Uncategorized

February 4, 2021

I’ve never been able to do just one thing WFH: DAY 21. 8.00 am: An earlier start. Deadlines pressed down upon me. I reviewed the day’s roster of third-year painting tutorials (the day’s main meal) and my the REF PowerPoint notes, which I’d developed yesterday in between PhD fine art tutorials and during the evening. 9.00 am: A beginning. A…

February 3, 2021

No Comments

WFH: DAY 19. Tuesday, February 2. 8.00 am: A communion. 8.30 am: An overview of the day before returning to the second REF PowerPoint for an hour and, afterward, a morning of MA fine art tutorials. As I settle to work, there’re staff and students buckling down to their academic responsibilities, while taking-up the mantle of part-time domestic school teachers.…

February 1, 2021

No Comments

WFH: DAY 18. 8.00 am: A communion. I enjoy the winter sunrise as it creeps across and hugs the landscape westward towards the face of Pendinas and the rooftops of the town. It’s a reminder that there’s still peace, wholesomeness, and comfort to be found in the world: 8.30 am: I surveyed the landscape of the week ahead. Teaching predominated…

January 30, 2021

No Comments

WFH: DAY 17. 7.00 am: BBC Radio 3 in the bathroom. 7.30 pm: BBC Radio 4 in the kitchen. (Everyday, except Sundays.) On Saturdays, I allow myself a piece of toast with my cereal, and to linger over breakfast. (‘You’ll spoil yourself, John!’) 8.15 am: Studiology. The mix. To begin: ‘This Sweet Bell Ringing’. This is one of the simplest…

January 29, 2021

No Comments

WFH: DAY 17. 8.00 am: 8.15 am: I took my walk — en route to the chemists — along the Promenade, heading towards Constitution Hill. Since 7.00 am, I’d been exchanging occasional tweets with one of the School’s recent alumni. They were suffering a bout of morning Aber-sickness (for, not of). Presently, they’re far afield and developing into a well-loved…

January 28, 2021

No Comments

WFH: DAY 16. In the dream, I saw Lindy Morgan. When I awoke, in the middle of the night, I was convinced that she was someone with whom I’d studied at art school. Back then, and in the dream, she had bleached-blond hair that was cut close to the scalp at the back and left long — falling over her right…

January 27, 2021

No Comments

If you don’t change, then, you’ll decay. WFH: DAY 15. 7.15 am: 7.45 am: A communion. As of yesterday: There’re have been 100,000 (more, in fact) deaths from Covid-19. The number strains at the imagination. I’ve not lost either a relative, or friend, or colleague to the virus. I suspect that, until I do, that figure will remain an appalling…

January 26, 2021

No Comments

I want to be someone other than I am; I want to do something other than I do. WFH: DAY 14. 7.45 am: The busyness of the immediate times required an earlier start. I console myself with the realisation that I’m not having to be a home-school teacher on top of my regular job, as are some of my university…

January 25, 2021

No Comments

Now, it’s your turn to talk. WFH: DAY 13. The fall #1. Shortly after finishing work on Saturday, one of the shelf arrays in my study collapsed. The wall, to which they’d been fixed for the last twenty four years (a chimney breast), had become sufficiently damp (due to weeks of incessant rain) for the plaster to soften and loose…

January 23, 2021

No Comments

WFH: DAY 12. In my dream, the School of Art was in the process of occupying a large and splendid manor, reminiscent of Gregynog Hall in Newtown, Powys. Here, the staff and students would be residential. During the move, I’d lost the keys to my accommodation and office. In dream-lore, losing a key can either be ‘the omen of a…

Archives