been to hear my american cousin give a paper on his doctoral subject , samuel beckett. now this was to an english seminar rather than history although he is a historian.. anyway v confusing to explain but... it was interesting: i've never read any beckett but i've picked up 'murphy' from the library and will have a go. my friend's paper was an exploration of the connection between beckett (a 20th century irish writer) and arnold guelincx a 17th century philosopher who was familiar with descartes (hey but not in a rude way.. ). one of guelincx's maxims struck me as very modern for an early modern calvinist prostestant.."the best status of all is not to be born. the most similar status to this is to reach death as soon as possible".. i expect he would have enjoyed the Smiths if he'd lived in manchester in the 80s :))

dinner with SheWho went better than expected: she's is still in a certain amount of self-denial about her responsibility for anything but i think we set soem limits to our friendship which we can both cope with. it was helped by my teryaki sea bass with warm noodle and beansprout salad and NZ sauvignon blanc :.

finally keegan is back at the toon - well i'm very happy for them. you have to like KK's enthusiasm and his respect for the way that football should be played. i remember seeing newcastle at highbury playing the cavalier football that meant they won or lost games 4-5 or 6-4. i will get to see what he can do (hopefully not too much too soon) when the barcodes come to the emirates in the cup. at least they should be more entertaining than fat sam's lot were in the carling cup