we spent the day in London yesterday, mainly going to see Jennie's show at the Royal College of Arts. Her Orange prize monsters were being seen by a large crowd of trendy arty people. She pointed out all the sharp angular spectacles - these people had certainly been to specsavers! Its a great shame, and an indictment of her lecturers at northampton, that it takes outsiders to appreciate her work which is always fresh, interesting and playful. Personally, I think that because she is honest and never 'up herself' this is reflected in her graphics and tired old tutors perhaps get a bit obsessed with looking for terribly clever artists who often spend so much time packaging their message that they forget to actually 'say' anything. This week a group of art critics missed a Damien Hirst artwork in an auction because it wasn't labelled as such - it sold for £200. The buyer promptly put it back up for sale as 'a damien Hirst' whereupon the critics noticed and snapped it up for several thousands - what's in a name eh? I hope Jennie enjoyed herself, I was very proud of her and I hope it gives her the confidence to grow her career - she deserves to have a very bright future.

first reflections on arsenal's 3-0 win tonight: good win but sparta prague were poor. As Tony Adams said 'they came here for nuffink an they got it'. Rosicky scored from a great Walcott cross in 7 minutes and that pretty much killed the tie - at 3-0 on aggregate. Second half sparta tried for a bit but after Fab and Ade came on (for Rosicky and RVP) arsenal picked up the tempo and eduardo started to look more dangerous. He crossed for Cesc to score before netting himself in the last minute from Denilson's cross. Very satisfying win, we never really looked in trouble.

So now we just have to wait for the draw for the group stage tomorrow.. be good to avoid barca and madrid, milan and psv. Think we should do better tha last year but not sure we have enough depth to win it.

bugger.. just heard the refuse van and realised that I've forgotten to put out the recycling. Its paper this week so its not the end of the world I'll just jump up and down on the box to squeeze more in! More concerned about my laptop and the internet connection. I noticed last week that during fantasy prem it just quits altogether when I try to change line-ups and this morning it did it on facebook as well. It also takes ages to load up and sometimes won't load one item (right now it has loaded 100 of 101 items for blog.co.uk). This computer is about three years old and I might try and buy a second hand desk top Mac nearer Christmas but its been an expensive year (again) so I'd rather not have to. Part of the problem is that I am still so ignorant about computers (despite being the department's IT rep!) that I'm really not sure what to do about it all.

Today is a writing day - and I think that is what I shall use wednesdays for this term. My teaching rota is going to be Tuesdays (Heritage), Thursdays (Crime) and Fridays (Jack and Criminology) so I'll fit my office hours around teaching and leave Monday & Wednesday free for research. Monday's I find it very difficult to be creative, I tend to do admin tasks mostly so that really leaves Wednesday for creativity. Well, Odin would approve - the day for gathering and constructing knowledge but not dangling upside down from the world tree to do it.

I'm trying to write with Marvin on my lap - not easy! We are watching time team on the history channel. Albert's been out too but the pair of them are very wriggly - it certainly stimulates them but then they turn into escapologists! Marvin still seems to be the most afraid of me but didn't seem to mind being handled. They are back in their hutch run now - eating grapes.

Mixed game at the Abbey yesterday; Ebbsfleet were a much tougher side than Farsley and took the lead just before half time. Their scorer, Luke Moore, drew the wrath of the home support with his over elaborate celebrations and also for a spat with Danny Potter (The U's keeper) a bit earlier. He remained the hate figure for most of the afternoon - only eclipsed by the referee who was quite frankly one of the worst I've ever seen. Having made several bad decisions the crowd taunted him with 'You don't know what your doing!' and 'Cheat!'. After that he tried to put it all right by awarding lots of fouls to us. It may be a difficult job he really needs to have a good think about his performance. After a whole second half of trying Cambridge finally equalised in the first minute of 5 minutes injury time. It was very much deserved despite the fact that we had looked fairly toothless up front all match - leo Fortune-West in particular. The draw (with other results going our way) means they are still equal first after 5 matches - and unbeaten.

well we made it to wiltshire and it didn't disappoint. For once the AA travel planner was spot on - it took exactly two hours to reach Stonehenge where we were wisked through the queues by a helpful English Heritage steward and found ourselves wandering around the ancient stone circle with lots of tourists. The number of eastern European accents was striking - no wonder 'Red Ken' Livingstone is courting their votes for the London mayoral election. Jennie refused to believe that 'henge was built by our ancestors, preferring to argue that as it is so unreal it can only have been put up by a mischeavous Dr. Who racing back and forth through time. She has a point - despite watching countless documentaries that show that 5,000 years ago we could have dragged stones from the Preseli Hills and stuck them on top of gigantic sarsens it is still hard to fathom. As to why they bothered well standing in front of them that at least is obvious - is it a clock? A sacrifical site? No, its a massive monument to a self-confident and creative people. It screams look at us God, we are here and we are here to stay. You have to wonder what sort of Britain we would have had if the Roman navy had got wrecked off the coast like the Armada did later in history.

