Vertical and horizontal

In Come Dance With Me, by Russell Hoban (again), one of the characters, a doctor, makes an interesting observation about the doctor-patient relationship, imparted to him by his predecessor at the hospital:

'It's a matter of the vertical vis-a-vis the horizontal' [...]
'The doctor is vertical; the patient is horizontal, even when they're walking
around. The doctor wears a suit, the patient is in pyjamas, even when they're
fully dressed.

This quotation illustrates how a lot of 'patients' feel, I think. When I go to the doctors, or for a test or a scan or whatever, I often feel (metaphorically) horizontal even though I'm not. I feel like I'm the one in the wrong and that the doctor is in the right. I feel powerless and vulnerable and at the mercy of the medical professional who's performing the test. A horizontal person in pyjamas (or worse, a hospital gown) is not supposed to ask questions. They're supposed to submit to what happens to them, and they can't run away because they don't have their clothes. I don't like it.

I don't like the indignity of having to take my clothes off in front of strangers so that they can examine me. I don't want to submit to the intrusions. As soon as I'm no longer in my own clothes and in one of those hospital gowns I'm no longer myself - I am a Patient who is there to have things done to her. Not only have I lost the protection of my clothing but my identity has been taken away.

At the dentist's the fear really kicks when I get to a certain angle in the chair. I don't like tipping my head back to have my hair washed in the sink at the hairdresser's because I worry that I won't be able to get up again. Until a couple of years ago I always had nightmares when I slept on my back. It's too vulnerable a position.

Sometimes I feel more vertical than others, depending on what's happening to me/who I'm talking to. I suppose the more intrusive the procedure the more metaphorically horizontal I feel.

I don't want to sound ungrateful, I just want to put across my point of view. I'm not sure about the layout of the quotation. Weird.

The cathedral, the book, and me

Having recently finished reading Riddley Walker, I decided that I would go and have a look for the painting of the Legend of St Eustace in Canterbury Cathedral, and so, on Saturday morning, I did. I had to ask an elderly lady cathedral guide where it was, and almost looked at the modern copy without realising there was a great big painting on the wall behind me, but I did find it. The hart of the wood was indeed there. Poor St Eustace, he didn't have a particularly nice life after he converted to Christianity. Good painting though. [Is this the least informative review of a significant painting ever written?]

I love cathedrals, it must be the Anglican in me. Actually, I don't think it is. I don't know whether it's just the sheer scale of them, the architecture or what, but the sense of history and spirituality in a cathedral is awesome. Whenever I visit one I get drawn into it, and I feel, in a strange way, really safe and at peace. I wander around and soon it's just me and the cathedral, the outside world is gone, the other people in the cathedral are gone, that's it. Me and the stone and the something of people and times gone by. I think that maybe what makes me feel safe is the sense of continuation despite great change, the sense of beauty and the feeling of escape from the world outside. I want this world of peace and quiet and pattern and music and beauty.

On Saturday, after I had looked at the painting of the Legend of St Eustace, I went outside and sat in the cathedral grounds on a bench, reading a book. I thought about things, while I was reading the book - it was that kind of book (actually, it still is). It's a love story, but a little on the odd side. I think it would be describe in TV guides as 'off-beat', which is not a phrase I like even though I've just used it. I was still feeling safe within the bounds of the cathedral and I could think clearly about the things I was thinking about. Sometime I can do this, but then at other times (like now) my thoughts are rather muddy.

There was a wedding in the crypt of the cathedral, and the bridesmaids, and then the bride and her father, arrived in horse-drawn carriages. Lovely dappled/white horses, with plumes on their heads. They were very beautiful. I like horses, but only from a safe distance. Near to me, on the next bench, a man was drawing the cathedral and the lady next to him started talking to him about where the best views of the cathedral are. I overheard their conversation. He said he was an art teacher, and he liked imparting the secrets of art to his students. Apparantly one of the secrets of art is that you should always start your picture from the top down, just in case you needed to know.

