My resolution this Lent is as follows: to work on Law and exclusively Law, in the form of reading or writing (newspapers or non-course related material not included, ditto lectures) for at least one hour every day, non-transferrably and without exception, not for theatre, not for anything.

In aid of this I read half a case backstage at Carmen today.  It amuses me, it really does, some people's reactions to work at this point.  There are the few whose approach is, "You're a fresher, why are you working?" - to which the answer is, "Because next year I have to work a lot harder and I don't want to be out of practice; also it is one of my New Year's Resolutions to get a 2:1 and as as things stand I am nowhere near likely to achieving this.  Also because the people I am living with next year are all, I have discovered, a lot cleverer and more naturally able than me, and therefore I am making up for this by doing the work and making myself live up to their standard."  (Please, if you've known me the last few years and are about to launch into a You're-Doing-Yourself-Down-I'm-Sure-They're-Not spiel, save it.  Then meet them.  It's breathtaking and incredible.)

Another reaction that made me smile was the producer, who came and looked over my shoulder, and his face fell.  "Oh, you don't do Law, do you?"

"No, I'm annotating this for fun.  Why, what did you think I did?"

"Oh, I don't know, Science.  You're a techie."

But without doubt the best of the lot was the glorious glorious gentleman doing the get-in and ticket sales, who heard I did Law, snorted, and asked if I wanted to be a lawyer.  Which of course I don't, and I told him so.

"So why are you doing it?"

Oh, hundreds of reasons.  Because it's logical, and thought provoking, and moral, all at the same time.  And it's all about real people - people who decide the fate of other people, people who try to influence other people, people who react to other people.  Rights, and wrongs, and hypothetical situations and reality and thought experiments and actual people's lives and interactions and gorgeous language and trying to rationalise the irrational.  Law is everything and everything relates to it.  That's why I do it.  Which I didn't say in so many words because his eyebrows were up at this point.  And then he said,

"So why aren't you doing Philosophy?"

OOH.  OOH.  I do not pick verbal arguments nearly as much as I used to, but with male Philosophy students, who seem without exception to be both obnoxious and unquestionably certain that their subject is the only Real subject, it's so damned tempting... especially ones who think Law is basically just Ethics plus drivel.  But I was very good.  I didn't mention a single Ancient Greek, or rise to the bait when he started off on the philosophical technical terms (except to tell him he was only right about the ethics if he considered himself a positivist - and that was only to let him know that I am aware of what I'm talking about) AND added to this, I didn't take anything he said and pose it back to him as a question.  I wasn't even puerile.  I hope you're impressed.

Anyway, the point is that I may abandon it for the theatre regularly - for doing things that I can see the results of almost immediately, for other beautiful, people-related things - and I may complain vehemently about having to work.  But I adore my subject.  And secretly yes, it really does confuse me when people have no interest in it whatsoever.  But I suppose everyone thinks that.

One more thing, just to let you know, and because it also made me happy: hit my 15,000 pageviews mark on Thursday.  This cheered me up immensely.  Thank you.

Walking back up to college about ten minutes ago it occurred to me that, since yesterday lunchtime, I have consumed the following: 1 packet crisps, 1 DSU brownie, 2 ginger biscuits, 1/2 bar chocolate, 1/3 pack wine gums, 3 mugs coffee.  And while I am very much ready to eat now, I had forgotten quite how fantastic it feels to have cut down for a day.  I don't advocate this for anyone else, and in no possible way am I planning on going back to the one-meal-a-day days of last year, but it really is such a high, I almost feel like I'm drunk.  Especially - and this is the clincher - walking past someone on my way up the hill that I always feel self-conscious around, and just thinking: you don't know what I've done.  You couldn't do this and still function properly.  It's like last year getting a high out of being around people I know would be angry with me for not eating properly.  It's a power trip.  I just feel on top of the world.

And now I am going to try and blag myself two puddings, just to round the day off nicely.  Yessssssss.

Here is a woman to respect: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/7906884.stm?lss

On another note, the Office of National Statistics tells me that the net savings ratio in the UK at the moment is about 1.8%.  As I have no previous data I'm not quite sure whether to be shocked about this.  But as it stands I am, a bit.  That's the person on the average salary saving about £400 per year.  Less, if you take into account that people with higher incomes tend to save substantially more.  I think I managed that last year on a Saturday job.  (Say what you will about it being a bad analogy but I bought a week's worth of lunches, newspapers, vast quantities of coffee and pastries and the occasional suit jacket on that!)  I suppose it's partly the effect of the downturn, and unemployment, but honestly - it's not as bad as some of the papers make out... I am quite, quite shocked.

“We can understand why the decision in Bell v. Lever Brothers Ltd. did not find favour with Lord Denning. An equitable jurisdiction to grant rescission on terms where a common fundamental mistake has induced a contract gives greater flexibility than a doctrine of common law which holds the contract void in such circumstances. Just as the Law Reform (Frustrated Contracts) Act, 1943 was needed to temper the effect of the common law doctrine of frustration, so there is scope for legislation to give greater flexibility to our law of mistake than the common law allows.”  (Great Peace Shipping Ltd. v. Tsavliris (International) Ltd.  [2002] EWCA Civ 1407 at [161] per Lord Phillips MR)

To what extent, if at all, should the demise of the equitable jurisdiction to grant rescission for common mistake be mourned?

