Occasionally, she makes a note on her pad, or taps it with her pen in the way that my granny tapped her cigarette case with a Senior Service. Germaine finally begins her peroration by reeling off the names of this week's pantheon: Keats, George Eliot, T.S.Eliot (no relation), Dylan. But those of us who hope for a few lines from the Rimbaud of Cwmdonkin Drive are to be disappointed. This, of course, is another Dylan...




9. Today I have a session with the jolly farmer's wife. We have have it on the best authority that she is passionate about poetry: she has said it herself. The door swings open and she enters the room with a look of benign anxiety, as if she has left a pramload of babies outside while she makes the tea at the village hall. 'Has anyone here heard of John Donne?' is her opening sally. There is no response. She looks relieved. After introducing the lecherous old dean to the creme de la creme, she moves on to Ben Jonson, and plays a CD of a poem in which the ageing poet (then ten years younger than me) complains that his grey hairs may not help him win his chosen lady. At this point, she fixes me with a look in which I think I detect a degree of humour, although she may only be regretting that, for obvious reasons, she can't point me out as living proof of what she is vainly trying to get across to her young charges. I might sue. 'And now, the sonnet'... Soon she will be wheeling her pramload of babies back home for some warm progress milk. And by the look of her, she can't wait.




10. I arrive three minutes late for a session with the Dark Lady, who sits behind her desk muttering curses about latecomers. I make no sound. I am as quiet as a nun. She is wearing fewer rings than last week, and I wonder if some have flown off during a seminar. She sports several long, beady, necklaces and oversized hairgrips. I soon realise why she is sitting. She is wearing new platform boots, in lime green suede, which are not designed for standing, let alone walking, in. After a while she announces that it's time for a break. She struggles to her feet, is propelled forward by the shape of her footwear, and leaves the room looking like a dancing girl from Aida, although I haven't yet seen a performance where the girls wear black trousers with six buckles down each leg. When she returns, (how nature abhors a vacuum) we learn that by using our descriptive powers we can change a work set in contemporary times into a historical novel. For instance, if we substitute 'muff' for 'gloves' we might surprise ourselves and produce another Dr Zhivago. I find this tip well worth the journey, but the best is yet to come. It is time to move on from the uses of description, which, it seems, are limited to hurrying the story-line along.
SAYING OF THE DAY: 'Writers like Julian Barnes are so far up their own bottoms that they aren't just anal, they're rectal... sphinctal'.





11. ARCHYBIOG (after J.Heath-Stubbs)



'Archibald', as few people are aware,
Was conceived on a sofa on the Essex coast,
When his mother (one assumes) laid bare
Her person, between the ironing and the Sunday roast.


Because his father from home was frequently absent
And his mother washed dishes at a college,
Various elementary skills he quickly learnt,
And could soon prepare tinned soup, baked beans, and porridge.


At six years old, a nice girl, pretty and sweet,
Took him to a bomb site, lifted her gingham dress,
Revealed unguessed of secrets, dangerous and sweet,
But left, alas, no forwarding address.


Growing strong on school milk, he soon learnt how to fight,
Dodged trouble, if he could, was thought to shirk,
Felt shame, fear, hated football, was not over-bright,
Excelled at playing conkers, but not school work.


Later the Law was chosen, as a safe career,
In which he showed no aptitude for legal skills,
Preferring the company of women and drinking beer,
To conveyancing, probate, litgation and wills.


In due course, to a saintly woman he was married,
And having fathered several children and an unregarded book,
Acquiring neither merit nor money, for a while he tarried,
Glimpsed angels, visions, palaces; was grateful for the look.


His pleasures in old age included books, memories and gin,
And, while contemplating all he'd lost and found,
Hoped, at the last, to be absolved of sin,
Hoped to be ready, should the last strumpet sound.





12. It has taken over two weeks to get an appointment with the head of Cr Wr about my timetable, and in order to intimidate him, I wear a tie. It may well be the first time that anyone (other than Uncle Joe in his disguise as a Jehovah's Witness) has ever worn one at this august institution. The ghost of Lindsay Anderson watches scornfully, as I put it on. I arrive punctually, and, after knocking, look in through the open door. I can see no-one, and retreat to examine the walls of the 'foyer' as it is grandly called in the prospectus. The shabby walls are decorated with photos of the Eng Lit and Cr Wr teams, and must have been taken when Philip Larkin was Poet Laureate. Sadly, I note that even the Lady of Shalott has aged. I knock on the door for a second time (is there anybody there, he said?). The Head of Cr Wr has been there all the time! He is sitting behind the door looking up my details on the computer, and leaves the door open while we have our discussion. I mention that students living on site with the same 'modules' (no, these aren't a symptom of illness) only have to attend three days a week, rather than five, like me. Is it right that teenagers lie abed while a pensioner drives 150 miles through the autumn gales? He blames the computer. He cannot help. He is clearly not intimidated by the tie, which I resolve to throw away. Through the open door, I see the Dark Lady, resting on the photocopier. A look of pain crosses her face. She has seen me. I expect she thinks I am complaining about her, or perhaps she just wants to get those boots off and have a cheroot.I also have to speak to him about my lack of computer skills, as I can't get anyone to look at my work. I tell him I raised the point before accepting the university's offer. 'Well,' he says, after asking me what I did in real life (which he knows anyway) 'we don't want any writs, do we?' Immediately, I wonder whether I have overdone it. Can't he see that it's all a game? But I am into the role, and, as I leave, I adjust first my spectacles, and then my tie, and nod affably, with only a hint of menace. Two minutes after the conclusion of our interview, I see him talking to the Dark lady by the photocopier, and hear him whisper 'I'll tell you later.'



13. THE FOLLOWING ENTRY HAS BEEN PORRIDGED* (see Lent Term entries 57-60).
My Personal Trainer comes on stage punctually at nine, wearing a new silver suit over a black open-necked shirt. He looks like a game-show presenter on TV. His trimmed sideburns stand out like maps of Italy. When the Lady of Shalott slips in, I am pleased to note that she pays him no attention at all, but goes straight to her seat. She is wearing a long, purple, velvet dress and looks more Tennysonian than ever. 'I am a-weary, a-weary', her look seems to say. A new, young doctor is about to speak. She is pretty, and when she shakes her black locks resembles a painting by Ghirlandhaio. She leans almost too confidently on the strange white contraption in the middle of the stage. She has taken off her (CENSORED............................................................ CENSORED.....................................................................................................) But too much glottal stop cures me of my momentary lack of fidelity towards the true object of my affections, who, it must be said, is glaring at her, the corrugations in her brow surely revealing some inner sorrow.
SAYING OF THE DAY (uttered by the young, crop-headed Jehovah's Witness, who I now call 'Caliban' because when on stage, he wriggles like a dancer until he has tied his body into knots): 'HAS ANYONE HEARD OF ROBINSON CRUSOE?... Hands up... GREAT!'
NOTES: * for more information on Porridging see entry on Bowdler in DNB


14. Fog holds me up, and I arrive fifteen minutes late for the circus. I slip in at the back. The scene before me reminds me of a 1960's TV show, called Juke Box Jury . Five chairs are arranged in a semi-circle for the five speakers, one of whom is doing a turn. Behind them, adding to the atmosphere, are a number of musical instruments, presumably left over from a weekend performance. I am too far back to get much of a view, but, next to the pretty one sits the Lady of Shalott. She dreams as usual, and strokes her cheek, thoughfully, while resting her chin on her snow white hand. She rocks back and forth. The pretty one really does look the part today and there is less evidence of glottal stop, which makes me think she might have just returned from a weekend with the parents, who I decide must be retired army people living in Camberley. When she sits down, a third lady doctor takes over. This one has a rich West Country accent, and looks as if she has just won a prize in the local gymkhana. She is stuck for an example of a dactyl and tries a bold sally. 'The only example of a dactyl I can think of this morning is TESTICLE!' RING! The jury has pressed its bell. This one is a HIT! Well done the West Country! 'What about INTERCOURSE?' says the pretty one, 'or ORGASM?' The other doctors join in with further suggestions which I am too far back to hear. The Lady of Shalott nods, sagely. This is one lesson I am not going to forget.


15. This afternoon, I have a session with the village schoolmaster type, who I think of as Mr Chips. He dresses as if for a spot of light gardening and seems a kind and decent sort. In fact, he reminds me of myself... We students have assembled in one of the smaller lecture theatres, and await his arrival, in our tiers of chairs. BANG! In he sweeps, no longer kind, no longer mild-mannered. He is changed, changed utterly! There is something masterful about him today, in fact he looks like an older version of that chap from Wuthering Heights: dark haired, storm-tossed, black-eyed, glowering. I can only imagine that some great change has happened in his life, an 'epiphany' in the Joycean sense.(O yes, we students pick up these little things). While he is instructing us on the merits of George Eliot, some giggling is going on in the seats immediately behind me. Perhaps the girls are laughing at my bald patch, or my SAGA pen, free with an insurance quote. Heathcliff finishes off his lecture with a forgotten punch line, and strides to the back of the room. 'Excuse me,' he says, 'but I don't appreciate sniggering when I'm teaching. If you're going to snigger in my lectures, you can fuck off.' Now that has to be the saying of the day...