got up early to get a good start on the road to wiltshire but the other half is suffering with her eyes so we are delayed - its not her fault but I'm pretty fed up about it. Now if we do go we'll be driving in the hottest part of the day and will be needing to eat lunch as soon as we arrive and will pick up the bulk of the traffic both ways. Perhaps we just won't go. I need to be more relaxed about it.

Finally got around to watching the Last King of Scotland last night. I thought it was very good - powerful portrayal of one man's madness and another's spectacular naiivity. I remember Idi Amin as child growing up in the 70s, he was a combination of bogey man and joke figure for the British media. The film ends with the raid on Entebbe - made me think how that era was dominated by Palestinian and IRA terrorism both seemingly mild compared to modern Islamists. I think there was a series of books called the thoughts of (or sayings of ) Idi Amin.. bit like the books about George W. You don't have to be mad to be a dictator but it helps.

it looked like being another one of those days at the Emirates... it took Arsenal 80 minutes to finally beat Manchester City - we huffed and puffed and RVP missed a penalty but we kept pace with pool and the chavs both who won (as predicted earlier!) Cambridge got the point and the clean sheet Jimmy Quinn demanded and so if they can win on Monday against Ebbsfleet they can go top again - heady stuff!

Tomorrow we are hoping to get out in to the megalithic countryside of Wiltshire to have a look at Stonehenge and (possibly Avebury and Silbury Hill). I hope its not too commercial - I haven't been since the penultimate henge festival (1984?) and naturally my memories of that are somewhat hazy... since then I've been to Brodgar and Stennes on Orkney several times and to the Rollrights a couple of years ago. Stonehenge is amazing but its lost some soul since its been fenced off. Still it should be a good exercise for the new lens which I need to get used to before Skye. I'll try and post soem photos later in the week.

Rat watch: the boys have got a spacious new addition to their pad but still seem intent on sleeping for most of the day

No post yet from Arseblogger... I expect he's been partying hard in Dublin and there will be many bloiks this morning. Big game for the Gunners this afternoon, Man City at home. Normally we'd be looking at an easy 3 points but with City sitting top of the league under sven and Micah Richards talk of the town it could be very close. Hopefully Gilberto and Ade will be back and Jens is out with an 'injury' so we can do the business and keep the distance between ourselves and United. I expect liverpool and chelski to both win. cambridge have a real test away at woking - lets hope the lads have fully recovered from the mystery virus and and at least get a point.

All the papers are full of headlines about youth gangs following the murder of Ryan Jones in Liverpool. IT almost feels like everywhere gangs are going 'hey we're not in the news, if Manchester London and Liverpool can kill each other shouldn't we be at it?'. Stupid I know. Clearing up my office yesterday I found a copy of the Sun I had kept from August 2005 with screaming headlines about Britian being out of control - gangs and anti-social youth running amok. This week Philip Lawrence's killer won his appeal against being deported and the papers reminded us that such headlines were about ten years ago. It is still a minority of youngsters that are involved but the age of some, below their teens, is very worrying. You can't lock up ten and eleven year olds and you can't even send 15 year olds into national service. Had a good chat with FM this morning about it - we both noted that along with deprivation, poverty, lack of prospects and testosterone much of this violence and gang behaviour seems to be fuelled by gangsta rap. You can't ban music - that only makes it more popular - but surely some of these rappers (who are rich and influential) needs to start preaching a different message. Not sure what though, study hard and get a good job hardly makes a great lyric does it?

Bit of a back to work day today... marked the one late dissertation (not too bad if a little lacking in ambition), completed my PDR form for Jon and sent him that and the review of the London books which I altered slightly. Overall quite a productive day. Took my bike to the station to get it microchipped by the BTP (British Transport Police) but they didn't turn up so had to come home and make dinner (shepherd's veggie pie!)

