Various things of the last few days

While watching a tv drama the other night something really strange happens - one of the characters has my name. It is pretty strange to hear "your" name mentioned on tv. Unfortunately it was a fairly minor role. If it had been bigger ormore important, I would have wanted to have recorded it.

Another drama I watched this week was on a "credit-crunch" theme. It was called "Freefall" and covered the lives of three people as the mortgage market collapsed. It was almost unwatchable at times as the tragedy of all of them rolled forward. It reminded me in some ways of "Boys from the Blackstuff". The format of the show was very effective and could be used for many other current-affairs-type subjects.

For instance, the war in Afganistan. As I drove home the other night, the road was lined with people waiting around, some carrying union jack flags - turned out they were waiting for some of the soldiers who died last week to pass through.

I have had two very good trading days this week and one less good. Overall it has been my best three days since I started but the one poor day plays on my mind far more than the other days. I had forgotten this feeling, but it is common to all traders. I haven't felt it since the end of 2006. I expect it willoccur much more often.

I am mainly reading biographies at the moment. In particular, one about Martin Luther. I am studying the exact format in some detail, trying to see how it was put together and what I would have done differently. It is shorter than I would have liked and is pitched to the general reader perhaps more than I would have liked as well. But it is a very free-flowing writing style and that is very commendable.

But the papers are full of stories about how hard the book trade is at the moment - advances are being cut drastically, especially among historians.

Other reading is mainly a book of articles from the defunct US cultural magazine Lingua Franca. Some very interesting stuff and more clear examples of the way academia really is compared to the rose-tinted idea I had until around this time last year.

Emma has severe toothache - the tooth that has caused her problems over the last couple of years. She arranges an emergency appointment near her office and asked if I would go down and meet her afterwards. She seems better than I had expected, but does wilt a little as the anaesthetic begins to wear off. I left her back at her flat where she was planning to go to sleep for the afternoon. I went to LSE then set off home around 4:00. Emma rang me at 4:30 in some distress from her tooth (post root canal treatment) but I was already on the coach home. I feel really bad about not waiting a little longer and therefore being able to go and see her again - but had thought she was past the worse.

A strange dream about Naomi Wolf, whose film, The End of America, I watched a little of the other day. We were on a date and go back to her place. However we couldn't agree on what we should do in bed as everything I suggested fell fowl of her feminist ideals. I wonder if that is a problem in real life? Would wanting her to dress in a French Maid's outfit really offend her too much?

A nightmare wakes me at 3:00a.m this morning. I am working in an open-plan office and have the worst cubicle in the place. I keep thinking I should be in one of the big offices like I used to work in. I wake up in a high state of anxiety. And I am writing this at 4:15am having not got back to sleep afterwards.

Another glorious sunrise. Time to start some study