Thursday, 12.30 am: I completed by funding application. My mind was released to pursue other projects in the interim. 7.45 am: A communion. 8.30 am: I read over my application before sending, prepared for the day’s appointments and work commitments, and looked beyond the horizon of the week. (I like to know what’s coming down the track towards me.) 9.15 am: I began setting up a page for ‘”The Hearing Ear and the Seeing Eye”‘ lecture on my ‘Spoken Word’ website. This will permit the audience an opportunity to listen again both to the paper and the performance piece. Gradually, in fulfilment of my commitment to ‘curate my past‘, earlier recordings of academic and public papers will be added.

11.40 am: I walked to the School the faster and more inclined way to hold a mock viva voce with one of our PhD students, who’ll be meeting their external examiner for the first time next week. A rehearsal serves to destress the student; they’ll know what’s coming and how to perform, and the ways in which they can improve in advance of the real thing. The student acquitted themselves very well on this occasion.

After lunch, having completed the ‘Spoken Word‘ upload, I swept my virtual desktop clean of completed and redundant file folder in readiness for the next batch of projects. Onwards, and into the studio to put away all the gear that I’d used in London. This takes far longer that you’d imagine.

In the evening I commenced the always tortuous process of translating my text for ‘”The Hearing Ear”’ paper into a book chapter. An abstract of the content was begun. Before I drifted into sleep, an extraordinary question pressed itself upon me. It related to the possible existence of a sound recording made by a, presently, significant figure in British art history and criticism.