I was having a morning where everything meant something for some reason, I think it was the effect of the cathedral, and possibly the book as well. The world wasn't just passing me by, I was a part of it. On Saturday morning I, the cathedral, the book, the artist and his picture, the street cleaner (I know I haven't mentioned him before) and the horses, felt significant. I don't know if you've ever loved someone and everything you see or experience connects you to that person in even the most intangible way. On Saturday morning I felt like that, but it was more like being in love with life or at least the potentials of life, what good could be achieved, even through the smallest things.

Sometimes I feel like I'm in a book and I start thinking like the characters, I wonder whether I should be worried about this.

Story

I've finished my 'story' about my life with a congenital heart defect (thrilling stuff), and I need to send it in by the 31st of July. I am deliberating over whether to send it in or not. I'm not sure whether it's very good, or even whether I want people to read about my feelings about heart-related matters. I'm a bit worried that my parents might be upset if they read it because I've never really expressed my feelings about all my medical 'issues' before. I don't know. Maybe I should ask my mum to read it first? But then she might not like it and/or say it's not very good. I suppose now it's written I should do something with it. Well, I have four days to decide, so I will have a think.

Teach First, acquire manners later?

Today, I went shelving several times, which is good for me as I think I've probably only done about 6 hours shelving in the year and a bit since I've been working at the Library of Doom (apologies colleagues). My first attempt was fairly successful, i.e. I could see desk space where there had only been books before, but I did have a minor incident involving me bleeding over some books, myself and the shelving trolley due to a particularly vicious social work book. Two more attempts followed and more table space appeared (hooray!), but then more books arrived...

Anyway, I must get to the point of this entry...

I was getting rid of some 700s, trying to squeeze them into L-space, when some young men came by, talking loudly, so I asked them to please be quiet and they did reduce the volume, but also thought it was amusing and worthy of a mocking "shhhh". This is quite normal student behaviour, but it was made worse by the fact that the young men in question are Teach First students, and thus are supposed to be 'the cream' of British graduates and 'academic' - so you would think that they would appreciate and respect their library staff. I should have known better I suppose. I may be being over sensitive (as I often am), but it worries me that people who are supposed to make excellent teachers and set an example to children and young people have such a lack of respect for library staff. Their motto (yes, they have a motto) is "learning to lead". I'm not sure whether this is the kind of person I would want my children (if I had any) to follow.

I suspect my ranting might sound like an over-reaction, but I think you can tell a lot about a person, student or otherwise, by the way they treat library staff. But then I would say that.

Men

Since I wrote that little bit in a previous post about men having backbone and some women's problem with men who are too nice, I have been thinking some potential difficulties of being a man in the contemporary western world. Please note, what follows will contain generalisations. Also, I must point out that, in case you didn't know, I'm not a man, and therefore I accept that what I say may not be fact, or even the experience of men today. However, I will continue.

Unreasonable and irrational women

Women can be very unreasonable. They don't want a nasty man, obviously, but how does a man acheive the correct degree of niceness without becoming too nice? I'm not too sure, and I'm a woman, so how are men supposed to know? Some women can also be very irrational. As I am one of these women, I sympathise with any husbands, partners or other men who might come into contact with women like me. I have to say though, that I don't mean to be irrational and am at my most irrational during the dreaded PMT. I honestly don't know how Mr C copes. If he behaved the way I do sometimes I would probably leave him. (I'm also not very tolerant). I can see that if you are a rational person (man or woman) it must be very difficult to empathise with someone who is being irrational. However, also bear in mind that they might not necessarily be being irrational, they might just be doing something differently to the way you would do it.

Nagging

I am a champion nagger, but I still feel sorry for men who get nagged. We know it doesn't really work, and yet we still do it. It's like a compulsion. Please believe me when I say we really do only do it for your own good.