Spoke to an old colleague in Waterstone's who is seriously disenchanted with the place. The 'new' manager (she's been there 3 years) just doesn't seem to value her staff and there have been many changes there. Its retail so it always happens but she just never has grasped the principles of people management (then again she's not too hot on stock management either... but she's a good 'yes' girl so stays in favour with the suits I expect). I liked working in a bookshop.. nice people, (usually) friendly intelligent customers and loads of books to choose from. I miss being able to browse all day while working but I don't miss her, the company's ever changing targets or the very low pay.

Rat watch: boys are getting used to being handled and are enjoying the new run. Nearly two weeks and I think they sem to be a bit more settled. Marvin squeaks a bit and likes peas, Albert is more aggressive and fatter!

What a win for cambridge, 5-1 against a very poor Farsely Celtic team. The U's took the lead with a deflected Wolleaston shot in the first 5 minutes and leo Fortune-west made it 3-0 in under thirty minutes. The home crowd were boyant and the songs came thick and fast. I felt for the poor Farsley keeper who could lose a few pounds ("Did you eat Barry Fry?" sang the Newmarket Road end). Apparently Cambridge's squad came down with a mystery bug on Monday and in the second half they certainly looked like they were running on empty. Celtic got a goal back and for ten minutes it looked like they might throw it all away. But a lucky goal for Leo's hattrick made it 4-1 and they added a fifth. Top of the league without playing particularly well bodes well.

Contrast that with England's abject surrender to a very weak German side at the new Wembley. Ten minutes of optimism and an early lead followed by an awful howler by that spud keeper Robinson and then a great German goal by Pander ("he eats, shoots and leaves" said Lineaker) made it 2-1 to the visitors on the night. I can just imagine what the papers will say about McClaren tomorrow - if I was him I'd avoid the newsagents.

Feeling kinda down today. partly its the awful weather - not rain but just grey skies, cold and windy. Not like august at all. Partly because my eye is all swollen again and I just don't seem to be making progress despite being careful about eating, being less stressed and reducing the amount of alcohol. I know things take time but not being sure whether I'm going to make it through a day without an eruption is very destabilizing. And partly is because the rats just don't seem to be happy. Marvin in particular seems depressed and doesn't want to do anything. There's no sign that he's ill and occasionally he runs about. Both of them seem to be scared of me and i don't know why. I bought them a rabbit run to give them more space but they've just huddled themselves in a corner looking frghtened. so today is poop... hope it gets better. We are going to watch Cambridge tonight so perhaps that will cheer things up.

I'm mainly writing book reveiws today, in this attempt to get organised and clear my 'virtual' desk before the beginning of term. Two reviews of London histories in the 19th century, both of which on reflection look rather similar to titles published in the 1970s. I would like to write a history of London at some point in my life but having read several in the last few years it seems clear that I need avoid repetition. But how do you get away from outlining the facts as we know them? What angle can you take to make it fresh? I guess until I know how to write a better account of working London in the 18th century than Dorothy George's I had better save the paper and ink.

It feels autumnal today, its fairly chilly and very windy with grey skies and the threat of rain. What a peculiar year of weather I really have no idea what to expect in Skye this September. I notice that the Daily Express hack on R5 still refuses to accept that climate change has anything to do with human activity. In response to questions of how effective the airport protest has been he merely argued that flying has no effect on the environment. I'm not a scientist but it seems self evident that the burning of fossil fuels must affect the planet in some way or other. Maybe it is all a big con trick to get most of us to ease off our consumption so that supplies are preserved for the longer term or that taxes can be increased with an easy justification. I have no desire to stop people flying or driving but we should all be encouraged to use alternatives. Which brings me to trains> I am off to Kew on Wednesday (to visit the NA), it will cost about £25 to travel if I go after 9.30 but over £40 to go before. If I left home at 7.30 I could be at the archives for about 9.30 whereas waiting till 9.30 means I will be lucky to get there much before midday. I can charge the cost to Uni for the trip (which is for research) or I could drive (costing much less) - the green option is the train but it should not cost so much. If I had to go everyday I would drive, as most do. The answer is therefore very simple - government should renationalise the railways and much the cost of rail travel much more tempting to the commuter. Then we might all abandon our cars.

Rat watch: week two - they love nectarine and Albert is much easier to handle than his brother

bit of a wet wet wet day in norfamptun. Any chance of entertaining Monty and Mel on the lawn evaporated early doors as the clouds gathered ominously. Still we had a nice long lunch and finished a couple of bottles of good wine before they headed back home - Monty happy that his beloved Chelski had snaffled a dodgy point at Anfield. I was happy to get a draw at Blackburn but Jennie less so - perhaps reflecting her optimism or my divided loyalties this season. Blackburn - it would seem - tried to kick us off the park but again we stood up to it. However, we have lost Gallas for a few games with a groin injury. Hopefully Gilberto will be back soon to lead from midfield.