16. First to put in an appearance this morning is Caliban, in a wide-brimmed hat, not unlike the one worn by Donatello's David, who, it must be remembered, wore nothing else. When Caliban puts his hands in his pockets he keeps the thumbs out. When both hands are displayed, he holds one thumb inside the palm of the other hands, and rotates them slowly, like a boy scout trying to make fire. We students are here to learn and you can learn a lot from observing people's mannerisms. The other doctors troupe in from their beds. The pretty one, straight from a weekend away, brings three large bags in with her. She yawns. She is not shy. Caliban dances in front of them, eyebrows like a satyr, hair tufts like horns.In the middle of the stage stands the familiar white object which looks rather like an abandoned electric cooker. The doctors take turns to fiddle with it. Something is obviously wrong, and Germaine explains that they want to show us slides of rape scenes, as depicted by artists through the centuries. That is what the machine is for. If these scenes are fumbled, she hints, it will be due to faulty equipment, not lack of desire on her part.The Lady of Shalott speaks on stage for the first time. She is wearing a thin, hippyish, cotton skirt and, as usual, her black bra strap is showing. She disdains to use the microphone which the others have handled like so many failed Spice Girls. Her voice is pleasing to the ear. I detect an Irish lilt. Of course! this explains her high-arched brows, her sadness, everything. But when she mentions Cupid's Aero, I reach for my dog-eared copy of George Eliot, who, so far, has been proof against all charms. The truth is that I have no wish to fall in love ever again. If anyone told me that they were in love, I would offer my condolences, and a copy of Middlemarch.



17. Mr Chips looks more like Heathcliff than ever, as he strides in, with his hair freshly tousled by the wind so that it covers his bald patch, and his newly acquired air of dominance. I can only assume that a new woman has come into his life, and that she has given him some Bamfi, a Hungarian preparation a friend of mine assures me restores not only the hair, but its natural colour. At the end of the lecture, Heathcliff tells us, with a sneer, to look on his noticeboard for details of what to mug up for his next seminar. Later, I spend half an hour wandering around the English Department looking for this noticeboard, which, I eventually discover, is what they call 'virtual'. What am I, some kind of freak? I do, however, see the following notice, which is not virtual: DO YOU WANT TO SHARE WITH SIX FRIENDLY THIRD YEAR GIRLS? LARGE ROOM INCLUDED WITH DOUBLE BED. But I shall not be pursuing this. I have an essay to write on George Eliot.



18. 'Dickens is poo', suggests the Dark Lady, with an expression of disgust on her crimson lips. Then, having seen my bewildered look, she asks me what Bleak House is about. She likes to throw a bone to the old dog, in order to see what he's up to, I think. 'Er... fog? er... deadlock?' 'It's about oppression and injustice!' she declares. She doesn't like Dickens one bit. She likes Terry Pratchett because he can be read on five levels. We students may read him at level two, but she... 'Anyone read Tristram Shandy?... well, don't bother'. 'Why have these books lasted so long,' I ask? 'Elitism!' suggests one of the students. She seems to think this must be right, and adds, rather dreamily, 'I've got a friend with a Jacobean Manor House. He knows Princess Anne. It's a different world...'



19. 'This is the day for your first submissions!' announces Germaine at today's session of the circus. There is an element of music hall melodrama in the way she says it, leaning forward and speaking with a stage whisper. Why doesn't anyone shout back 'Oh no it isn't'? Are they all trembling with fright? I feel smug. My submission is ready. On each sheet I have carefully typed my name and student number so that it won't get lost in the system. She leans forward again. ' They must be in by NOON. And they must, of course, be ANONYMOUS!' Now it is my turn to tremble... Anonymous. Whatever can I do? The old Adler portable on which I do my typing is three hours drive away. But I suddenly remember Tippex, hurry to the stationery shop, hand over 99p, and head for the library in the hope of finding a table. I sit down between two girls and crouch over the pot like a solvent addict in an attempt to work out what to do next. After a brief stuggle the white fluid spurts out. It makes me feel like a pervert, but I get the job done and join a procession of anxious students as they head for the English department, where a special postbox awaits us. The foyer is heaving with students putting official covers with stick- down slips over their efforts in order to preserve their anonymity. They are all taking it very seriously. What their counterparts from 1968 would have thought of it, I can't imagine.



20. Autumn is over us. The air is misty and chill; the breath of the students can be seen as they hurry along the paths to their classes; the leaves of the many fine trees are turning yellow and gold; the words of unfashionable poets come to mind. The lawn in front of the fine old Country House at the heart of the university is now a giant roundabout, where lumbering articulated buses turn before disgorging students coming in from their digs in the city. They walk sedately around the grass, which they never cross. If you see a lonely figure on this wide, wide sea of green, it is certain to be the poet attached to the Cr Wr department. A slight, bearded, middle-aged man, he looks as if he thinks he's being followed by the secret police. Watch him now as he makes his way over the grass, looking both ways with his eyes, but not turning his head. He could be a cross between Kafka and Swinburne.I am on my way to have something to eat at the refectory. It is a large, hangar-like building, which I don't much care for. Staff have a special area upstairs in the gods. You can sometimes see them through the glass divide. I sit down with my sandwich, feeling a little lonely. Today I have Yeats for company. 'This is no country for old men', he tells me, 'The young in one another's arms...' Come to think of it, although I have noticed that the students are relaxing, and that a few seem happy in their little groups, there is little sign of 'romance'. I suppose they got all that out of the way at their mixed-sex schools when they were twelve. The young are no longer in one another's arms. Is this, perhaps, why poetry is left on the shelf?




21.The time has come for students of Cr Wr to prepare their portfolios for submission, and from the way in which the task is spoken of, you would think our lives depended on it. We have to submit four short pieces of work and an essay. The four pieces of work do not represent a problem; I have cupboards stuffed with pieces of work. The cushions of the sofa are a foot higher than they should be. But it is a sad fact that as much as I admire the erudition and style of the Dark Lady, we are not simpatico. She doesn't do poetry. Can I let this one-woman Rocky Horror Show pry into my secret self and wield the pen of correction over my humble efforts? Then there is the essay, the subject of which, once stripped of its academic adornments and folderols comes down to: what I have learnt from you this term. The answer should be 1500 words. I could answer it in one, or possibly two... Well, I decide to crack on and speak de profundis: 'Unlike the other arts, Literature is by its very nature elitist because it can only be understood by a small percentage of human beings...(and you aren't one of them!)' I also knock up a poem, in the manner of that charming old poet, who complained in old age (with a laugh) that his one regret was that he hadn't had enough sex. I'll let you know what she makes of them in due course.





22.(THE POEM):

NEWLY WEDS VISIT MOTHER (1962)


Bosomy clouds of blackthorn beckon
Down the winding lanes of Devon,
Where our Austin-Healey's racing,
As we hurry home to heaven,
Avonlea, where Mother's baking
Scones and jam for Sunday tea,
Scones and jam for Joan and me.

Firm bare legs and cloudy bosom,
Winding paths that lead to joy,
Memories of cycle journeys,
Made by us as girl and boy,
To the limpid rock-pooled seaside,
Where the sea left emerald traces,
On our arms and on our faces.

Here's the turning! Here is Mother
Waiting for us patiently,
In the short-sleeved floral frock,
Which she wears for Sunday tea.
'You sit there dear. That's the kettle-
I must check the scones are done.'
Joan says 'how about a quick one?'

And puts my hand upon her knee.'
Stop, she's coming down the hallway!'
Hurriedly, we cease caressing,
Mother carries in the tea-tray,
Mother's smile bestows a blessing,
Mother pours the Sunday tea,
And hands the cups to Joan and me.




Who knows? I may be hailed as the New Chatterton, 'the marvelous old boy', though I rather doubt it.



23. I am sitting in the refectory. From the glass dance studio across the courtyard, the girls file in. They find it hard to sit still, and wriggle and bop, even as they eat their salads. A team of students push a trolley in, on which rests an enormous camera and a microphone wrapped in black fur. This contraption is wheeled to the table where the girls are sitting. They are filmed and interviewed as they nibble their salads. Knowing what little comfort there is in lettuce, I buy myself some bangers and mash and a can of Guinness and sit back to watch the show. The influence of Hollywood has made me extravagant.
I turn to Rousseau's Confessions. He sees himself as an actor in the cosmic drama. 'Look down there,' he seems to say. 'There's Jean-Jacques. How interesting he is!' I read that a young woman, who for disciplinary reasons felt obliged to beat him so enjoyably, accidentally bared her buttocks to the King of Sardinia. I have my notebook ready. Here I am, an eager student. Will this seat of learning bare itself to me? Will it?


24.(Tutor) SAYING OF THE WEEK: (Referring to the Authorised version of the Bible): 'The King James version did such a disservice to the English language. Have you read the Book of Leviticus Archy? Have you?'
(Student) SAYING OF THE WEEK: 'You always look so puzzled, Archy.'
(Me) SAYING OF THE WEEK: 'I am puzzled'.


25. On the way to the library, figures in leotards flit across the first floor window of the Dance Studio. I hear the thump of feet shod in ballet shoes, and, from another room, shouting. In the Music Department, stage right, a saxophone blares.To take out a book from the library, you place your card, and then the book, under a red ray which reads a bar-code. I am secretly proud that I have mastered this procedure, even though it goes against the life-illusion I have fostered of being irredeemably old fashioned. The red ray passes across my wrist. Is it safe? Will Student 6652895 be metamorphosed into an insect? Read on to find out.


26. Heathcliff, (formerly Mr Chips) hands me back my 'reading diary' in which I am supposed to put down my thoughts on George Eliot as I go along. 'It starts off well,' he says, 'but deteriorates'. This must be because I just can't get myself to re-read The Mill On The Floss' after forty years. I am bluffing, and it shows. I can't very well tell him the truth: that the purpose I put her to is to guard me against Cupid's Aero. How could he possibly understand?


