The Fireplace man scratched the surface of the three fireplaces to ascertain what we’d be taking out: wood, rotten wood or some kind of 1950s stone / tile.

And lo, we scratched, and up came perfect grey carrara marble. We have three marble fireplaces.

I nearly fainted.

*Meant to be agreeing what wood burning stove to get – we picked this one, the F40.

In other news I have no windows in the second bedroom and its en-suite and it’s raining. Damn.

Our excellent carpenter / joiners are refurbishing all of our sash windows so that they:

* actually open
* have working locks
* are rot free
* are draft proof
* look smashing

They are starting with the sitting room bay which is enormous. It’s very weird to not have any windows in at all, I can see and hear the whole street and it’s right there.

After the windows are renewed we can actually clean them – no more seagull poo! – and get the wooden shutters in. Then we will be toasty and have some privacy.

I have made a list to discuss with my wonderful Aussie electricans. Look away now if this is boring to you:

* Fit New consumer unit and certificate
* Check supply to kitchen and upgrade if necessary to cope with new appliances
* Fit new LED low energy downlighters in the hall and bathroom (x 12)
* Change out ancient dimmers for new (x 2)
* Replace bathroom fan to new ICON humidity activated fan and change fan isolator position
* Change position of bathroom light control to outside the room
* Hang three antique chandeliers
* New socket for dishwasher.

That’ll do to be getting on with.

Tomorrow the sash man arrives.

* Walking past a pub in Kemp Town yesterday their blackboard said “It’s still Summer! (But only in our hearts)”

You’ll have to do with bullet points instead.

1. I am sanding a desk. Knobbly, swirly scrolly bits are hard. It also has ‘grunge’ in the corners. Did our forefathers keep earwax and snuff in the joints for extra rigidity or something? It will look lovely when I am finished though. I’ve changed the knobs to nice sparkly ones which M said reminded him of ‘The Crystal Maze’ and I shall be inserting some of my smelly lining paper to rid it off ‘Eau de Attic’. More lovely secondhand furniture is coming this Friday. Chic and hopefully unique.

2. Weird seaside weather here – grey, cold, hot, sunny and then grey all in the space of an hour.

3. I have some pretty calling cards from Etsy (seller Enfin La Volia.) All the cool kids have calling cards dontcha know.

4. I had a very nice Sunday roast at our local yesterday with M and M’s mother. Piles of organic chicken smothered in thick glistening gravy. Mmmmm hmmmmm. I also discovered while there that we have a local indie night, observe!

5. I bought an old apothercary bottle at the flea market yesterday with TINCT. NUC. VOM. on it. Apparently this tincture contained strychnine and was used to treat morning drunkenness, nervous affectations and loss of periods amongst other things – lawks. I shall use it to store my washing up liquid in. Or possibly gin.

6. Since having our chimney swept we have a black rain of toot coming down the sitting room chimney. Clean chimney = lots of stuff can come down it. M and I shall be pleased when we have a proper hearth and grate. We are now thinking of getting a wood burning stove. Efficient and real flames. Toasty. Also less dependence on imported Russian gas – up yours Medvedev!

7. My tummy is rumbling at an epic volume.

8. Our upstairs neighbour who is is moving to the US for four years (won’t someone nice that I know come rent his flat and be a darling neighbour to us? Please). Last night at midnight FFS he dropped something incredibly heavy which caused all our electrics to go blinkety blink. Mmmm if I see him today I shall scowl.

9. I answered the door to what I thought was the postman this morning only to discover Jehovahs Witnesses. A motherly type with her seventeen year old son in tow. The seventeen year old was rather disturbingly hot (for a god bothering youth). Is this a new tactic by the JWs? Any how it turned out she wanted to talk about global warming and my trump card of “Oh but I am Roman Catholic!” was not needed. Apparently Jesus is upset with us for ruining the earth and will smite all excessive carbon emitters. Something to think about eh? She tried to quote something relevant from the Book of Revelation but alas could not find it. I felt smug and a little sorry for her. I wished them a cheery good day though.

Right I must away our little local hardware shop and select the appropriate grade of sandpaper. The glamour.

I think our year have been a ‘guinea-pig year’ in many ways where things have been tried out – like 6 week projects instead of 12 week ones – and the powers that be have come to the conclusion that the experiment didn’t work. Next year I think they are reverting back to how things used to be.

I was keen to know my essay results – the one about how we are like Victorians – as one of the lecturers said last week that they had given one of the highest ever essay marks to someone in that module. Jokingly, my friend S nudged me rather obviously in class and said “Oh I bet that’s you.” See, I have a reputation of being a girlie swot.

I went to the pigeon holes this afternoon with some trepidation and pulled out my essay. Yes, it was me. I got the high mark. I am treating myself to an evening out to celebrate. However, this level of essay performance I fear could be the death of me – I have now set an awfully high benchmark for myself, which the lecturers (I hope not) expect me to maintain. Will I be happy with myself if I don’t get that kind of mark again in the future? Oh fuck, being good is a headache.