Portrayal of men in the media

I've noticed that nowadays men are often portrayed by the media, particularly on television, and particularly in adverts, as being rather stupid and inferior to women. The feminist in me thinks 'revenge at last', but actually it's quite worrying. Apart from anything else portraying men as being stupid and inferior is just as bad as portraying women in the same way. I'm not sure how offensive men find this kind of portrayal of themselves, but if I was them I would feel a blow to my self-esteem. I suppose it depends how seriously people take these images, but I'm the kind of person who takes things seriously I'm afraid. I don't like hypocrisy (even though I'm sure I'm guilty of it myself sometimes). You can't on the one hand say that adverts portraying women as objects are bad, whilst on the other hand portraying men as being totally ignorant. There are obviously still too many adverts using women's bodies to sell products, but making adverts where men are made to look stupid doesn't make us feel any better.

I also worry that this kind of portrayal of men is actually damaging to women. Women can't afford for men to have any more reasons to dislike or despise them. I know I'm sounding like a feminist now, but there are men out there who would love an extra reason to feel hurt by women so that they can justify their sexist opinions.

Oops, I didn't want to man-rant. At least most of this post was nice to men, I hope. Mr C read it and he seemed to find it amusing, which may or may not be a good thing, but he did say 'oh dear' when he got to the end bit!

Changing rooms

I have just looked at my profile and it says that I enjoy learning Hebrew, playing the flute and singing. I think I should change this as I haven't done any proper Hebrew learning for about a year, which is pretty bad really. It's not that I don't have the time, I'm just lazy. Playing the flute and singing are also mentioned, and, whilst it is true that I enjoy these activities I only play my flute about once a month for family service at church, and singing is restricted to Sundays at that same venue. I will change the profile, but I'm not sure what to put in instead.

That wasn't what this post was supposed to be about. It was just going to say that we performed the Great Office Move yesterday. I didn't think it went too badly, considering what could have gone wrong, although the conditions were not ideal - very hot, with a distinct lack of fans.

In other, but still work-related, news, we talked about shelving and stock management, and the potential hazards thereof. Or rather the hazards of not having enough staff or time to do either of these things sufficiently quickly or well. It's worrying, but we will have to do the best we can and see what happens, and then if it all goes awry maybe the Sharks will finally do something to help us. I realise that this may not be the best way forward but we weren't sure what else to do in the circumstances.

Yesterday, on my way in to work I had just entered the campus when I was accosted by a student who wanted to know whether I'd contacted someone about the periodical he wants the library to subscribe to. I hadn't even got to the library yet, and it was before 9.00am! Agghhhhhhh.

Comment annoyance

Aggh someone, or several someones, is leaving comments on my blog so that they can advertise their product(s). Lots of them! 53 today! I can't be bothered to go through and find and delete them all, but if you happen upon any such comments while reading this blog please don't follow the link!

Lyrics, love, niceness and being kind

I'm listening to Keane again. One of my favourite lines, which appears in the song Is it any wonder is "sometimes I get the feeling that I'm stranded in the wrong time where love is just a lyric in a children's rhyme". One good line is a whole song, maybe even album, full of good lyrics.

I think it's a good line because, as do a lot of Keane's lyrics, it expresses how I feel sometimes. I don't mean in the sense that I personally don't feel loved, but when I look at the world, or even just my local communities I think more love would be good. Real love is sometimes difficult in practice, but sometimes it only seems difficult. I'm not very good at it, but I know some people who are, and I admire them for it. You need to be quite brave to give this kind of love, because sometimes people don't want it and you might get rejected (actually this may be true of any kind of love), and sometimes the people you try to love might be scary and even dangerous. This is where my cowardly side would rear its head, and I would run away, but some people don't.

It really amazes me, the way some people love. How do they do it? I am pretty selfish really. Sometimes, when I'm in particularly bad moods I can't see beyond myself at all and I don't even care if I hurt other people with what I say or do. Mr C is probably the only person who has seen this part of me, and I wouldn't want to inflict it on anyone else. I don't want to inflict it on him either, when I'm feeling 'normal' but when I'm in a mood I actually don't care. Even in 'normal' mode I'm often lazy or cowardly and I don't show love to people as I should do.