It's all getting a bit overwhelming.

Somebody wise once hung a notice on our kitchen pinboard: 'Don't tell me to relax, it's only the tension that's keeping me together.'  But I would rather keep busy than brood on things.

My dad taught me about interdependence.  I was sat in bed and instead of a bedtime story sometimes we would talk.  He'd teach me about how engines work, or 3D co-ordinates, or how bimetallic strips make the world go round.  Once we calculated the total volume of rainwater to fall on Hampshire if it rained uniformly and the report said 5mm.  On this particular occasion we were discussing the various people involved in the creation and sale of a bed such as the one we were sat on.  If I were not dependent on other people, the first thing I'd currently do is just go back to bed for a bit.  This seems to me to be a bit of a paradox.

Just got back from going into town, the main events of which were a) the planning of an exciting trip for tomorrow, and the discovery of something very exciting that happened in the last few days, b) the purchase of a particularly good book and c) the moral support of a friend doing something nobody should have to do by themselves.

This is going to be a bit of an honest one.

Sex, ladies and gentlemen.  It makes the world go round.  It provides us with countless amusing stories, which may or may not tangentially involve images of Robert de Niro.  It makes us feel included, wanted, important or utterly alone.  As I have discovered it makes for eyebrow-raising anecdotes over bacon sandwiches and real coffee, which was lovely, and some of the best literature in the world is based upon it.

I have taken the morning after pill twice in my life, and I am such a lucky person in that M came with me on one of those occasions and didn't on the other because I asked him not to, as opposed to lack of concern.  I am very, very lucky, in fact, that he is concerned about that sort of thing, and about me, and about as supportive as it is possible to wish for.  Which from my point of view is fantastic, but leaves me with perhaps an unrealistic view of how concerned the average other partner in that sort of situation is.

Please, gentlemen.  I am sure you are all decent.  But this afternoon I took a friend of mine to take the pill, for the first time in her life, and she'd spoken to the guy only briefly by text message all day.  He knew it was going on.  He did not offer to come with her.  His immediate response was annoyance with her for telling me because he thought I'd hate him.  The morning after pill is a tricky thing, the thought of the consequences makes you anxious for days, and I don't know about her but it made me pretty nauseous.  Please, gentlemen.  For God's sake do not be like this boy if you ever get into this sort of situation, I don't wonder that she felt pretty much abandoned.  It is not easy.  It screws with your brains, especially if you've never done it before.  I don't hate this guy, not at all, that'd be utterly illogical and for the 99% I think he is a lovely boy if a little naive at times, but I do think he's tactless and a little cruel and needs a kick up the jacksey.

On the flip side I got a copy of 'The Blind Assassin' by Margaret Atwood today.  There are some authors whose writing you just slip into and it just resonates inside you like your chest and your brain have been wrapped in velvet, given a glass of very good wine and a darkened room and told not to worry about anything for a few hours.  I'd forgotten how much Margaret Atwood is one of those for me.

As for the trip tomorrow; two hours in a landrover with someone I don't know all that well for the purposes of picking up a rifle.  The prospect of making conversation amuses me.  I wonder if I'll scare him if I get my knitting out.

My mood has been going up and down like nobody's business the last few days.  I would say I can't think why, but I know very well why.  The thing is, were I to list the reasons it would take a very long time and only depress me again.  Suffice is to say, I'm getting essays back that I didn't do nearly enough work on, it is now less than forty-eight hours until I see M again for the first time in a month, and it's show week.  I've got close to tears more often, and over less, in the last two days than in in probably the last two months put together.

After the hugely long entry of a few days ago, I am noticing things more, and the list of Things I Am Indifferent About/Insensitive To That I Shouldn't Be is mounting by the day.  Every few months my ability to interact socially disappears for no apparent reason and I think, I think this is one of those times.  I'm getting angry, and not realising it.  I'm insulting people and not realising it.  I'm being dismissive and not realising what I'm doing at the time.  I'm not a particularly good reader of people at the best of times, but this is just getting silly.  On Sunday, after church I had things to get on with and snuck away without talking to anyone; I'm failing to work and having missed a few lectures because of being ill I'm really feeling it now.  Not feeling the strain.  Realising that I cannot be bothered, and even if I were the way things are going I still wouldn't be getting the marks I want.  I thought I could multitask relatively well - theatre and work and dancing and social life and sleep, all balanced delicately.  I had no contingency plan for being ill for three days, and I was happy to put everything on hold for Guys and Dolls and this is where it all went wrong.

According to my EU tutor, I can't construct a coherent argument.  From the above this should be evident.  Usually now I would sleep for hours and hours because I have a lie-in on Thursday.  Right now I feel so guilty about doing that I almost feel sick.  Not that it'll stop me.  That makes me sick too.  Is this even making sense?