27.Parking outside one of the halls of residence, I see that a window of one room is curtained with an image of Che Guevara. This is the first evidence that I have seen of any revolutionary spirit, here at the university, even though it is an anachronism. On reflection, its purpose is likely to be purely decorative; it could just as well be Warhol's Marilyn shutting out the light. I find this odd. Surely, the young have always rebelled. The Greek gods did unspeakable things to their parents; Byron kept a bear at college because the rules forbade the keeping of dogs; my contemporaries sat in, while over the channel the students sacked Paris and General de Gaulle with it. I think Lindsay Anderson was nine when he wrote the words I REBEL on the school blackboard. The students here are so well behaved, schooled in fact. I deduce that either we are now living in a perfect society, or that something is wrong...


28. You can buy The Times at the Student Union shop for 25p. This discovery gives me an unreasonable amount of pleasure as I am both strapped for cash and frugal by nature. But if the quality papers are trying to get us youngsters hooked at an early age, I think they are wasting their time. There are also free postcards on offer. No-one reads the paper or sends postcards these days. I walk the quarter mile to the refectory where I can get a coffee. At 75p a cup it seems expensive, but it is a luxury I can afford. How the students manage, I don't know; unless my wife has left me, I'll get a square meal at the end of the day. It is warm enough to take my coffee to a table outside. The leaves of the ash trees are still green. It is a mild, damp, colourless morning, the sort that encourages visits to cemeteries. A few students drift by, looking as if they were on a gap year in Thailand. They carry shoulder-bags like postmen, or rucksacks. Solitary ones sport an ear plug or fiddle with a mobile phone. A mature student, who wears the look of a tragic heroine from the silver screen, emerges and lights a cigarette. I feel a sudden wave of nostalgia for this lost art. But then she coughs, and coughs...


29. We have another Open Day, where young mothers trail around with younger clones of themselves in their search for betterment (O matre pulchra filia pulchrior- O lovely mother's yet lovelier daughter- soon only a few cranks will keep such lines alive). I am in favour of Open Days because parents can eat in the 'gods' area of the refectory and at my age I can still pass for a parent, if not a god. As usual, a large supply of glossy paperwork is lying around. I pick up a prospectus. It is designed to look like an expensive travel brochure, and shamelessly tries to sell places by offering would-be students what they want. Sylvia Plath, for instance, has a whole module to herself. So does Margaret Atwood. It is strange how these women authors pop up with a star billing all to themselves. I am not surprised to find a module on George Eliot because I know she has an admirer in Heathcliff. Perhaps, for him, she is the equivalent of Proust's madeleine; maybe his first awakening experience occurred while he was immersed in her pages. The enthusiastically written prose of the prospectus, in which the words 'focused', 'opportunity' and 'explore' appear all too often, is interspersed with pictures of happy students wielding guitars, or gazing dreamily into the future...


30. I have been reading about George Eliot, which I hope may save me from having to read her. Lady Amberley (a friend) called her 'repulsively ugly, from the immense size of her chin', Henry James (an admirer) called her 'a horse-faced blue-stocking', and referred to her 'vast ugliness', and Meredith, who had been as beautiful, when young, as my Personal Trainer, described her as 'having the long proboscis, the protruding teeth of the Apocolyptic horse.' I also learn that when they were honeymooning in Venice, her husband flung himself from a balcony into the Grand Canal. Poor old George. No wonder she took to writing books...But I have a confession to make. I no longer believe that Hell is George Eliot. I am in her debt. Not only has she saved me from Cupid's Aero, but I have enjoyed her as a character, which is an aspect of literature which should not be under-rated. Am I learning something after all? Taxpayer, I leave you to decide!


30.Dr Frankenstein began to miss the monster he had created if he hadn't seen it for a while. I begin to feel the same way about the Dark Lady. Really, I rather like her, and may have given her a bad press. She is responsible for these entries. In my first seminar with her, she suggested we should all write a piece so that she had a starting point as to our abilities. The title was to be First Impressions. Off I went. After a week, when I bumped into her, she said she couldn't mark it, because it was in the wrong format. I explained that my Adler portable only had the format it was born with. A week later she asked me if I still wanted her to mark it, and again the next, until I shrugged my shoulders and said that I didn't care. I have been sulking ever since. As far as I know, she has never looked at it. And, what the eye doesn't see... Here she is, hovering around the car park. In her footwear she couldn't touch the ground if she wanted to. She has had her grey bits dyed a lurid shade of purple to match her fluffy sweater. 'You look lovely,' I say. 'Where were you on Friday? ' she asks. You see she really does care. She has to follow edicts from above. And the computer is a fundamental part of the way ahead.

NOTE:In case you are wondering why this is the only blog out of countless millions that reads chronologically and not backwards, the reason is that I have only just discovered that I should be doing it under the heading 'new post' and not 'edit'. I am learning on my feet, or rather on my backside. Please forgive.


31. Uncle Joe enters the room. His moustache is truly magnificent, a monument of bristle. I haven't attended his classes for some time, which is the cause of some regret for me, since he is bright as well as bushy. I wonder if he will recognise me after such a long time, but he greets me like an old friend. My non-attendance has worried him. He has been sending me e-mails in order to check that I am all right. I am touched by his concern, and ask how he has been sending me e-mails, as I don't have a computer. He explains that he has been sending them to the University. I feel like Wordsworth, bewildered among woods immense. Uncle Joe has not been able to mark my submission, which he waves at me, because it hasn't been sent electronically, and asks me to come to his room when he has dealt with the fry of teachery who have gathered together to await their share of praise or chastisement.Up I go. This is a doctor's appointment. The surprise is that he shares a room, and his crop-headed cohabitee is present, tapping away at his computer. A mystery is solved. I have been wondering why I had thought that Caliban looked like a Jehovah's Witness when I first saw him, but now all is clear. Jehovah's Witnesses work in pairs. The one with the moustache wears a white mackintosh and carries an empty black attache case, and the other runs alongside handing out copies of The Watchtower. This is how they appeared to me at the Beauty Parade on that first morning. Anyway, Uncle Joe is charming, and, living up to his soubriquet, avuncular. He packs me off to a building where hundreds of computers wait for me.


32. In the 'Computer Suite' I look for two students wearing yellow badges marked SOAC. (There but for a typographical error go I...) They are rattling away at their keyboards and the room abounds with all the flashes and bangs of a war movie. One of them looks up the e-mail 'account' that I didn't know I had. He is kind and patient, if a little puzzled. Ninety-two E mails are waiting for me. To someone who has never sent, seen or received an e-mail, this comes as a surprise. The SOAC looks equally surprised when I ask if he can print them out for me, and after some confused moments it becomes clear that most of them are circulars, not letters from the Vice-Chancellor asking me to explain myself, or to join him for a sherry. In fact, a dozen or so seem to be about lost rings. I immediately think of the Dark Lady. She was missing a few when we last met. Perhaps one or two flew off during a seminar.The young SOAC sets up a computer for me. I type out my submission, and the lad comes back to waft it through the aether. Uncle Joe will now be able to mark the essay he held in his hand this morning. I can't help thinking that we academics inhabit a very strange world.


33. Today, I have to type out my Cr Wr stuff on the computer, which will mean spending two hours in an alien environment. What my Adler produces is perfectly legible. It is a sad day for Luddism, and so hot in the Computer Suite that I begin to see why the girls at the university wear hardly any clothes. It is like an overheated swimming pool in here. I hang up my tweed jacket as an offering to the Gods and dream of the old days. (...uvida suspendisse potenti vestimenta... 'I hang up my garments out of respect for Neptune'.)


34. As I climb them, I pass my Personal Trainer skipping down the stairs. He is wearing the silver suit again. It reminds me of Travis's in O Lucky Man! He also sports two, large horseshoe shaped silver ear-rings. He condescends to say 'hello' before he goes on his way rejoicing. On my way out of the foyer, I notice a board shoved into a corner. It is the one that appeared on stage last week. It proclaims:
BAKHTIN
PROUST
We've done them, I reflect. Each got a thirty second mention. They are yesterday's men. And if they've got a degree of immortality, they can't enjoy today's winter sunshine. On the other hand, even though I am not likely to get a degree of any kind, I can.It is just warm enough for me to have my sandwich in the Italian Garden. Off I go to it, dodging the puddles and keeping a lookout for the Lady of Shalott, who I once saw walking up this path. The Italian Garden is walled on three sides and has a medieval gateway at one end and a handsome tower at the other. Perhaps she lives in that tower. A fountain plays, rather feebly on each side of the gravel path. It stands comparison with the quad of a minor Oxford college. I have never seen anyone sitting in it. Most of the leaves have fallen. In no time I will be as dead as them and rather deader than Bakhtin and Proust. I will be carried to the flames unremembered... A shudder comes o'er me... the wind bites... too much solitude. Perhaps I should get an ipod and a mobile. Actually, I have no idea what an ipod is. Perhaps it is what they used to call a 'Walkman'. In my day, they had trannies. The meaning of that word has changed out of all recognition. What man in his right mind would put a trannie to his ear now? What a fascinating subject English is...


35. Here in the refectory I sit alone at a table. At other tables, in sixes and sevens, sit twenty-two girls. I am having a baguette, bought at the Student Union for £1.85. It tastes good and is good value, but it makes me reflect on the horrors of modern life. How do you eat it? The egg mayonnaise oozes out. I bite it like an animal and devour it too quickly in the hope that I will not be seen by the Lady of Shalott should she pass by. Even though my existence, to her, is unknown, the embarrassment would kill me. I have a twinge of indigestion, and then the reason why there are no visible signs of romance at this institution comes upon me with a fine suddenness. It is not because the students aren't interested (see entry 19); the few male students are either hors de combat, or actively engaged in it. This, a student of literature might say, is a Keatsian moment.