I was thinking about kindness the other day on my way home. I was thinking about how kindness is different to niceness. Niceness is a bit wishy-washy and could mean anything. When people describe someone as 'nice' what does that mean? Apparently men can be too nice (according to some women). That sounds like a weird concept, but I sort of know what they mean. [Basically, men should also have a backbone - figuratively as well as literally]. Having said that, niceness is a perfectly acceptable quality in a human being. However, kindness is better (in general, not just in relation to men!). Kindness is also rarer, I think. I am priviliged to know many kind people, more than my fair share. Kindness is part of real love. Sometimes you have to sacrifice something to be kind, and kindness makes a real difference to people who experience it.

Aggh I am waffling and I've lost my thread. I must go.

How did I get here from Keane lyrics?

P.S. I looked up 'kind' and 'nice' in the dictionary, and the descriptions were similar, but the words that stood out for me in the various meanings given for 'kind' were 'compassionate' (the first meaning) and 'loving' as in "full of love". The latter is given as the archaic meaning, but I think this describes kindness (as I see it) in the best way.

There's a Hebrew word, hesed, which means lovingkindness. I love that word (although I had forgotten the Hebrew so I had to look it up!). It appears a lot in the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament, depending on your persuasion) when the author is describing qualities of God, but sometimes the translation misses the full meaning of the word, which is a shame.

Rabbi Malka Drucker talks about it like this:

In Hebrew the word is hesed, which is also translated as mercy and grace. It is unconditional, causeless love, the love we have not just for those nearest and dearest, because that's easy. It means behaving as if we love to strangers and even those we don't like [...] [L]oving kindness [is] the behavior we offer when we may feel exactly the opposite of love. And how do we know that this is what God wants us to give each other? Because we are btzelem elohim, in God's image, and hesed is God's chief attribute upon which we most depend. Loving kindness is what God gives us, no matter what. The love that never stops, never gives up, no matter how unworthy we may feel. God knows better than we who we are and who we may be.

Ok, now I really must go.

Meanwhile, in the Library of Doom...

We are moving offices imminently, i.e. tomorrow, so there has been quite an "aggghhhhh!" sort of feel in the air this week. Especially as previously we were told that we wouldn't be moving until the end of the month, for which we had a Plan (A), and now we're moving tomorrow and have a Plan (B), which was only thought of yesterday.

We thought our Plan (A) was perfectly acceptable - we had even discussed it, and I'd gone to the extremes of doing a statistical analysis thingy in order to be able to justify our decision. But, alas, Plan A was not to be. I had a meeting with the Sharks yesterday and told them Plan A, and lo, the Sharks were not happy with said Plan. Yea, they did beseech me to change yon Plan, and therefore did I become most unhappy, and didst say unto them: Wherefore ist this plan not good? And they did say unto me: didst thee think it through most carefully, and I did say: yea, I didst. Aber jezt was das Plan nicht recht, und so sagte ich, "Was mochten sie? Warum konnen sie nicht es zu mir sagen?" Und sie sagten: "Es ist nicht was wir wunschen, aber was besten fur das Bibliothek ist. And so, she wondered what to do. She wandered into the library, and went to visit the office of one of the Sharks. She pondered hard but was none the wiser, so she thought, I will try to accomodate the wishes of the Sharks. She thought on this and discussed with several people. And so Plan B came into being. And she wasn't sure that it was good.

Not sure what happened there. The German is schlecht (terrible) by the way. My apologies to anyone reading this who knows, or (double apologies) is, German.

Anyway, after persuasion I did try and get Plan A back, but to no avail. I'm sure reading Riddley Walker is doing bad things to my spelling. It's slow going but very interesting and intriguing and inciting me to read more things by Russell Hoban. I only put that last one in because I wanted to use another word beginning with 'in', and I couldn't think of anything else. It is true though. RW definitely reminds me of a couple of sections of Cloud Atlas "Sloosha's crossin' and evr'ythin' after", especially the sort of language used, as well as some of the ideas. Maybe David Mitchell read it at some point, and used it as inspiration for that part of his book.

I wonder if it is dangerous to write about the Library of Doom? It might come and bite me (not literally).

