so arsenal beat reading and cambridge won away at salisbury which makes for a more enjoyable sunday morning than has been the case of late. mind you arsenal did manage to dominate a game for nearly 90 minutes miss a hatful of chances and risk the possibility that coppel's lot would get it together to sneak a draw. its the story of our season and i really hope they can address that over the summer. as for reading lets hope they can stay up; they try to play football the right way (i.e. they let us play and beat them 9 times out of 9 ) The mighty U's play torquay on tuesday night and, while its a big ask, a win would guarantee the play-offs and so an exciting end to the season.

i finally finished reading 'shantaram' (david roberts) this morning: it is 900+ pages of breathless adventure based on the true story of someone who escaped from an australian prison to live and work in mumbai. the book is interspersed with philosophy which gives it a 'literary' feel: its good, and would make an excellent film, but i think it was too long. I know have a stack of other books waiting to read and slightly resent robert's arrogance in imposing a lord of the rings like tomb upon me.

i was hoping to practice with my long lens somewhere today but the weather is (once again) too wet and generally crap to sit in a field looking for (feathered) birds, so i expect those dissertations will dominate my day..