To the nation at large, today will only be memorable for one thing: the 2015 General Election (I'm giving both these words caps. Seems to be right somehow.) is, as I write these words, in the process of being "decided at the ballot box" as the pundits love to say. There's been much talk of this being an unpredictable election and a lot of the usual anthropomorphism around the British people (can a people be anthropomorphosed? I say yes.) with absurdities like: if the result is a hung parliament then this is a clear message from the British people that they want their politicians to work together. Actually I'm pretty sure that a hung parliament is the exact opposite of a clear message from the British electorate, but it makes one feel like a part of some cool opinion-having club, so I'm going to let it ride.
But this is not the way I'll remember this day when I'm looking back from my better-off, more yogic, less beardy, more multilingual and distinctly more employed future; no, today will only ever be the day on which I finally started writing my PhD thesis in earnest.
I came to this small cottage in Harwich (Google it. Harwich I mean, not the cottage.) now a full FIVE days ago, and have thus far been going through what can probably most generously described as "settling in".
I had people to visit for the first three days, leaving really only two days on which I've managed to achieve so very little. But the experience has so far been an interesting and not at all unpleasant one. I'll relate some of it here.
First, the domestic low-lights of the week's anecdotery: I've very much enjoyed the kind of elevated status which domestic tasks take on usually only when you're camping: cooking, laundry, wiping a surface and washing up are all very much part of the day's vital and memorable activities when you're camping, presumably because (a) there's a kind of Blitz spirit which kicks in when the pots, pans, spatulas, expensive washing up sponges and laundry baskets to which one becomes accustomed in the course of opulent urban life are not available to you, and you're left with a single steel pot with an ill-fitting lid, and a brush (shudder) for washing up with, and (b) because there's so little else to do. As a little list for some light relief from all the florid prose which seems to pour forth whenever I write one of these blog posts, I've: hung out washing outside, on an actual washing line, cooked a curry exclusively with products bought from non-ethnically specialised supermarkets (yes, this happens. This is why my parents are able to buy gefiltefish from their local Sainsbury's), washed up while listening to Radio 4 (there's no stereo system of any kind here) and eaten dinner on the sofa (there's also no dining table.) These are the things that make up an actual life, but they're rarely commented on or remembered apart from, as I've said, when there's not much else going on.
I've also played my beautiful guitar by candlelight (a romantic-sounding evening for one), lit an actual fire, read quite a lot of the only vaguely appealing novel on the bookshelves here (it's almost exclusively chain-thrillers like Jo Nesbo and Dragon Tattoo whatever the fuck), slept a fair amount and strolled through the seemingly uninhabited old town of Harwich. More excitingly though, I've started a morning running routine, trotting pathetically (in the old-fashioned sense, hopefully) along the sea-front listening to a podcast designed to get incurable lazies to become striding Mo Farahs in just nine weeks. I've also semi-inadvertently joined a choir. Upon Googling "Harwich events" half in hope, and half in preparation to scorn the inevitable cultural desert, I found a reference to a choir with the absurd name of "Harwich Sings". I also found out that they were rehearsing that very evening, so decided to go along.
When I got to the majestic but crumbling building where they rehearsed (This doesn't narrow anything down by the way. Both adjectives fit almost any building around here perfectly) I listened in at the door. I came extremely close to turning around and never returning again, until I realised, through the yelping and groaning that sounded more like a military field hospital than a choral society, that they were singing Get Lucky by Daft Punk. Those of you who know anything about me at all will know that I was therefore bound by a sacred bond of trust, love and mutual respect between me and that band, not only to go in, but to sign up to sing alongside the distressed-sounding and very possibly mortally wounded singers inside.
Despite my efforts to slip in unnoticed, the woman in charge who, if slimmer, could have been described as larger than life, proceeded to announce my arrival to the whole choir, and made me sit right in the middle of the front row, as I grinned apologetically and tried my best not to look insane with my hi-vis cycling jacket and wild beard.
Anyway, the choir was pretty fun but utterly awful, which is probably the average choral experience in Britain anyway. Curiously, they have no tradition of going to the pub after rehearsals, but I'm sure it's something which I can work into the routine once I've established myself as a good egg and in no way a snobbish London literato out to scoff at their vain wheezings.
But this is supposed to be a blog post about my having started work finally, after much procrastination. (The previous thousand words might have already gone some way towards painting a picture of why I never get anything of substance done, if via no other medium than the sheer number of words itself.)
I received some excellent advice from a man who, despite apparent tendencies towards procrastination, gets more done in a day than I have in the last three years. He said not to worry about writing anything complete, accurate or good. Just write, and leave noticeable placemarkers for all the things that can be filled in in a second round of writing. This advice found its perfect target in me, and was particularly timely as I'd spent the day doing what, in various forms, I spend all days doing: a side-project which I imagine will take a minute and ends up consuming me for so long that I no longer have any concept of what the original project even was. The day before yesterday it was this graph which was intended to accompany the very first sentence I had written and ended up taking me all evening:
And yesterday it was the task of remotely logging in to my computer on my desk, since I discovered that my trusty laptop is a teeny bit slower than the growling behemoth bought for me by my employers. This seemingly innocuous task took me a whole day, and ended with me completely reinstalling my operating system. It seems there is no task in the entire world of tasks for a computer which doesn't end eventually with me doing this. I must just be genetically predisposed to tearing up perfectly good work on a whim and gleefully and wilfully reinventing wheels.