But, for tonight, no worries. Pass the vino collapso would you?

We finished crits at 1pm so I spent a good few hours bitching and gossiping in the union bar before heading off to see “Hot Fuzz” with significant other. Not living in halls it’s amazing as to the sheer weight of gossip that one misses and I feel I shall be looking at several people around Uni with fresh eyes after hearing some of the juiciest items. Ahem.

It’s also yearly personal tutorials this week – and I actually feel quite sorry for some of the tutors – as the strength of feeling regarding our course is running very high at the moment. Most people don’t feel they are getting their new improved value from the course considering the tuition fees tripled this year. I know all students moan, but there are some genuine concerns – such as the return of course work. We have a duty to get essays and such in on time. We get severely penalised if we don’t – 40% taken off after 24 hours and refusal to mark and a fail after 48hrs. However, we don’t seem to get the same duty of care in return. How are we meant to know we are progressing or even doing the right thing if we don’t get them back in a timely manner? I’m currently waiting for essays I handed in over two months ago – this is not acceptable.

So, back to “Hot Fuzz”. How can anyone who loves “Spaced” and Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg in general hate it? I didn’t. Some genuinely funny laugh out loud moments (the swear box had M in hysterics) and a really great story about the growing friendship of Angel and partner but yes, I concede, the ending is a tad drawn out and could be tightened up. However, if you like – as my lecturer would say – intertextuality in your films you are golden. Try and spot all the nicked tunes from well known action movies used at key moments in the film. The use of the music from the third Maxtrix film had me giggling. I predict an increase in moustaches and ray-ban aviators after this, just saying.

Well I’m off to research my next essay*… toodles.

Edit: *Which is on modernity and modernism. While trawling through Art Bibliographies Modern database for likely journals under the keyword modernity I come across this little gem of an article in a peer reviewed journal. It gives me great hope that I can write absolutely anything I like:

‘Untangling the Scandinavian blonde: modernity and the IKEA PS range catalogue 1995.’

Lovely.

A special thank you goes out to Miss Sith who’s card I got when I arrived back home – the most perfect card a girl could wish for – I love you K!

I’ve shot all my films for my project now; tomorrow I go into the darkroom for a few solid days printing… I hope my lecturers like them. This term has been the most whirlwindy thing I could have imagined – two projects back to back and a bushel of essays.

I got my first project results today, the landscape one… a first (71%) woot! There is no way I am keeping this up though.

I’m uploading some digital scans of my latest project on my Flickr if you fancy a peek.

Back to the workbook.

Still not wireless (Bubb is doing that at the weekend) but at least the boing-boing-boing-kerpng of dialup is no more.

So, I got through Monday and Tuesday. It was like water torture. A complete waste of fucking time too. Nobody, really, wanted to talk about other peoples stuff (embarrassment, boredom, nerves, fear) and everyone seemed on the verge of sleep or suicide. On the Tuesday a whole group didn’t turn up so we were stalked to the student canteen to ‘volunteer’ and stand in for them. I got quite militant and continued drinking coffee. I’d earned some respite after a whole day of being critiqued and critiquing others in turn.

After each session on Tuesday our numbers became less and less, by the last session (which ran 1.25hrs late) I’d say our numbers had halved. I did feel quite sorry for the lecturers in the end. But, I’d say that is proof that their new crit technique (it’s new this year I think) leaves a little to be desired.

Next Monday we start a new project on Documentary photography with a lecturer we haven’t had yet. This sounds much more interesting to me than landscape (unless the landscape were Tuscany of course.)

Right now, looking at me, is a critical theory essay to be done (my first this term.) I’m a bit nervous about that one. Oh well, better get my head down and stick to my essay timetable I’ve drawn up. By god there is a lot of reading for it.

Have a great weekend peeps. I’ll be staying in and reading exciting things like ‘Philosophy in Cultural Theory’.

PS. Buying a place moderately sucks and many things go wrong (like BT cutting us off on Tuesday instead of giving us ADSL at the exchange because they are incompetent fools.) There seems no end of things to be done which is a pity because I am so busy at college.

Everything also seems to incur a massive delay, but we are finally getting the structural engineers in on Tuesday morning to look at our walls. Bring on the sledgehammer.

I now have a phone line as of today – hurrah.

Now I have to wait another two weeks until BT bring forth the ADSL line so my broadband provider (who aren’t BT) can give me my fecking broadband.

I so want to be able to research bloody academic journals at home rather than trecking to my college library on the other side of London – then only to find that all available computers are being used.

Bollocks bollocks bollocksy bollocks.

I want to read peoples blogs, look at LJ communities, go to Vox, upload and look at other peoples photos on Flickr, shoot the dolly breeze at TIB, snipe on eBay… hell life is so virtual these days I feel socially deprived (hmmm, that may be a critical theory essay in the making there.)

See you on 1 November, it seems.