Mr Coates

Since my article appeared in the CILIP Gazette I have had some contact with Tim Coates, author of the Good Library Guide blog and the infamous/controversial report of the state of the public library service in the UK, Who's in charge? Responsibility for the Public Library Service, which you can (if you happen to be interested) download here. Someone sent him a copy of that issue of the Gazette and he read my article and posted a response on his blog. If you're interested in this you can read it by going to the Good Library Guide blog and scrolling down quite a long way. However, you will only be able to do this if you know my name, and it also won't make much sense if you haven't read my orginal article! Don't worry, it's not that interesting. He does call my article a letter though, which is a bit off. I know it was short, but even so! I left a comment on his post, and he emailed me today. I am slightly scared of him - he can be quite cutting about the people he takes issue with, but so far we are allies in the fight for better promotion of libraries and their services. Not that I'm doing a lot about it, apart from writing miniature articles, but it's the thought that counts, right? Maybe not in all cases.

Aghh I just forgot how to spell miniature. It must be the heat. I'm using this as an excuse for a lot of things at the moment.

The joys of Anglicanism

I had my driving lesson on Tuesday, and Mrs Driving says I should be able to put in for my test in a couple of weeks. There is a waiting list of about 6 weeks, so I still have some practice time. I am quite keen to get it over with. It's very expensive to keep having lessons, apart from anything else. The news of impending freedom from train timetables and having to walk home in the dark has spurred me into looking for a choir to join once I've passed my test. (I'm not assuming I'll pass first time, but I'm trying to be optimistic!). I've looked on the interweb for choirs in my area. There doesn't seem to be a great variety. So far I've found an operatic society (I don't dance or act and don't have enough voice projection for this kind of thing), a choral society and something called a Cantabile, the website for which did not exist.

I've been in a choral society before, and I'll probably join this if there is no other option, as long as they don't have auditions. They look very posh on their photos though, and very middle-aged and middle-class, as choral societies tend to be. The Cantabile thing sounds intriguing, but I can't seem to find any more information about it, other than its name, and I'm not sure it it still exists. I will keep looking.

I could find a church choir to join, but this would involve me either moving churches or not being able to be a regular member of the choir, and I wouldn't really want to do either of these things. I would love to be in a church choir again though. I know church choral music isn't everyone's cup of tea, and there are some odd pieces out there - but I suppose this is true of every musical genre. I miss the order and routine of Anglican church life - all the different seasons and the music that goes with them. It's a bit of a joke that we used to sing (and still do when I'm at my parents') the same pieces every year, but we sing them because they're our favourites and there's something comforting about them. We did/do try new pieces, some of which also become favourites (or sometimes just the choirmaster's favourites), and it was always exciting (and often amusing) to try a new piece of music for the first time.

Some of my fondest memories are of when we used to go to Diocesan choral festivals. We used to go to Leicester (for this was my home diocese. [Apologies, by the way, if you have no idea what a diocese is. It's basically a geographical area, a bit like the equivalent of a county. All the Anglican churches within the area belong to the diocese. If you do know, apologies if you think this is patronising and please let me know if you have a better definition!] Choirs from all the churches in the diocese gathered together and learned new music (and probably some old stuff as well) and then sang at a special festival service in the evening. Sometimes new music would be premiered at the festival, which, in hindsight, was a really exciting thing, but as a child I would probably have been more likely to be thinking about lunch (actually nothing much has changed!).

The choir I was in at home have become a bit like my extended family because we've known each other for so long - about 20 years in some cases. It was lovely to have the choir singing at our wedding, it just wouldn't have been the same without them.

Basket weaving under water in Malaysia

I wasn't sure whether to hyphenate basket-weaving and under-water, so if you are a hyphenate/or I apologise.

The title of the post is a direct qute from our line manager, who was talking about the sorts of mad courses academics dream up when they've eaten too much cheese before bedtime. He was making a good point about people deciding they are going to run courses without actually knowing whether anyone will want to enrole on them. The library has to buy stock for the course, which can turn out to be a huge waste of time and money if no one turns up. Even more bizarrely, some Universities start running courses at locations that don't yet exist. The poor students then have to take their classes etc somewhere else, and then move to their 'proper' location when it is available. Very odd.

