What’s the difference between redundancy and resignation?: In the former instance, they get rid of you; in the latter, you get rid of them. 8.00 am: I felt the onset of Spring for the first time this year. 8.30 pm: I took to the road, and headed for a local eatery to buy something that I could look forward to…

8.15 am: A communion. 9.00 am: As one project comes to a close, another commences. Since I was already in writing mode, I remained in it for a further one thousand words, in order to generate an on-line article about an aspect of my sound research. Research doesn’t promote itself. (Think of all the really good books that nobody reads,…

Saturday enigma; Sunday enigma. He/she ‘who has ears to hear’: 8.30 am: A settling of the week ahead. Tutorials to arrange; admin to accommodate; reviews to sign off; meetings to attend; visiting staff to secure, and screaming research deadlines to meet. 9.00 am: Inbox defoliation and postgraduate admissions to process. 10.30 am: Finally, I’d clawed my way to the top…

Do not remember the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you, Lord, are good (Psalm 25.7). 7.00 am: Breakfast. 7.30 am: A communion. Recently, a number of politicians and celebrities have been publicly vilified and denounced, as crimes and misdemeanours that they committed decades earlier have come to light. The passing…

The high winds blew over the wheelie-bin last night. I’d been woken often and for long. 7.40 am: ‘Up! This is late!’ Alarm was converted into haste. 8.15 am: A micro breakfast and communion before racing out of the front door like a schoolboy running for his bus. 9.00 am: At the School and the kettle, readied for the Thursday…

8.20 am: A communion. 8.45 am: An issue (in every sense of the word) of emails before settling to writing (interrupted by a period of blood-letting at my GP practice). Yesterday, as I was talking with a student whose work is improvisational in nature, a realisation struck me. It was already something I knew and understood. But, on this occasion,…

‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’ (Jeremiah 29.11) 7.20 am: Breakfast 8.00 am: A communion. Even people of faith get weary and a little lost at times. They’re exhausted by the slog, disappointed at themselves and circumstances,…

It’s curious how the feelings associated with a bad dream linger and scent the waking hours, thereafter. In my dream, I discovered that some rogue had stolen artwork and source material that I’d been working on, just as I was about to submit it to the commissioners. An unnerving sense of instability and approaching chaos hung over my breakfasting. (‘Too…

9.45 am: Having mixed draft compositions into the wee hours (when it was so, so quiet around and about), I gave myself an extra hour in bed. (‘Slacking, John!’, my ‘muse’ would’ve said.) The John Ruskin whimsy (and who’d have thought that you could get a laugh out of him) continues, sporadically: 10.00 am: A communion. 10.30 am: Studiology. The…