Author: old_wp_importer

Another brain-dump that’s mainly for my own benefit. So once again it’s going behind a cut.

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With a bit of luck, I should be able to take a day off work on either Friday or Saturday night, letting me go to Strawberry Fair without falling asleep on the grass. Which should I choose?

[Friday means gothsoc and being awake for strawberry fair. Saturday allows me to drink at/after the fair, and messes up my sleep less]

In the meantime, I’m heading off to Oakham for a couple of days, so you won’t be seeing me until the other end of the week. Enjoy the exams

Also: apologies for my last post; I really didn’t intend it as an attack on anybody, more a general curiosity about why conversations turn that way. Sorry if I offended people!

Now, back to work in an office that is mostly empty, but not quite empty enough for naked dancing

Is there anybody here who speaks good French, and has some time tonight?

I’m helping my sister write an application for a French university, and we’re in dire need of a good french-speaker to give us a hand proofreading etc.

You’ll win eternal gratitude and many, many drinks.

Please?

Below the cut is a braindump on what’s going on with police forces in Iraq at the moment, and in particular why they are getting such heavy media coverage right now. I’ve not quite got my head around it, so it’s a splurge more than anything coherent.

[not cross-posted to [IAG](http://www.iraqanalysis.org) until I can make more sense of it all]

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Grrr!

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More than 70 people have been arrested in Moscow after activists tried to hold the city’s first gay rights rally, despite a ban on the event

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There is no Calling in a fortnight’s time. What shall we do instead?

Suggestions so far are:

1. The boring: find a pub, same as usual
2. The exciting: gather on castle hill, dance and frolic in the open air
3. The marginally less boring: congeal in somebody’s room (assuming we can find a willing room-donor living near the town centre)

The Washington Post tries to be snarky about Bush’s language:

Bush has declared turning points and milestones in the war before. He called it “an important milestone” when a temporary governing council was formed in July 2003 and “a turning point” when sovereignty was turned over to the interim government in June 2004. Elections in January 2005, he said, were both “a turning point in the history of Iraq” and “a milestone in the advance of freedom.”

He called it a “milestone” in October when Iraqi voters approved a constitution and “a major milestone” two months later when they elected a parliament — a moment he also termed “a turning point in the history of Iraq, the history of the Middle East and the history of freedom.” The selection of a prime minister last month was “an important milestone toward our victory in Iraq” and, a week later, “a turning point for the Iraqi citizens.”

The thing is, these really

are

milestones; they’re some of the biggest dots you’d put on a timeline of Iraq. So

Bush 1 — 0 WaPo

In more important news, I’ve just discovered Spurl, and started using it to keep track of articles on Iraq. I’m feeling pretty upbeat about my chances of using it to make a lot more sense out of what’s going on in the country these days. But, as always, time will tell…

Cambridge exam-terror has somehow escaped the university, and it’s prowling around the town.

I’ve been having panicky dreams about exams I haven’t prepared for. Sillier still, some have been half-awake dreams, so I spend time worrying over whether I’ll have to not go to the Calling tonight, so I have time to cram the essentials for tomorrow’s exam.