In print

The latest issue of the CILIP Gazette was on my doormat when I arrived home this evening. My (quite short) article has been printed. I didn't dare read it at first, once I had seen it was in there, but I've just read it now. The whole issue has quite a few articles on the same sort of theme - the need to promote libraries in light of the current climate (i.e. closure of public libraries etc). Some of the questions I asked in my piece are answered in other articles - hopefully I don't come across as being too ignorant. I mentioned that CILIP didn't seem to be talking about the closures or responding to them in the press but then in another article someone else made a good point about the importance of not dwelling on the closures and trying to talk about more positive things to do with libraries, so maybe this was CILIP's tactic. In the lead article Tim Buckley Owen says that people trying to promote libraries have been met with people from the press saying that they only want to write about closures! I guess good news stories about libraries just don't sell newspapers - or at least people in the press assume they won't.

Andrew Cockburn, Secretary of the Library Campaign (also quoted in the lead article) does agree with what I wrote about the library profession, and CILIP in particular, not appearing to be doing a lot about the closures, and compares the work done (or not done) here, with that in the US. [Sorry, that was a bit of a long sentence!] Someone from CILIP's Publicity and Public Relations Group talks about the need for training library and information professionals in marketing skills, a point I also made. It's quite nice to have people agree with you in print, although it's also quite scary to see your own opinions published for anyone to respond to. More scary [should that be scarier?] than writing a blog somehow - probably because it's actually there in hard copy and in a professional publication...and librarians can be really frightening if they want to have a disagreement with you. Eep.

Theories on assertiveness and self-esteem

I don't know why I'm such a scaredy-cat [miaow] about some things. I suppose it's lack of assertiveness , which I am working on (i.e. trying to become more assertive, not less!). I wonder why some people are more assertive than others? I suppose it has a lot to do with upbringing and how your parents treated and responded to you, and also to do with past experience, as well as your own opinion of yourself as a person [level of self esteem], which is again influenced by upbringing etc. Parents can have a lot to answer for. I think assertiveness and/or self-esteem (for they are closely linked, I believe) can also be inherited from parents, or just absorbed by osmosis - the attitudes your parents/guardians have rub off on you.

If your parents don't think you have valid opinions, or don't let you express them at all, you're probably going to grow up to believe that what you think doesn't matter and might not have strong opinions about things at all until a much later age than other people (if at all). If you're always told what to do as a child and not given a choice, you're probably not going to be great at making decisions when you're an adult. Lots of negative criticism doesn't help either, leading to feelings of 'I'm not good enough, I'm never going to be good enough, I can't do anything right and I musn't do anything wrong, etc'. Equally, if your parents/guardians don't tell you when you've done well, you're either going to try and try but never feel you get it right, or just feel like you may as well not bother. Obviously, there is more to it than that, and these things are all generalisations and assumptions, but I'm not a psychologist and I'm just expressing my opinion.

I might write more about this another time.

Take me to your leader

I am supposed to be a team leader/supervisor. I say supposed to be, because most of the time I don't feel like one, or at least not an effective one. It is difficult being a supervisor when you are not a particularly assertive person. On top of this, I find it really hard to make decisions when it's not a clear cut case, and particularly when people's feelings could be hurt if I make the wrong decision. You can tell I'm not exactly ideal management material! The weird thing is, I actually enjoy being a supervisor and having a group of people to look after. It helps that my team are very well behaved 99.9% of the time. I'm not sure what I would do if they suddenly stopped working hard and started being rude!

We (two senior library assistants (SLAs) and I) were talking yesterday about having to justify our higher pay scales to the library assistants [we decided having more meetings on our own might do it - not entirely seriously], and I was then thinking well, how do I justify getting paid more than the SLAs? What do I actually do that's harder work than what they do? I suppose I (at the moment) have to do rotas, and I have to speak to and deal with bad students, which isn't very nice sometimes, and of course I am supposed to supervise the office. However, I'm pretty sure either of the SLAs could do this at least equally well. [One of the SLAs may well read this so I should add that I'm not trying to flatter people, I'm just giving my true opinion]. I think the supervisor side of my job will come out more next term, when we will be doing more stuff with fewer people, thus increasing the need for prioritising and 'control' of tasks and workloads. I'm quite looking forward to the challenge. It will be interesting - hopefully in a good way!