Albert's been out today, in his ball and for a general runaround. The pair of them are getting more adventurous and rather naughty at the same time.

Its a bit too early Saturday morning but I've woken like its a work day. The cat is miaowing for his food because he's heard me, the rats are sleeping (as usual). Last night I got a confirmation email from Palgrave (who I can now call my publisher..ooh!) that they will offer me a contract for the book. I have been encouraged by their response so far but to have it confirmed like this is great - it feels like a great weight has lifted from my shoulders. Mind you I still have to rewrite the thesis, and I'll only have about a year to do so. Still, its fantastic and should help with job searching should it come to that. So now I need to decide what to do about the bullock hunting article. UH don't want it as it is and I would need to do some more primary (and secondary) work to spin that as a deeper study of popular culture. But, this could then be an interesting section of the book so might be worth doing. Then I could take the other part of the article, about the role of the new police in the eradication of the sport, rework it as Pete suggested and offer it to FCH. After a long(ish) summer it feels like the new term is approaching fast and I have quite a lot to do. Next week needs to be a productive one!

No football today, Arsenal are playing Blackburn on Sunday and Cambridge are home to Farsley Celtic on Tuesday night (and I'm going to that one). So today is a day of cleaning and tidying and preparing for visitors tomorrow. We cleaned the rats out yesterday so they smell sweet but I will invite them out for another runabout today as they had a long one while their cage was being cleaned and they seemed to enjoy themselves.

I saved a mouse from the cat on Thursday evening. Cato was whining for his tea and as I went out to him I noticed a mouse on the lawn just a foot away keeping very still. At first I thought he was dead or hurt but when I came back from feeding his majesty the mouse was gone. They live in the cellar I think which I don't mind but I doubt Sheila's too keen so I won't mention it.

Stomach rumbling so time to wake the sleepy one for breakfast

well joint top... yes Cambridge United came from behind to beat Oxford at home with a last minute goal from Lee Boylan. The cameras were there from Setanta (not Sultana) and the whole match had a mid 70s match of the day feel to it. So its been a good start to the season with both my teams winning - long may it continue!

Open day at the university today - I've left some working clothes there so I can cycle in this morning and change. This is the plan for the new term, to leave the car behind more often. Right then, I'm off....

A good win for Arsenal last night, that never looked in doubt after the break. The first half was frustrating and nervy with Sparta Prague dishing out some pretty savage treatment to the young guns. I was worried that soemone (Fab or Flamini) would react and get sent off. Cesc was booked for a foul on the evil Repka and while he shouldn't have done it at least it shows that this season the team are not going to pushed around. Be interesting to see how they get on at Blackburn at the weekend. Sparta tried to kick us out of our stride in the first half, by the middle of the second they had run out of steam and ideas and then we beat them with two classic attacking moves. Perhaps now we might sign some new players, we should qualify and Wenger dropped a very strong hint that he would sign a new deal in the next few weeks.

All the talk this morning is about the record A level grades, with one in four students achieving an A. Are exams easier or are schools merely preparing their pupils better for the process. It is clear that some of the students that I teach have poor skills in English and their analytical ability is often limited. But these are not A, or even B, grade students. One caller to R5 complained that the media was slamming young people for drinking and anti-social behaviour on the one hand while also depreciating the achievement of those that had gained high exam passes. She has a point. I believe that the education system is different to 30 years ago. More people are leaving with better qualifications: more A levels more degrees. This makes it harder for young people to get a better paid job because there is more competition - so they are not necessarily advantaged over my generation. They also have to pay to go to university, which most of those people complaining about how easy exams are did not. However, it is arguable that too many go to university when a more appropriate option might be to take an apprenticeship or a vocational qualification.

If I were education secretary I would not raise the leaving age but I might suggest that there was a compulsory 'gap' year in which students could choose to do one of a number of things. Many would suggest restoring national service and I feel this could be appropriate for some, but not if it simply involved square bashing and weapons training. VSO is already popular and other, UK based voluntary schemes could be provided. Students could learn life skills (how to cook, budget, deal with alchohol, make relationships) that would better prepare them for university. They should also be paid for their service and encouraged to save towards their education. This might mean that when they sat down in their first class they were ready to learn and not simply spending year one learning to drink a yard of ale and download essays from the internet. All of this makes a much better and more useful area for debate than the 'yah boo exams are easy' stuff we seem to get every year now. Well done to all the A level students out there, they can only sit the exams that are put in front of them.

right I'm going for a ride before it pours with rain.

