Last night we watched a ropey cam job of Love Actually complete with bad colour, audience noise and occasional fiddling with the camera. I know it got crap reviews but I’ve got this strange loyalty to Richard Curtis, the Vicar of Dibley notwithstanding. And as you’d expect it was a frothy, lighthearted tale of affluent middle class folk, including the prime minister, getting in dreadful pickles and awkward situations. Full to the brim with schmulz (sp?), cute kids who are wise beyond their years, and beautiful people, it should by rights have made me want to puke but, despite a couple of emetic scenes including a school nativity play, I loved it. There was a cynical undercurrent and a few really insightful ideas that I couldn’t possibly describe without risking an entry in pseuds corner. The opening scene is at Heathrow with a voiceover about how much love there is all around. OK, trite, but Michele and I have often talked about what emotional places airports are. In the back of both of our minds was the occasion when I had to wave good-bye to Michele when her visa was up, not knowing when or if I’d ever see her again. All around us were people overjoyed, or equally miserable with there own reasons for being there…and, of course, a load of blokes in suits looking round for their name on a bit of card so they can get driven to see another bunch of blokes in suits and smarm away while they burn lots of expenses on keeping the economy going…how this works I don’t know.
Bill Nighy was in it too – which is enough to make me go and see a film.

Friday evening we ended up in the SU chatting to a psychology student. He bestowed a few pieces of anecdotal information that, if true, indicate some serious problems in college infrastructure. Now, anyone that knows me will know that I can be ever so slightly cynical on the subect of contemporary Higher Eduction, but even I was amazed by some of this stuff. One thing that UBS has shown me is that the managerial problems in my particular workplace are not exclusive, in fact I doubt there’s an educational establishment in the country that isn’t permanently on the verge of ignoble collapse. But it’s obviously worse than I thought.