I feel that I need to prove myself to some extent, because I feel like I'm a bit of a 'Weak King' a lot of the time at the moment, like I'm sort of floundering along hoping it'll be ok in the end. My memory is quite bad, which doesn't help when it's Thursday night (or whichever day) and I've forgotten I need an extra person for the rota, for example. The decision making thing is a Thing as well. I wish I could be less emotional about these things. [Overuse of the word 'thing', I fear]. Some managers seem to be adept at making decisions which are pretty much bound to upset people and not minding. How do they do that? Maybe it's better for the soul not to be able to, although I don't know any managers who are really bad people. I suppose they're just more pragmatic than I am.

I've found that it's quite easy to be paranoid when you start supervising people. When I'm having a paranoid moment (usually after I've done something wrong) I think, 'what if they think I'm rubbish and a bad supervisor, they must think that because I know I am, what if they all secretly hate me, I bet they wish they hadn't given me the job, I bet X thinks they could do a better job, etc, etc'. I do, in dark moments, feel like most of my team could do my job and that it's only my library qualification that warrants me doing it.

This year (it's nearly a year since I started my current job) has definitely been a fairly steep learning curve. Sometimes it has been difficult, and library politics haven't helped. However, I'm a lot happier in my work now than I was a year ago, and I'm looking forward to what's going to happen next. For helping me through this year I'd like to thank my agent [non-existent], my lovely Reader Services team, my family and friends, the Academy [University] and of course my dear husband who has always been sympathetic when I've whinged. I'll keep my Oscar in the bathroom...or maybe the kitchen.

Keane: Under the Iron Sea

I like the artwork, I like the album, I like Keane. I know a lot of people don't like Keane, because they think they're boring and miserable. Mr C thinks this (at least the miserable part), but I like them. Here is my defence of Keane:

Although their songs deal with serious and sad things they also contain a kind of optimism, through the (in my opinion) great tunes, moving lyrics and beautiful singing. They're good to listen to if you're feeling like the world's a bad place, because they'll agree with you while at the same time reminding you that it's not completely awful if music like this exists.

You will probably (especially if you don't like Keane) think that I'm nuts, but they make my journey to work considerably better, at least.

Err

I'm not sure whether I made the point I wanted to make in my previous post. Sorry.

Schwartzwaldekirschtorte*

Sometimes, the way people write or speak really annoys me. [Yes, I know this is ironic given my propensity for inappropriate use of parentheses]. I don't mean their accents or grammar (although bad grammar does annoy me, even though I'm sure I don't use it properly myself), I mean examples such as the sentence in [] above. Why do people insist on using long or unusual words, when they could have said the same thing in a much clearer and more concise way? I know, I know, we shouldn't dumb down, and I agree, but I think sometimes people just use long words to make themselves look clever. I do.

People in certain sectors of society are particularly guilty of such crimes, in my opinion. Major culprits include writers for The Guardian newspaper, especially the ones who write about nothing much in the g2 supplement. I quite enjoy reading g2 in the staff room at break time, it just about fills the time-gap nicely, but I am often irritated by the style of writing. They may not always use long words, but, to me, it feels like they're trying to tell me how intelligent they are - 'Look, I am so clever and I have opinions and because you're not as clever as me you have to accept them'. I find the tone very condescending sometimes.

I think the root of my annoyance is probably jealousy, with a bit of insecurity thrown in. They're probably getting paid lots of money to write their own opinions, and they probably really are more intelligent than I am [did you know the majority of people working in the media went to Oxford or Cambridge?], so that's two reasons for me to envy them. Also, I suspect I feel slightly intimidated by their long words and Guardianesque writing style and worry that I don't understand.

Some students and academics are also guilty of using long words on purpose. I know one student who use the most complex word he could think of because he thought he would get better marks - I think it worked! This kind of word usage isn't so bad because the person reading the essay should be able to understand what's written, and it's not going to make them feel stupid.