36. It is just after 8 o'clock, on a Monday morning. I drive through the gateway, and over the five cattle ramps, park the car and head for the English Dept. There are puddles everywhere, and you have to watch out for cars in case you get splashed , but the day is brilliant, the air cold and biting. The leaves have all fallen. Workmen rake the paths and temporary fences are in place where building work has been taking place. No expense has been spared since this establishment was metamorphosed from a lowly college to a university, except perhaps where the English dept. is concerned. This is Malcolm Bradbury country. There is something of the Eastern Bloc about the building where our mother tongue has its home. The automatic doors fly open rather too enthusiastically for my liking, and I find myself inside. I am confronted with a sign: PLEASE DO NOT SIT ON THE CUPBOARD. It takes me back forty years. This is Education as I remember it. This week's main task is to type my Eng Lit stuff on one of the many fine computers provided for my use, and I am not looking forward to it.


37. Today, in the Arnold Centre, we are to have a Cr Wr lecture, where the stage is set for a Christmas production of what must be The Wind in the Willows. From the papier mache forest a man emerges and begins to get himself ready. He is big, with a shaven head, and wears a leather jacket, a black shirt, and a pair of old jeans. He must be about fifty, and looks every inch a nightclub bouncer. Like Chaucer's Miller, he could heave any door off its hinges, or simply break it by running at it with his head. Promptly on the hour, up gets an expressionless female who claps her hands viciously to demand silence, and, speaking with an American accent, introduces him. He is the Booker shortlisted X and speaks surprisingly softly. On the table in front of him, are two of his novels, which he fondles affectionately, as if for reassurance. I like the fellow. He speaks well. I'm glad I came.Later, when I'm on the way to the car park, I see him driving along in a tiny Fiat, looking like a Sumo wrestler who's somehow been shoehorned into a toy car. Sometimes there is an element of tragedy in the commonplace.


38. Sitting diagonally opposite me while I eat my sandwich, is a solitary elderly man in glasses, laughing his head off. He is vaguely oriental in appearance, and clutches at the neck of a heavy, old fashioned overcoat, as if it is some kind of cloak, and he is Lear out on the heath having buckets of water thrown over him. Beneath it, under the table, I see a saffron dress and realise that he is a Buddhist monk. What on earth is he doing here? On the other side of the rain-soaked windows, the Lady of Shalott passes by. She must need warmth and shelter. But what can I do? For reassurance, I pat the left pocket of my tweed jacket.


39. After a wet journey, I am nine tenths of the way along the drive leading to 'The Groves', when I see a big red plastic bag struggling up some steps carrying two small blue plastic bags. I see the familiar arched eyebrows and sad expression, and, in an instant, I realise that it is the Lady of Shalott, and that she has two bairns, if that is what they are called in the Emerald Isle, and that she is depositing them in a creche before starting work. Now, where could they have come from? I suppose it explains why she sometimes looks so tired. It is very dark in the lecture theatre, but the circus is the first event after the weekend, and you get what you find. Rubbing her leg against mine is an overpierced girl wearing leopardskin tights. She puts her booted feet up on the back of the chair in front. When my eyes have grown accustomed to the dark, I see the lowering Arthur Rackham trees of the Wind in the Willows stage set. At one end of the stage is a fireplace with HOME SWEET HOME written above it. Then the Lady of Shalott strolls in at a steady pace, as if from a five mile walk in the forest, stopping only when she gets to a seat. She throws off her red plastic bag and sits by the fire. Perhaps she is Red Riding Hood. Very calmly (I am always amazed that women can do this so un-self-consciously wherever they may be) she puts on some lipstick and gazes at the script as if into a mirror. A big young fellow with a beard strides on. Is he the woodman? And where is the big bad wolf? The bearded chap talks to us about Nietzsche and Myth, and strides manfully about the stage in the manner of a blond beast. Personally, I think a little Wagner might add to the atmosphere, but this is England, and neither Wagner nor the Nazis get a mention. If Adolf Hitler walked in with half a dozen generals in attendance, the students wouldn't notice, Uncle Joe would look on from the side with that same implacable expression, the Fuhrer would join in the applause, and we could all adjourn for tea.


40. As I sip my morning coffee from a cardboard cup, I see the hairy ankles and booted feet of an elderly nun, wearing an orange frock, pass by. I look up to see that it is the Bhuddist monk. We smile at each other and nod several times. He is wondering what on earth this elderly Englishman is doing here, and if you were asking the same question, I would not be in the least surprised.


41. There are three forlorn papier mache trees standing outside the Arnold Centre, as I wait for the door to be unlocked on this wild Monday morning. They are just big enough to contain a man; only his eyes would show. I could perhaps, purloin one, and move it into a strategic position from where I could devote my life to the observation of the Lady of Shalott. When we get indoors I see that the Wind in the Willows scenery has now gone. The Christmas show is already over. Time has no meaning in the Groves of Academe. Germaine is first in, dressed rather demurely, for her, in black, save for the derry boots. She heaves four chairs into position and sits down. In comes Caliban, sporting a new beard, followed by The Lady of Shalott and the pretty one. The ladies sit and start to talk in an animated fashion, while Caliban ties himself in knots, as usual. Shalott sits neatly, like a small girl on her chair, with her feet in their little boots pointing inwards. No, we are not going to do The Judgement of Paris, but Antony and Cleopatra, which, Germaine leaps to her feet to announce, we are going to ACT. Students are invited to join in the performance. Only two oblige and we are short of a eunuch. Rather nobly, Caliban volunteers. After the show they sit down and have a discussion in the manner of Melvyn Bragg. The Lady of Shalott raises a point about Antony: 'He is merried' she says, which makes it sound more jolly than it sometimes is. Then we have questions. The doctors really enjoy themselves, and so do I.


42. Heathcliff is ill and his mid-day lecture is cancelled. I think of him tucked up in bed with George Eliot and a hot water bottle. It is a blessed release for all three of us. I need to telephone my wife to announce the hour of my proposed return and attempt to use the only payphone at the university. I have to hold the phone, the phonecard (acquired after a long walk) and the open notebook containing my telephone number, all at the same time. At the end of the corridor in which I am standing, girls are cartwheeling in leotards. I do not get through. It is all too much for me.


43. After a long, dark, drive, I take my seat and doze for a few minutes as the students arrive. Caliban appears, wearing a stylish black overcoat and fedora, looking from behind like The Third Man. He turns to reveal today's secret: his beard has gone. When I next look up, I see Germaine, the pretty one, the West Country winner in the dactyl class, and, last but not least, the back of the Lady of Shalott as they stand discussing how best to manage today's show. Shalott looks like a boyish young theatre hand, in black top, trademark black bra strap and jeans, all ready for the gig. Caliban, as usual, is a bit out of it. He is, after all, the only man in a woman's world. He has taken off his hat and coat and, for want of anything better to do, chews his thumb as a starving man might chew a buttered corn on the cob. Germaine springs forward, rubs her hands and announces: 'RIGHT everybody, we're going to do the last act of Antony and Cleopatra! Why don't you all move over to this side...' Numbers are down. The holiday season is upon us. The pretty one takes the part of Cleopatra, but Shalott doesn't mind being her handmaid. It is a further sign of her sweet nature. And her hair is tied up with a black velvet band...


44. (NB An example of the passages Mr Porridge requires deleted is shown in BOLD in this entry- see Lent Term post).
I wait for the next lecture, which is to be given by Heathcliff. Outside, I pass the Lady of Shalott, who is carrying a Trajan's Column of three coffees in cardboard cups. And she smiles at me. O, frabjous day!* The lecture? Well, it's all a blur. For the first time, George Eliot doesn't even get a mention. When my attention wanders, I look through the window to see my Personal Trainer, dressed for winter sports, passing by. Perhaps he is off to join the young princes in Klosters, or wherever they go. He has all the swagger and confidence of a gold medallist. I long to play the part of an old seer and to warn him of hubris.Slowly, in the gloom of late afternoon, I head back to the car park. Shadows of girls flit against the glass on the first floor of the new building. Down below, a dozen leotarded freshettes sit on the floor in a circle, describing an arc with one leg. A girl struggles along the track with a cello in a black case covered in stickers. Someone carries a Christmas tree, which bobs up and down ahead of me. I have no-one to say goodbye to on this the final day of term. I take my last look, and feel lonely and a little sad. My fellows are beginning their journeys; I am an old man, a dinosaur, a freak, a saddo. But at least I have achieved a kind of freedom: I will never again have to go to the office party.
* Shocking, isn't it?



LENT TERM
JANUARY 2007

45. ‘Heavy rain spreading from the west’ is the forecast I hear as I turn in through the gateway. Hundreds of snowdrops greet me from the verge. It is the first day of the new term. I realise that I am listening to a tape and that the forecast is for last week. It is uncannily accurate, but then it has been raining for weeks. Splashing blindly along the verge, as I head for the car park, is our giant of literature, the Booker shortlisted X. He looks as if he has been thrown out of a pub at closing time and has been wandering about in the rain all night. I park by the farthest jakes, next to a pick-up truck, in the back of which lies a discarded Christmas tree. The festivities are over. The English dept waits like something from the Berlin of the Cold War, mired in gloom.
In the so-called foyer, by the photocopier, I see the Dark Lady putting some papers into a cardboard box. She looks as if she's off to a 1960’s pop festival and is wearing new orange hiking boots with platform soles. I have been wondering how she will react to my essay. I soon find out: ‘You’ve misrepresented me,’ she says, and her nose-ring glints in the neon light. She looks genuinely hurt and I beg for pardon, thinking that perhaps I have been unkind. ‘Come for a beer,’ I say. ‘I can’t. I’m driving,’ she says, and flounces out with her cardboard box.
In the refectory the students sit and chat, in groups of four or five. It strikes me as odd that the groups are mostly same-sex. Perhaps this is how it should be, boys discussing sport, and girls telling of what he said next… There is no talk of revolution. There isn’t a single face that I recognise except that of the Librarian who has come in for lunch. He takes out a huge pile of sandwiches and tucks in. He may not care for the food the students have to eat, but he is our answer to Philip Larkin, who was, you taxpayers will remember, the Librarian at Hull University and for whom sexual intercourse began in 1963. I resist the urge to ask him when it began for him.
As I walk back through the rain to the car park a tiny car approaches with the huge figure of the Booker shortlisted X at the wheel. It is like seeing a Sumo wrestler squeezed into a plastic kiddy-car. Is this the end of fame? A name, a wretched Fiat and worse bust?