Rat watch: the lazy tykes are asleep in their hammock

Its a big day football wise. Arsenal play Sparta Prague in the away leg of our CC qualifier and so much rides on this - its on the telly (Sentanta) so I can nibble my fingernails in peace at home - C'mon you Gunners!

Picked up the new bike yesterday from MK with Claire's help. She thinks I've made a good choice and she knows her onions (or bikes rather) so I'm encouraged. Ive bought a Ridgeback Genesis which is faster but slightly less comfortable than my Velocity that was stolen last week. It feels a little odd at first but hopefully after I've put in some miles on it today it will settle in. The aim is to start using a bike more often and leave my car at home - both for fitness and to do my bit for the planet. Just how long this good intention lasts anyone's guess but I need to get fit for Skye so I have at least a month's incentive.

Rat watch: Albert came out for a runabout last night. He seemed ok but much more wriggly than his brother, this morning the pair are fighting (rough and tumble rather than serious), I'm trying to get them used to the sound of my voice so they are less nervous about being handled.

well the rain arrived this morning as predicted - presumably arranged by BAA to dampen the spirits of the Heathrow runway protestors. The football talk concerns the apparent mishandling by Wenger of the captaincy question. Gilberto only heard about Gallas getting the job when he read it on the club website. Now I find this a bit odd. Surely AW would have said something to him in person, at least by telephone? And do the Arsenal players actually visit the website? Gallas has a big ego, that much is clear and I wonder if AW is able to deal with that easily. Gilberto is a proper gentleman (in both senses of the word) and is perhaps better suited to the role of club captain where he can use his father figure persona to help the youngsters settle in - witness that wonderful UTube clip of him, Denilson and Baptista (who he?) grooving to latin sounds earlier in the year. Gallas needs to be captain and he is in the best position at centre-half, but he needs to lead by example (as Gilberto does) and not just by moaning and carping. I wonder, changing the subject slightly, whether potential new signings are waiting to see if we qualify for the CL? If they are then then they must be 'big' players - some second rater or the latest unknown Brazilian is hardly going to be worried about that are they?

Rat watch: Day 4 - not much movement today, a bit of excitement as grapes were introduced (easily their favourite food, closely followed by sweetcorn) and Albert seems particularly reluctant to being handled. Day by day as they say..

which of course is A GOOD THING... not writing this of course (although I am..) but writing the BOOK. Rewriting my thesis must be one of the least exciting things one can do in life but thankfully its not as bad as I feared. I am puzzled by how the process seems to swallow up the hours though. Summer is a weird kind of limbo for me at the moment. I have several things on the go but all are waiting on either other people (my PDR, grant application, book contract) or the academic year ( so for example I can't fully update my module websites until the resits are out of the way) or the necessity of a couple of visits to archives (for the grant, the book, and two articles - and arguably one of the modules if not two). And I'm waiting for the new bike to arrive after the theft of the last model - oh and for the insurance cheque to plop through the letterbox to pay for it!

so limbo... I guess it beats working though

pictures of the rats are on my facebook now...

well the gunners did it the hard way, coming from behind against Fulham. Mad Jens gifted prem new boy Healey a goal in under a minute and Arsenal then huffed and puffed for the first half. It got better after the break, especially after Walcott came on for the fairly ineffective Eboue. On the third time of asking we got a penalty after Toure was brought down. RVP converted and then with a minute to go Hleb (yes Hleb!) stuck in the winner. The whole afternoon turned on its head in 5 or 6 minutes - that's football. So with Cambridge United winning away, the Gunners winning at home, sperz losing and the mancs drawing its been a great start to the season.

Looks like we are going to have to be under canvas for some part of our Skye strip after all. Francis can only book the bunkhouse for 4 days, never mind early September in Scotland shouldn't be too bad and I'm looking forward to another assault on the Cuillins.

Rat watch: Day 2, Albert came out for a bit of an explore but mostly they've been lying low today..lazy sods!

Well its the first day of the new football season, sperz lose, pool win, west ham lose to Sven's new boys and we await the real action tomorrow when Arsenal, Chelski and United play. What can we say so far? Bolton will struggle I think, so will Boro and perhaps the Hammers. Spurs might have spent millions but you can only play 2 or 3 strikers at once and if they all fire blanks and your defence is crap you are still going to drop points. Cambridge won away at York, top result! Now lets hope Arsene's youngsters can do the business against Fulham. Welcome to Albert and Marvin the new rats on the block...