But not so today! Today I invented no wheels. Today I merely wrote some words. (And did what for any normal human would be an insane amount of dicking around but for me seems comparatively little.) In fact I wrote five hundred of the bastards.
Now, that's not exactly the daily tally I need to be clocking up if I'm going to be finished by July, but it IS a start, and it means that tomorrow, there's no blank slate to be stared at, no operating system to be reinstalled and nothing standing between me and total victory.
Unless, that is, I end up staying up all night to watch the election results trickle in. Then, tomorrow will be just another day in bed.
But this is not the way I'll remember this day when I'm looking back from my better-off, more yogic, less beardy, more multilingual and distinctly more employed future; no, today will only ever be the day on which I finally started writing my PhD thesis in earnest.
I came to this small cottage in Harwich (Google it. Harwich I mean, not the cottage.) now a full FIVE days ago, and have thus far been going through what can probably most generously described as "settling in".
I had people to visit for the first three days, leaving really only two days on which I've managed to achieve so very little. But the experience has so far been an interesting and not at all unpleasant one. I'll relate some of it here.
First, the domestic low-lights of the week's anecdotery: I've very much enjoyed the kind of elevated status which domestic tasks take on usually only when you're camping: cooking, laundry, wiping a surface and washing up are all very much part of the day's vital and memorable activities when you're camping, presumably because (a) there's a kind of Blitz spirit which kicks in when the pots, pans, spatulas, expensive washing up sponges and laundry baskets to which one becomes accustomed in the course of opulent urban life are not available to you, and you're left with a single steel pot with an ill-fitting lid, and a brush (shudder) for washing up with, and (b) because there's so little else to do. As a little list for some light relief from all the florid prose which seems to pour forth whenever I write one of these blog posts, I've: hung out washing outside, on an actual washing line, cooked a curry exclusively with products bought from non-ethnically specialised supermarkets (yes, this happens. This is why my parents are able to buy gefiltefish from their local Sainsbury's), washed up while listening to Radio 4 (there's no stereo system of any kind here) and eaten dinner on the sofa (there's also no dining table.) These are the things that make up an actual life, but they're rarely commented on or remembered apart from, as I've said, when there's not much else going on.
I've also played my beautiful guitar by candlelight (a romantic-sounding evening for one), lit an actual fire, read quite a lot of the only vaguely appealing novel on the bookshelves here (it's almost exclusively chain-thrillers like Jo Nesbo and Dragon Tattoo whatever the fuck), slept a fair amount and strolled through the seemingly uninhabited old town of Harwich. More excitingly though, I've started a morning running routine, trotting pathetically (in the old-fashioned sense, hopefully) along the sea-front listening to a podcast designed to get incurable lazies to become striding Mo Farahs in just nine weeks. I've also semi-inadvertently joined a choir. Upon Googling "Harwich events" half in hope, and half in preparation to scorn the inevitable cultural desert, I found a reference to a choir with the absurd name of "Harwich Sings". I also found out that they were rehearsing that very evening, so decided to go along.
When I got to the majestic but crumbling building where they rehearsed (This doesn't narrow anything down by the way. Both adjectives fit almost any building around here perfectly) I listened in at the door. I came extremely close to turning around and never returning again, until I realised, through the yelping and groaning that sounded more like a military field hospital than a choral society, that they were singing Get Lucky by Daft Punk. Those of you who know anything about me at all will know that I was therefore bound by a sacred bond of trust, love and mutual respect between me and that band, not only to go in, but to sign up to sing alongside the distressed-sounding and very possibly mortally wounded singers inside.
Despite my efforts to slip in unnoticed, the woman in charge who, if slimmer, could have been described as larger than life, proceeded to announce my arrival to the whole choir, and made me sit right in the middle of the front row, as I grinned apologetically and tried my best not to look insane with my hi-vis cycling jacket and wild beard.
Anyway, the choir was pretty fun but utterly awful, which is probably the average choral experience in Britain anyway. Curiously, they have no tradition of going to the pub after rehearsals, but I'm sure it's something which I can work into the routine once I've established myself as a good egg and in no way a snobbish London literato out to scoff at their vain wheezings.
But this is supposed to be a blog post about my having started work finally, after much procrastination. (The previous thousand words might have already gone some way towards painting a picture of why I never get anything of substance done, if via no other medium than the sheer number of words itself.)
I received some excellent advice from a man who, despite apparent tendencies towards procrastination, gets more done in a day than I have in the last three years. He said not to worry about writing anything complete, accurate or good. Just write, and leave noticeable placemarkers for all the things that can be filled in in a second round of writing. This advice found its perfect target in me, and was particularly timely as I'd spent the day doing what, in various forms, I spend all days doing: a side-project which I imagine will take a minute and ends up consuming me for so long that I no longer have any concept of what the original project even was. The day before yesterday it was this graph which was intended to accompany the very first sentence I had written and ended up taking me all evening:
 |
| A close-to-pointless graph |
But not so today! Today I invented no wheels. Today I merely wrote some words. (And did what for any normal human would be an insane amount of dicking around but for me seems comparatively little.) In fact I wrote five hundred of the bastards.
Now, that's not exactly the daily tally I need to be clocking up if I'm going to be finished by July, but it IS a start, and it means that tomorrow, there's no blank slate to be stared at, no operating system to be reinstalled and nothing standing between me and total victory.
Unless, that is, I end up staying up all night to watch the election results trickle in. Then, tomorrow will be just another day in bed.
 |
| My view as I write this |