46. All right, the time has come for me to confess. I have a computer. I thought, well, I can make a fuss and then leave 'The Groves' on my high horse, or get one and stay. And as I’m enjoying myself so much with all the other young people… everything has its day, including Luddism. So I’ve junked the spinning jenny, chucked the Adler portable and am about to burn my books. Now I can keep in touch with what is happening from home, and as nothing is going on (we have to wait until after half-term for the new ‘semester’) I haven’t been going in. Result, a huge saving in petrol, less stress, planet saved, everybody’s happy! I have, after a fashion, mastered e-mail and have contacted my tutors electronically. I am in regular communication with the Dark Lady herself, in the course of which I have learnt that she likes yaourt, is a cappie, celebrates IMBOLC, and keeps a goat and an owl.Tomorrow the new term starts in earnest and I have to present myself to the woman whose task it will be to introduce me to the world of poesy. This would surely be tragic if it wasn’t funny.


47. e-mails from are spurting from Dell Boy like bullets from a Kalashnikov. I just can't stop. I am already having an electronic row with the Dark Lady, who says I am patronising. She says that she isn't PC but that she believes passionately in fighting 'isms'. I say that I understand how she feels about botulism, but how about feminism? This makes her angry, very angry...


48. Queuing outside the lecture room reminds me of waiting for the Saturday morning pictures when I was a small boy. The blinds are down and a screen stands proudly at the front. Only the cigarette smoke is lacking. The head of Cr Wr appears before us, explains the absence of the relevant party, and announces that an entertainment has been specially laid on, a film of the annual stand up poetry competition between staff and students. Away we go... Women and men compete in the use of expletives, and parade their squalid sex lives in the most unseemly fashion. If what I have seen and heard today is poetry, I am Marcel Proust. If, instead of tea, he had been offered a dish of steaming offal in which to dip his madeleine, he couldn't have felt his lip curl more than mine did.


49. At this time of the year the first thing I do when I park the car in the morning is to put on my old walking boots, as puddles are everywhere. A heap pulls up as I start the long march. A man peers out. It is Heathcliff and he invites me to his battered caravanserai to retrieve my essay. He is nice. Then I visit the librarian, the big fellow I have seen in the refectory tucking into doorsteps and giant bananas. He too is helpful and friendly. A few minutes later, however, when I am on my way to collect an essay from Uncle Joe, I pass the jolly farmer’s wife, and greet her as any countryman might. She looks at me as if she has trodden in something nasty and goes on her way without saying a word. For the life of me, I can’t think why I gave her the prefix ‘jolly’.
Uncle Joe is sitting quietly in his room looking at pictures of the Crystal Palace. After a pleasant chat he hands me back my essay, which you may remember, he had been unable to mark because it hadn’t been submitted electronically. I take it outside to sit in the sun to see what he thinks. I would like to read his comments; he has been liberal with his use of the red pen. Unfortunately, I can’t read a word of his handwriting.


50. This morning I have my first poetry session. As I enter the room, the tutor is sitting with her back to me. She wears a voluminous purple kaftan and I am convinced that she is gazing into some kind of crystal ball, like a fortune teller. Suddenly, as if by magic, she turns around. Is she the Oracle of Delphi? She isn’t at all what I expect, in fact she is a different person altogether. According to the blurb, our American poetess Vanilla was going to be waiting for me, but this one is definitely not from Red Gulch. We are asked to introduce ourselves and to say what we think about things… As I am sitting at the far end of the horseshoe my turn comes last, which gives me time to get nervous. I surpass myself by saying what I feel about poetry, and that that the filmed poetry competition in which she had taken part was like a farting contest in a prep school. Unfazed by this outburst, she begins to pad silently about the room uttering a string of words. We students are instructed to write unthinkingly as she goes along.
She is trying to hypnotise me. At first I resist. I'm not falling for this crap. But I begin to feel as if I am going under under the anaesthetic. A sense of being led, of helplessness, an unwilling suspension of disbelief… I’m following someone into a dark tunnel. I'm going... going…
I now realise that, like Rimbaud, I need my senses to be disordered so that I can tap into my subconscious. My position in the world is at last becoming clear. Yes, I am a poet maudit. Watch this space. Meanwhile… I am feeling… a little… sleepy.


51. It is with a deal of trepidation that I give the Dark Lady the 'address' of my blog. After all, it is not an altogether flattering portrait that I paint. However, when she next writes, she is generously unvengeful. My picture is two-dimensional, she says, and I agree, since my position as school 'weed' means that I can only see those in authority over me from the pit. She is a screen-goddess, and I a trembling schoolboy. She does say that she is unable to recognise any of the actors in the drama. This shows my depiction to be poor, but perhaps it is no bad thing...If I can find a small boy to adjust the blog site, maligned parties can join in and get their own back. I believe in Freedom of Expression... I believe in Freedom of Speech... I believe...


52. My poetry tutor is waiting for me in her purple Kaftan for the weekly poetry lecture over which she presides. It is to be given by our resident poet, the one that resembles Kafka and Swinburne, and looks as if he is dodging the Stasi. Before we start she says she needs volunteers to read poems, and strolls the aisles like a High Priestess seeking sacrificial victims. I am among the chosen ones and take a seat at the front with the other performers. The lecture begins. Milton is the source from which all our poetry comes, he says. After Milton, you have to wait until you meet T.S. Eliot for the next tributary. The gist it is that all streams lead to our resident poet, and if you don’t agree, then you are prejudiced. Prejudice, incidentally, is the title of today’s lecture, and it is a subject in which I rejoice. When my turn comes to read; he turns to me confidingly and asks me to speak up so that I can be heard. Fortunately my piece is from Paradise Lost and I let him have it at full blast so that the windows shake. I think he was shaken too. I hope so.


53. If you taxpayers have ever had a baby or a boat you will appreciate the difficulty of giving a name to one. It’s an agonising problem. I speak of my poetry tutor, since Poetry is the Cr Wr module I’m taking this term and it is a convention of this journal that my subjects remain anonymous. Having been trained by the Dark Lady in the subject of ‘description’ I am confident that I can carry this off once I have settled on a name. The points I am taking into account are as follows:
General impression: hieratic, mystical, definitely 'Glastonbury'.
Appearance: luscious, ripe.
Costume: long purple robes, and the odd ankh.
Age: anything between two and three thousand years old.
The choices therefore have been narrowed down to Circe, Ayesha, Cassandra, Clytemnestra, or The Tyrian Plum. I rather like the last one. On reflection, I’ll dump the lot and opt for ‘the High Priestess’. Consistent spelling of ‘Tyrian’ would surely prove my downfall. This is already my third shot at it.


54. There are a few points that need updating. My Personal Trainer, with whom I have exchanged six words since the first day (two ‘good mornings’, one ‘hi’, and one ‘hello’) has been spotted talking to a young woman in the S.U. (Student Union to you taxpayers) to which I have defected as the coffee and food are better and cheaper than at the fecky. I thought she might be his wife but changed my mind as neither of them yawned while he engaged in an animated monologue and she tucked into a Baguette. He wore a white suit yesterday and pinstripes (brown shoes) today. I don’t suppose he’s ever been seen in the same outfit two days running. The Lady of Shalott carries on much the same: yesterday she turned up a record thirty-five minutes late for the circus. Heathcliff looks well in a sulky sort of way. Caliban is happy as a lark. He was either drunk or in love when performing last week and the same went for yesterday. He doesn’t deign to acknowledge me when I say ‘good morning’. It’s probably just the way of townsfolk. And then there’s our Giant of Literature, the Booker shortlisted X. Well, as I was doing the long march the other day, he came at me in a woolly hat and old bomber jacket looking as if he’d been guarding a building site all night. Later, I saw him hunched over a pint of bitter, horny hands on massive thighs, in the manner of rugby players having their photograph taken.


56. Uncle Joe gives us an hour of jargon. We get Structuralism, Post-Structuralism, Semiotics, the mise en abyme, Greisma, de Saussure, Toderov, Barthes, Propp and Morphology, Sturock, Super-Structuralism, embedded, inter-textual, apter hoc ergo propter hoc, and Metafiction, to name but a few. Fortunately, at my age it is not easy to absorb information and I shall certainly not be mugging up on this lot. Let it go… There are some sacrifices I am not prepared to make, even for a lower second.Between lectures, I have taken to wandering about the campus looking interesting.I think of myself as Rimbaud come back after fifty years of debauchery, all committed in the name of Poesy. The thing is, you see, you have to systematically confuse your senses in order to tap in to the deep vein of ‘truth’ that lies below the surface. Perhaps I haven’t been systematic enough to be a real genius, but some people may be taken in. Here comes the Buddhist monk. He’s busy shoving a pair of headphones into the pocket of the overcoat he wears to keep his frock dry. He does pass the time of day with me, and does it with a laugh. He is no townie.