How the hell did I find myself doing a Law degree at a university like this?  I should have known I wasn't up to it.  Before you ask, if I stopped with the theatre now... well, I couldn't, I have commitments, but I think I'd start to go mad.  Or at least cynical.  How the hell did I get here?

1.  It has obviously been snowing again last night and the view of the cathedral is absolutely spectacular.
2.  They have put poetry in the loos!  I seem to be the most excited person on my corridor to find themselves eye-to-eye with Walter de la Mare's 'The Listeners' while in the bathroom, but, y'know, poetry makes me happy.  Especially when it's really good poetry, put somewhere where people are going to come across it, let's face it have time to read it, and hopefully decide they like it.  Walter de la Mare... someone has fantastic taste.
3.  Bacon sandwiches and coffee make the world a better place without fail.

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

                   'The More Loving One' - W. H. Auden


So three weeks, quite a few lies, quite a few tears and an incident involving a foot later and the Hollingside Romeo and Juliet have gone their separate ways, with enough drama to last us all for quite some time.  There's been a certain quantity of two-facedness upon which I dare not comment.  I am a cynic about these things, though; I think it's all well and good being lovey, but once upon a time several years ago I got told I love you after two weeks and I really can't feel excited about anything that, well, superficial really, and after all doesn't the saying go that if something looks too good to be true then it probably is?

I don't know why I'm getting defensive about this.

It's not new, after all.  Even before I was in the lucky state I am in now I was very aware that one cannot exactly predict wedding bells at first sight, it does not happen like that.  You do not know someone after spending a week very close to them.  And everything is a gamble - if things go right or if they don't, the other person always has some way of surprising you, the difference being that if things go right then the surprise is more often than not good.

I'm aware this makes me sound quite callous, incidentally, so I'm sorry.  But it's how I think and seeing as currently there is nobody sat next to me saying "What on earth are you saying?"... well.  I'm just going to go right ahead.

When friends of mine break up, then, I'm not a total bitch.  But I have fears, of course I have fears, everyone does, however unfounded or otherwise they might be, and unfortunately I also have an imagination, which tends to go in the direction of: you're upset.  You poor sod.  It must be awful.  You're upset, after a month.  Of course you are.  So think what it'd be like after two years... you'd be absolutely distraught... it'd be like your whole world caved in... and then off goes my entire imagination down some horrible and far-too-oft imagined route which invariably ends with myself sat in floods of tears on a bathroom floor somewhere.

And then of course it is impossible to internally take seriously someone who is upset after having been with someone a matter of weeks, which is a disgusting and childish position to be in, and not at all the reaction I would expect from myself.  I had no idea that I was that much of a bitch, frankly.  (Obviously I do my very best to keep this under wraps.  But I really don't think I'm the best person to have around in a break-up; there's not knowing what to say and there's not knowing what to say.)

I am one of those lucky people in this world that when it comes down to it has never really had to be the chaser.  I've tried.  We've all tried.  But it's no good because I've never really had to try very hard and (yes, here comes the egotist with an absolute vengeance) I seem to attract chivalry.  I don't like chivalry.  You know I don't like chivalry.  I go on and on very often about really not liking chivalry.  But is it really that bad to dislike not being the one who falls harder?  Because invariably looking at my past relationships that has been the case: even if I didn't end it I was not the one who fell hardest.  And isn't that what Auden's saying - I'd rather it were my emotions at stake than yours?

I like Auden.  I think he's very perceptive.  And I think all the above could have been phrased to make me sound like a nicer person but what really would have been the point?

Right-right-right.

So where I come from, you start with breakfast, then you have lunch.  This is not disputed.  Then you have tea about four o'clock, supper is a light meal take about or before seven-ish, dinner is anything later than this, more formal than this or heavier than this.  Not on the same day, obviously, but you know.  Definitions-wise.

Nobody has supper at nine o'clock; this is foolish.  Also "supper" as a term clearly has nothing to do with the word "supplementary", in the same way that "history" is not gender-specific.  Right?

Apparently in Darlington this is not the case, or Manchester, but it is in London and Southampton.  So, making the obvious link (and spoiling for the obvious argument, of course) - what is anyone else's experience of this?  (For reference, the delegates from Norway and Austria had not a clue either way.)  I mean, obviously I was just being a bit contrary and seeing what other people thought - studying regional English to an extent I know it changes, but it wasn't really something I looked at in too much detail.  But aren't the idiosyncracies of English just wonderful, and isn't it really quite intriguing how the differences came about?  Oh I miss linguistics now...

On another related and quite exciting subject, I call it a sitting room, the lovely lady from Darlington calls it a lounge, a friend in Kent calls it a living room or a sitting room interchangeably and, rather gloriously, the girl from London has a drawing room.  Whereabouts in London she is from I have yet to ascertain, but it did cheer me up.

On an entirely unrelated subject, yes, it snowed, but I missed it due to spending Monday afternoon and Tuesday, and a good deal of this morning, in bed feeling more sick and nauseous than I can remember while not situated alarmingly close to the Bay of Biscay.  So that was fun.