A classic example of mis-use of language in speech was in a church meeting on Monday night, where the vicar spoke at length about his pet topic and used lots of acronyms and jargon and I hadn't got a clue what he was talking about! Management-speak is a classic example of mis-use of words that I'm sure many people in employment can identify with!

I like words, and I think people should make full use of the language available, but sometimes it is better to be clear than clever.

*The title of this post is Schwartzwaldekirschtorte because this is one of the longest words we learnt in German lessons at school and we always tried to fit it in to our work somewhere. I suppose 'trying to make people think you're clever by using long words and annoying writing styles' could be known as Schwartzwaldekirschtorte Syndrome. I suspect I am not immune to this syndrome.

Brackets (parentheses)

I think my use of brackets generally is probably quite annoying. I will try to get out of this habit, but it will possibly make my posts longer and I think I'm too lazy to change. Sorry.

Oxenford

We went to Oxford yesterday, to meet some friends from those old happy days in the City of Libraries. I think this may be one of the best places to be a librarian anywhere - apart from the rubbish pay of course. We had a great time when we lived there - it is where I met Mr C, so lots of happy memories. It was a bit of a flying visit - quite a lot of travelling in one day. I went from Victoria on the Oxford Tube, which is a bus (confusing for tourists I've always thought). I've travelled the other way before, but not from London to Oxford. Anyway, it was quite an ok journey - not too long, despite delays due to roadworks. I'd forgotten Mr C had a driving lesson when we arranged the meet-up, so he wasn't able to get there until later (about 3pm).

Met up with Friend A and we ate lunch, which is always our priority whenver we meet. Went to Harvey's sandwich place and had nice sandwiches but very bad service. I don't know what it is about me, but servers, whether it is people at counters or waiters in restaurants, often just don't seem to notice me. People got served in front of me who hadn't been there as long as I had. Why is this? Maybe it is my unassertive nature or maybe they just don't like the look of me! It's like I'm not there! Maybe I become invisible the minute I want to order something. I was wearing a white top, so perhaps they thought I was a ghost and were trying to pretend they hadn't seen me because they were afraid.

Anyway, we eventually had lunch. Actually most of the day was taken up with eating and drinking (non-alcoholic), as it often is when we go to Oxford. All those beautiful buildings and all we want to do is eat ice cream and fish pie (not at the same time). We had a wander round the shops and then went for ice cream at G&D's. No turkish delight flavour yesterday, alas, but I had a lovely coffee one. They now weigh the servings of ice cream, which is a bit odd. Perhaps they had complaints about discrepancies in portion size. They used to have moo-ing competitions in there on a Tuesday night. I have lost my moo recently for some reason, but when I lived there I was quite tempted to enter. [Don't even think about making any offensive comments about my similarity to our bovine friends!]

After this, Friend A wanted to go to the pub to watch the football. I told her I thought this was a bad idea, but because I have no free will (not in a theological sense, only in a low-assertiveness sense) I went along with her plan. We were there for about half an hour before the noise became intolerable and we went out into the garden and she admitted I had been right. Hooray! Much nicer. Mr C turned up, and then Friend B. It was good to see Friends A and B again, as it had been a while. We tried to work out what was going on with the football by the sound and type of cheering (and other noise) we could hear. Due to lots of people being in the pub, food was off, so we went to the fish place next door for tea. Fish pie! We always have fish pie when we go there, mainly because it's the cheapest thing on the menu!

After that, it was time to go home. Back on the bus, which was faster on the way home and we got back earlier than we thought we would, which was good. There were a couple of interesting people on the bus. They are both involved in Egyptian archaeology, and have led really interesting lives, which they were discussing, and I was eavesdropping on their conversation. They were quite old and very Nice Oxford English, which I like (as opposed to Snobby Oxford English, which I dislike, being well brought up by a Liberal Democrat and a conservative (?) [note small c] would-be communist. (Don't ask!)). Sorry about my bizarre use of brackets in this paragraph!