57. After the poetry session I am sitting in the SU in my habitual state of solitude, trying to look interesting, and am joined by three students, then the High Priestess, and finally The Dark Lady herself. The High Priestess has opted to wear black today, in honour of Auden’s centenary, and the Dark Lady is wearing bejewelled and spangled cowboy boots and various shawls and drapes, most of which she takes off. She puts her tobacco tin on the table, gets out her Rizlas and rolls a cheroot. This is all very jolly, but it leaves me in a dilemma. If I get to know and like these people how will it be possible for me to continue to be beastly about them?

ANONYMOUS HAS LEFT NEW COMMENTS ON YOUR POST: (1) I would rather die than be seen in a pair of cowboy boots. You really must hone your observational powers. Perhaps you should have attended some of my seminars last term. (2) accuracy, you feckless dolt, accuracy! (3) Always criticising those whose talents exceed yours by exponents, always thinking the world revolves around you, you seem to lead a sad life. When you start regarding others as people rather than stereotypes, you and your writing will both gain from it.er... just off to look up 'exponents'...


58. THE ARCHPOET THANKS MR ERNEST RAYMOND

My mum and dad conceived their second son
on the blue sofa in the warm firelight.
Mum told me later she had been aroused to passion
by reading Ernest Raymond in the night.

The book was aptly called Thou Shalt Not Trespass
(she grew quite chatty after drinking sherry);
I don't know if those who know about these things would class
the book as good, bad, indifferent or extraordinary.

But, for me, well, without it I would not be here,
so have to thank its author most extremely.
I never would have known the stars, the wild rose, even beer,
if his efforts hadn't rendered her unseemly.

Once roused, there was no way of stopping her,
bar one. My father said that I
was the result of too much reading. 'Literature
has been your downfall,' he said to her, and buttoned up his fly.

Her downfall meant, of course, my uprising,
and here I am to tell you all my story;
to me it seems both funny and surprising,
and soon my troubled voyage will be history.

Strange that such a thing should come to pass:
their meeting, courting, (briefly) feeling tender-hearted,
without which, presumably, the little farce
I'm playing in would never have got started.

And now he's dead, she's dead, and I am dying,
I still don't know the reason why,
between the weeping and the sighing,
from being nothing, nowhere, here am I.


59. A HEALTH WARNING
Your humble correspondent would like to point out that no-one is obliged to read this account of his wanderings in the Groves of Academe. It is a matter of choice. Switch off now if you feel you may be endangered, threatened, humiliated or contaminated. Smelling salts are available in the sanatorium (by appointment).


60. Well, it seems there has been some squawking in 'The Groves'. After two hours of Alexander Pope (having left home at 6.15) I am ambushed by the head of Cr Wr and shunted into his room. ‘I expect you know why you’re here…. This is Mr Porridge, our Hrassment Officer’ (their pronunciation). He points to a fellow possessed of more bulk than charm and with a humourless and costive air, who presents me with a five page document headed HARASSMENT POLICY FOR STAFF AND STUDENTS.
So here I am, stuck in this cell with these two bruisers, when I had hoped to be enjoying fried egg on toast. ‘Why did you write this blog?’says the Head of Cr Wr. ‘Well I’m here on a creative writing course… I thought there was a long tradition in England of…’ It doesn’t help that Mr Porridge, (whose catch phrase is ‘let me finish…’) has a telephone above his chair and from where I am sitting it looks as if the wire is coming out of his head… The gist of it is that whilst the head of Cr Wr would like to help me avoid martyrdom (he used that word) if he can, certain parties feel threatened by my efforts. He believes in freedom of speech, up to a point, and he agrees that this is a university and not a kindergarten, but… An acrimonious conversation with Mr Porridge follows in which the phrase ‘let me finish’ features rather frequently. I suppose it means that a first year student has dared to speak up. For once I sense the shade of Lindsay Anderson nodding in approbation.We meet again in a week’s time when I have had time to reflect on the folly of my ways.
There is surely something glorious about the possibility of being expelled from school at the age of fifty-seven.


61. On the steps of the next building a scene is being enacted. A student in a horror mask and wearing Scissorhand claws falls down and dies before my eyes. Cameras whirr. Is this a portent? If so, for whom?I collect my Cr Wr submission from a pigeon-hole in the office. This is the first 'feedback' I have had on my creative writing in the five months I have been here. I promised to report on the marking of the poem, which forms part of it (see entries 20 and 21) in due course. The marker asks if the capital letters at the beginning of each line are deliberate. Was it me who decided, or the computer? This suggestion, would, I fancy, have caused old Betj's brow to wrinkle, and I confess to a degree of puzzlement myself, but I've grown used to being puzzled since I started here. With three short prose pieces, the total mark for my efforts (after a 2% reduction by Vanilla, who is the supervising tutor) is 49%. Clearly, my Cr Wr needs a lot of practice. I really must try harder!
I hear from several sources that my 'blog' is 'all over the department'. I wonder how this will affect the dynamics of the thing. This morning my Personal Trainer sees me come in and runs up the stairs with a maidenly blush upon his cheeks. Other members of staff flee when they see me sitting quietly in a corner with my 50p coffee. Uncle Joe (who is a good sort) is dressing like a country vet rather than a Jehovah's Witness. The Dark Lady has smartened up. Germaine looked like Mary Poppins yesterday, when she came on stage with her umbrella. Of course, I may be imagining things. It may be time for me to try a new disguise. Roy Orbison? T.E.Lawrence?


62. March the third, and twelve hours singing for the bird. Birthday of Edward Thomas. Full moon rising over Bossington Hill. We open the attic window to watch the eclipse. The silver disc fades and turns to a dull red, capped with burnished gold. The moon's bald patch is shining in the night sky. Surely an auspicious sign..



63. It is early on Sunday morning, and a strong wind hurls rain against the attic window, like shot from a blunderbuss. I have an appointment to see Mr Porridge, and the Head of Eng Lit, who is standing in for the Head of Cr Wr, after classes tomorrow. I suppose that, to my way of thinking, Mr Porridge is a kind of blunderbuss.
Downstairs, my wife is playing Parry's 'Jerusalem' on the piano:
Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear!
O clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!
Thus a simple pensioner fortifies his spirit for the coming struggle. My wife is practising for matins at Oare where she plays the organ. (Lorna Doone was shot at the altar of Oare Church, while getting married.) The playing stops, I hear footsteps, and my wife looks in to say goodbye. I ask her to have a word with the vicar about the prayers. As well as remembering all prisoners and captives, would he mind mentioning the persecuted, and all Harassment Officers everywhere? She gives me a look I know only too well, but as she leaves the room with her hymn books, she turns and says 'Don't worry, dear, God isn't on the side of the big battalions, but of the best shots.'
Yes, she is a good woman and a force to be reckoned with. She is in constant touch with the Almighty. I don't suppose Mr Porridge has taken this factor into account...
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64.In order to conserve my strength, I decide to lie in bed and to miss the early lecture. For breakfast, I have a comforting bowl of por… As you can see, I can hardly bring myself to use the word, but by choosing por... I am pleased to demonstrate that I have learnt from Nietzsche that if you aren’t going to run for it when faced with a battle, you must do your best to digest the opposition. And one small bowl of por... is more than enough. I leave the house at the civilised hour of nine. A thrush sings, spring is in the air, and also a whiff of grapeshot.
Three hours later, the High Priestess is waiting for me in the lecture room, dressed in a fetching number in deep blue. She shows us slides of famous pictures and we read poems inspired by them. This is all very pleasant and relaxing. She likes paintings.
Soon the fateful hour is upon us and, having timed it to the second, I mount the stairs to the room of the jolly farmer’s wife. But as I reach the top landing, Mr Porridge jumps out, calls me by my first name and announces a change of plan. He marches me round to the string of caravans where pilgrims go.
Lead on, O Master of the Caravan...
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65... I think he is testing my stamina. If I perish on the journey another troublesome case will be out of the way. An old fakir awaits us. They work in pairs. I am invited to sit. When Mr Porridge turns towards me, he is smiling. Should he be trusted? We have heard of the deviousness of those who live in the desert, how tent ropes are suddenly cut and those feasting within are put to the sword. However, no dainties are offered…I am allowed to ask a few questions. No, Mr Porridge is not a full time Hrassment Officer. His training consisted of a one-day course, and he does have other functions. He teaches Thomas Hardy for instance. This is hard to swallow… and then I ask him if it is true that he is married to a member of staff. Yes, he says, I am married to…
Some moments are gone before you know it, others stretch out in defiance of the rules of physics. Here We enter a world half way between reality and the surreal, between the actual and the dream. Hold on to your hat. Hold on to whatever you’ve got. Hold on…
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack’d from side to side;
Yes, oh patient Taxpayer! He is married to… he is merried to… none other than...
the Lady of Shalott.
Well, tirra lirra for now, m' dears.
.

66.So he is the Lord of Shalott, and she is Mrs Porridge. And thus the balance shifts, and a person’s conception of the universe changes. Well, physic for it there’s none. We must carry on. We must endure. We must apply our philosophy, built up over many years of suffering and joy. We turn to Nature. We turn to our friends, the old poets; to Wordsworth, Powys, Gurney, Yeats. We look at the rooks busying themselves carrying sticks to their nests, and see the buds struggling to break out, feel the cool air, delicious with the scent of early spring. We turn to beer. We are not done for yet, even if our hopes are dashed and our academic ambitions finished. What do my dreams count for in the scheme of things? I have trod the boards many times. Sometimes I have won applause and sometimes I have been booed from the stage. And I remind myself that this is not ChCh but 'The Groves'. Tirra lirra!
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67. During a lecture on Pope, I fall asleep and am awoken by a smiling student. ‘Wake up, Archy,’ she says, ‘you’re snoring.’After a refreshing cup of tea, I set off to stay the night with friends who live in the big city. As I am driving along the road, musing on the vagaries of life, who should I see ambling along, but the Dark Lady herself. I turn the heap around, wind down the window and pull up beside her. She is not in the least surprised to see me. She is cool, very cool. 'What happened?’ she says. ‘Did they give you a hard time? You are going to take your blog off aren’t you? Aren’t you?’ I say that I am thinking about it. (Later it occurs to me that the chances of seeing her like this, ten miles from the university, were so remote that I could be in more trouble. Who would believe that this was a chance encounter? I may be up before the Hrassment Officer again in the morning.)The fact is that I have had support for my efforts from unexpected sources and this encourages me to continue, weak, solipsistic fool that I am...



68. ‘Righty-ho then,’ are the words with which Uncle Joe begins his lecture on The Nineteenth Century Gentleman. A gentleman lives according to a code of honour. He is brave; he is great of heart; he is courteous and protective towards women; he knows how to behave… Yes, I am in two minds about this on-line journal. Have I behaved like a gentleman? Er… no. Of course, in the old days, a gentleman knew what to do if he had played the cad. He went behind the baize door and shot himself. During the war, when my father was a newly-commissioned subaltern, he found himself in India where he was befriended by The Hon Henry U, a brother officer and heir to a viscountcy. Henry U was due to be cashiered for committing no fewer than forty acts of Gross Indecency and my father was appointed ‘prisoner’s escort’. The night before the hearing, my father was instructed by the adjutant as to his role. He took his friend a bottle of whisky and a loaded revolver and went out of the room, closing the door behind him. Some minutes later a shot rang out*. When my father looked in, he found the whisky bottle half empty and his friend quietly singing ‘The Wild Rover’ while waving the pistol in the air. There was a bullet hole in the ceiling. Some of us just don’t play the game. Henry U really was an utter cad. Later he… but that’s another story.
The point about these ramblings is that I am undecided as to what to do. So far I have only glanced at the print-out of the blog handed to me by Mr Porridge when we last met. The bits he requires deleted are highlighted in yellow marker pen. I count them. No fewer than twenty-two passages are marked. I am a weak man. I need to talk it over with other people. Shall I ask the chaps at the Ship, known for their lack of PC, what they think? Or shall I summon my team of lawyers, schooled as its members are in the intricacies of our legal system, which, we are told, is 'the envy of the world'?
NOTE: *Kingsley Amis once swore never to read a book unless it began with the last four words of this sentence.


69. A kind friend reminds me that King George V, on hearing about a blogger said: ‘I thought men like that shot themselves.’
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70.
There's nothing like the sun that shines today, There's nothing like the sun, 'til we are dead.
As the morning is so beautiful and I have ten minutes before the next class I sit on a wall, watching the drifting clouds, and weeping for the spring, when someone passes by with a quick ‘hello’. I nearly fall off the wall. Today’s outfit is a leather baseball cap, padded leather jacket, blue jeans… My PT passes! God's in his heaven, all's right with the world!
I walk through the walled garden and find a VM sign carved into the stone of the gatehouse. I have read that these were Christian symbols placed in entranceways in mediaeval times to fend off witches. I wonder if the Dark Lady ever passes this way. If she does, she had better be on her guard. I look across the landscaped valley to the old house, built of good Bath stone. It presents a very satisfying picture in the sunlight. Through the trees I see figures assembling and soon the strains of the Hokey Cokey overwhelm the song of blackbird and thrush. The dance dept is up to something… All this time I am trying to decide what to do about the blog and the vexing question of censorship. Action is called for. I cannot let it drift. I cannot decide alone. I must take advice. Your author at last makes up his mind. He will give commands. He will bid…
His messengers ride forth, East and west and south and north To summon his array.


71.CAVEAT. Taxpayers who dislike reading about court cases, tedious legal arguments, jargon, etc should skip the next few entries. Questio quid iuris!
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72.
At last our team of legal experts has assembled around the kitchen table:
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, may I introduce:The Hon Mrs Justice Archy, a woman of firm views, who yields to no man (except on Tuesdays and Fridays outside Lent when… passage censored by order of the court), a lover of Beethoven, and an adherent of the wooden spoon school of correction. Well connected (God etc).
On the other side of the table we have:
Tobias William QC, nine years experience on the planet, a quick-witted fellow of rebellious disposition, whose special interests include cheese, savoury pork pies, and arm-wrestling law;
Next to him sits: HRH, aged fourteen, handsome, conscientious, secretive.
And then there is Myself.
Alas, our blonde, sixteen-year-old fashion expert, Nym, is absent. We decide to proceed notwithstanding.
The Hon Mrs Archy J: (addressing Myself): You have already been admonished for seeing yourself as the central figure in your own drama and not bowing to those cleverer than you by exponents, Do you agree to submit to the decision of the majority in this case?
Myself: I do.
The Hon Mrs Archy J: You agree that it’s part of the Social Contract that those in authority are answerable to those subject to that authority?
Myself: I do. There are twenty-two passages in the blog which Mr Porridge, the Hrassment Officer, would like to see deleted.
HRH: Isn’t that an oxymoron? How could he see them if they were deleted?
Tobias William QC: I believe m’ learned friend has a point…
The Hon Mrs Archy J: Is this relevant? Get on with it.
Myself: If I may cite an example: Mr Porridge doesn’t care for personal remarks of any kind. You can’t for instance even refer to a person as ‘pretty’…
The Hon Mrs Archy J: Are you speaking of your personal trainer?
Myself: Him! Good Lord... er... I mean Your Worship... no, not him…
The Hon Mrs Archy J: Ah, 'the pretty one'. Now as the only woman present I have to ask myself whether I would object if the epithet was applied to me. After careful consideration, I have to say ‘no’. I would consider it perfectly understandable. Of course, each case turns on its own facts…(Here several hours of discussion follow. Transcript available from court office. The usual fee will be payable).



73.HRH: If I may proceed with the argument… I suggest we should highlight the offending passages on the blog so that democratic principles can be put into effect, and the reading public can decide for itself. The offending passages would be a beacon …
The Hon Mrs Archy J. A light to lighten the gentiles?
Tobias Willliam QC: Why don’t we delete everything other than the parts highlighted by Mr Porridge? That way the reader would be spared having to plough through the stodge.
Myself: M’ learned friend has a point……. I consult my fellow arbitrators. We concur … up to a point. The trouble is that this requires expert help on the computer.
Tobias William QC: I’ll do it for £5.
Myself: I object!
The Hon Mrs Archy J: I think this may be a good time to adjourn. The court will re-convene in an hour and a half.
Tobias William QC: Be upstanding in court..


74. We file back into court (a little red in the face in some cases).
Myself: Now we come to the specific point of personal comment which might be regarded as demeaning, humiliating or derogatory.
HRH: No one likes being made fun of, but, as Martin Amis said on the radio only the other day, the trouble is that every joke must have a butt and without a butt we have no joke.
The Hon Mrs Archy J: Ergo ‘Political Correctness,’ as they call it, means no jokes…
We concur.
Myself: What about specific reference to external 'underwear', tattoos, piercings etcetera? Should all references to these phenomena of modern life be deleted?’
The Hon Mrs Archy J: Where is our expert witness?
Tobias William QC: Nym? Mum, it’s Saturday. She’s gone to Topshop. She's thinking of having a tattoo on her...
The Hon Mrs Archy J: Silence in Court! Pursuing her researches, no doubt. And what about Martin Amis. Has he turned up yet? The court can’t wait all day…
Myself: If I may continue. How can intentional acts of mutilation of the body and items or partial items of clothing which are visible from the back row of the stalls be considered forbidden zones? Presumably their owners intend them to be seen? They have actus reus, but do they have mens rea? If seen can they be spoken of?
HRH: Silence is golden, but seeing is believing. Whereof one cannot speak, thereon one must keep silent. Yes, but can one speak of what one sees?
Tobias William QC: Call Wittgenstein!
The Hon Mrs Archy J: This is getting ridiculous. Wittgenstein is Ultra Vires.
Myself: And now, References that could be considered racist or obliquely erotic. ‘Cupid’s Aero’ for instance.
Tobias William QC: I thought that was a kind of chocolate.
HRH: No, stupid. It’s a reference to Amour. This is indeed a knotty problem but it seems it has been the subject of human discourse since writing was invented. Where would Antony be without Cleopatra? Who has ever heard of a play called Romeo and Censored?
The Hon Mrs Archy J: But these are works directly related to love. The subject in hand, I am pleased to say, is only indirectly associated with it. Can the accused give some pertinent examples?
Myself: Indeed I can, Madam. Let’s start at the beginning, with Homer. The Iliad wouldn’t have got started without Helen of Troy. And Odysseus would have got home in a week if he hadn’t been held up by all those…
The Hon Mrs Archy J: Can you give me some examples from the English canon which are not from what could be termed ‘Works of Love?’ I want to know how they would sound if the Harassment Officer had his way. Give me the porridged version, in each case, and keep it brief.
Myself : Er… What about Marlowe.…Censored Helen make me immortal with a censored.…or Francis Thompson…Her censored smoothed earth’s censored censored,She gave me tokens three, A censored censored of her censored censored, And a wild raspberry.
Tobias William QC: I think that sounds quite good!
HRH: Shut up you freak. Who's that? What the…
Spirit of Mr Porridge: Let me finish! Let me finish!
The Hon Mrs Archy J: What's this? He’s in contempt.
Myself: Madam, if it were not assize time, I would run him through.
The Hon Mrs Archy J: Have a care. Do you have a precedent for such language?
Myself: Indeed I do, Madam. The case of Turberville-v-Savage.
The Hon Mrs Archy J: I seem to remember that case. Wasn’t I involved in it as Junior Counsel?
Myself: With respect, Madam, it dates from 1669.
The Hon Mrs Archy J: Even Learned Judges nod.
Myself: Indeed Madam.
The Hon Mrs Archy J: I suggest we hurry things along.
Spirit of Mr Porridge: (bursting through the door) Let me finish! Let me finish!
The Hon Mrs Archy J: You do your case no good by these interruptions. Get that thing out of here. Tipstaff!
HRH: If I may return to the case, M’am… I propose that if any sections in this difficult category are deleted they should be replaced by passages from Molly Bloom’s Confession, compulsory reading for all first year students.
We confer. HRH and Tobias William QC concur, I dissent, not being sure of the copyright situation.
The Hon Mrs Archy J: And we have yet to consider the Eggshell Skull Rule and the Man on the Clapham Omnibus, EC legislation relating to freedom of expression, Volenti non fit injuria…
Tobias William QC: Won’t the jury find that a bit hard to follow, m’lud?
The Hon Mrs Archy J: If a person brings something on himself, he can’t complain of it… If you choose to read something which you have to go to certain lengths to get hold of, that’s your look out…
Tobias William QC: My instructions are that members of the university staff were more or less ordered by their superiors to read it. It was hardly their fault if they had no choice. If they had no choice the rule can't apply.
Myself: Perhaps the employers of these unfortunates could be sued for harassment.
The Hon Mrs Archy J: Refer this to the Court Proctor! Alas we have before us no direct evidence on this important aspect. Hearsay is not admissible. We must consider it another day. Meanwhile, as a gesture of goodwill, one passage can go. And two passages can be highlighted. Is that agreed?
We concur. Case adjourned sine die.
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75. O patient Taxpayer! You have put up with me all this time, and, I admit, I am not always easy company. But I want you to know that I am not completely impervious to all that goes on around me. I am not immune to criticism. Sometimes I become all too aware of my lowly station on this cruelly blasted planet. I have an announcement to make. In fact, two announcements. The first is that in accord with the new wave of Political Correctness that is sweeping Academia, I have agreed to change sex. No longer will I haunt the purlieus of the SU disguised as Lawrence of Arabia or Roy Orbison. I have decided to be metamorphosed into an old woman, Ms Havisham, in fact. And I am passing the time by reading George Eliot. So far, I have not fully explained my emotional state to you. Do not be afraid. It will not take long.

Ms Havisham: (laying her hands one on top of the other on her left side). Do you know what I touch here?
Small boy: Yes ma'm
Ms Havisham: What do I touch?
Small boy: Your heart...
Ms Havisham: Broken!
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The other announcement is less portentous. Like the demon mole I have decided to go underground for a while. For how long, I cannot say, I do not know... But for now it's tirra lirra m'dears!
'.
Well, it's one thing to make a resolution, but quite another to stick to it! I just can't help myself. It's a compulsion. Here's a brief extract! I can fill in with others later, when the fancy takes me... So look on my works, ye mighty, and...
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76.We have been promised my Personal Trainer for today’s 19th Century Studies lecture, and as you might imagine, I am first in the house to await events. The girls file in talking of their ailments as they take their seats for the performance. At last the door swings open and he stands before us. Although not flustered, he looks just a little flushed, as if he has leapt from a moving Lambretta, and, with accustomed grace, discards a fur hooded parka to reveal a torso clad in a maroon jumper. He pushes up the sleeves. Although sartorially, it is to be a relaxed day, we are left in no doubt that he is absolutely gorgeous. ‘I apologise for being a few minutes late,’ he says, breathlessly. ‘I’ve had a letter’. We are left to guess the news that the postman might have brought. An All Souls fellowship, or a summons from the palace? Could it be that Hollywood contract, perhaps, or news of the spring fashions? We mortals can but guess.The lecture is to be on Victorian poetry. He begins by saying ‘I don’t like Victorian poetry much, it’s too mawkish and sentimental for me,’ and adds ‘I’m an atheist’. But after this rocky beginning (for a God-fearing Victorian like myself) he revs up the verbal scooter and whizzes away with a session on Hopkins. My Personal trainer is a performer, O Taxpayers, and he is good… very good. If anyone deserves a knighthood, he is the man.
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77. Today I am due to have my first session of a new 'module'. The tutor's name is unknown to me. Who can he be? As I approach the building that houses the English dept, I look up to see the ravaged features of a handsome man of about my age as he stares at the day from an upstairs window. Could this be Professor Plodder?
I squeeze my way through the milling students and wonder where he was when Capability Brown laid out the fine grounds, here at 'The Groves'. Almost certainly he was in his room, gazing from the window, dreaming of the Golden Age. It was long before the fall, a time when Chateau d'Yquem was served at High Table, and undergraduates called you 'sir'. A time before mobile phones played banal tunes during class and banausic students didn't chew gum or put their boots up on the chair in front in the lecture hall.
I open the door at the end of the corridor and sit down with my peers. Eventually, the man at the window turns and sees us. Surprise registers on his shattered visage. Ah yes! he thinks, the new class, it must be Monday. With a look of infinite sorrow, he surveys us, one by one, and shakes his head sadly. Then we begin...


78. I have a sustaining bowl of porridge for breakfast, and, Lo! for the first time this year, it is light when I leave home. Mrs Archy and her two boys sleep on, unaware of the sufferings the titular head of the family is prepared to undergo in his thirst for knowledge. Alas, when I get to 'The Groves', on this fine spring morning, who should I see heading for the Eng dept in T shirt and shoulderbag but Mr Porridge. I hang back, having had enough of it for one morning. Professor Plodder's talk includes a reference to Golden Slumbers which he seems to think is something to do with the Beatles first LP, but in my usual tactful way I tell him it was a nursery rhyme. I think that I tried to sing it, and can only guess that my rendering of it was so effective that I must've dropped off, as the next thing I remember is being nudged in the ribs. It is time to go. I head for coffee at the SU. Here I watch as Mr Porridge's friend the Old Fakir arrives, leading a procession of pilgrims. Sensibly, he wears his glasses on a chain. He also wears a pullover. All the old boys do, including myself. The pullover is the fashion item which distinguishes the ancient from the modern. I will have to consider my position.



79. The circus this afternoon consists of a stint from The Blond Beast and a sprint from Professor Plodder. The Blond Beast's is a litany based on the word 'good' and he seems to think that his efforts deserve the word. The aged professor sleeps at the side until it is his turn to take over. Then he rattles into action, and actually begins to interest me in Jane Eyre, so that, for once, I keep awake. But perhaps he shouldn't get all the credit for this. The music dept is actively rehearsing the 1812 overture behind a screen a few feet away. A musical accompaniment is one of the pleasures of the circus these days.
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80.Our Giant of Literature, the Booker Shortlisted X has a new book out. The reviews I have seen so far are really good. It seems to me that no-one at 'The Groves' seems to know anything about this brilliant success. Academia certainly seems to be a cloistered world. Perhaps our learned academics have forgotten how to read a newspaper. Perhaps their thoughts are directed inwards.
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81.We have an art lecture with the High Priestess. The lecture room is dark when we take our seats. Silently, out of the Darkness a figure appears before us, clad in black. She stands centre stage, raises both hands towards an imaginary sun, and Lo! the blinds roll up. One of my favourite books as a boy was She and She is standing before me. To what sisterhood does she belong? I note that her ear-rings are Babylonian and that one of the several necklaces she wears has a pentagram suspended from it. Could she and the Dark Lady be vestal virgins together? This thought reminds me that communications with the Dark Lady, once a daily feature of my existence, have ceased rather abruptly. Given the choice, no doubt at her age she would opt for the conservative and the establishment rather than the forces of revolt and subversion (not to mention youth) which I, no doubt, represent. She has her career to think of. As far as I am aware, the Dark Lady is not yet an Emeritus Professor, even though (to paraphrase Hardy), 'The Groves' rears professors like radishes in a bed.


82. Barney joins me for lunch outside the SU where we sit in the sun. She is the student who kindly woke me up when I was snoring during a lecture and I probably remind her of her grandfather. She tells me she and her small daughter are off to Cuba during the Easter hols; she is planning a pilgrimage in honour of her hero Che Guevara. She laughs when I suggest that my revolutionary spirit has proved irresistible. 'Cuban men', she says, 'are the most beautiful in the world.' The only thing in my favour would seem to be the fact that Che and I are contemporaries, but I feel sure she will overlook that. Barney tells me about herself. She and her daughter live in a wooden hut she built herself. There was no electricity until she installed solar panels in order to use a computer, which she realised she would need in order to survive at 'The Groves'. Barney is a vegan, knows all about Imbolc and tells me about Beltane, which is the next festival in the pagan year. She used to hitch into 'The Groves' on a daily basis before she learnt to drive (to witness her kangarooing out of the car park is 'The Groves' answer to shock and awe). Whenever I see her at the SU she is working hard with a pile of books beside her. She is a brave spirit...


83. We were told that Minerva, our beloved computer set-up, would be off duty for a while during the holiday so that we could enjoy, amongst other things, a hosted and secure environment. Lovely phrase that. We were also told that we could expect a warm welcome from her on her return, but I for one, have encountered a certain frigidity whilst trying to rumple her skirts. Yes, she is back with us; we get the date American-style, which must surely be an advantage, but any hoped-for love making is curtailed when the computer freezes.
This morning the postman delivered a letter from an official at 'The Groves'. It is largely incomprehensible but seems to require me to re-submit part of the Dark Lady's assessment. Why this should be I have no idea, since I have the original marked scripts at home and am more than satisfied with the generous mark of 49% already awarded. If I re-submit, it seems it will be capped at 40%. Ah, the mysteries of Academe!


84. And now the time has come to prepare my essay 'What I did during the Easter Holiday'...








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