Pants on Fire

Several weeks ago, I paid a visit to the twenty four hour Tescos at Burnage.

What a visist! It was my first, and although it was only early evening, every round of the aisles held untold pleasures.

However, my journey there was less than satisfaactory, though it can hardly be blamed on the good staff at the said superstore. For it was on that fine May evening, that the heavens above Manchester decided that it would be a good day to hold a monsoon.

I hid under a railway bridge, but it was already too late. I was drenched.

For several days, I wondered why my favourite corduroy trousers smelt a little dank, before realising that it was no doubt due to the stinky rainwater with which they had been saturated, calling out to me from the inner fabric. Soon enough, the stench went away, and I committed myself (lazily) to washing them at some point before heading off to the USA.

I am now stood up in those same trousers, in a beautifully clean Christian Science reading room, wearing those same trousers, which contain the same filthy water particles as they did all those weeks ago.

This is testament not to the profound depths of my depravity (which are indeed, most profound), but rather the hectic time I had before departing. Now that I am here, I recognise and realise that this is of little consequence. Of greater consequence, is the deoderant that I left in Manchester, and the razor that I could not take through customs. I am hairy and smelly, and I thought that all such nonsense had been laid to rest years ago.

In the past few days, I have been privilidged to shake hands with some of the senior officers of my Church, with a crappy beard and a faint odour hanging about me. If you can imagine a more degrading position to be in, I would be overjoyed to reflect upon it.

Other than this sadness, my journey is well underway. My host has proved to be as hospitable as you can imagine, and I am well at home on his cosy airbed.

I am exhausted and learning.

From Undergrad to Graduand

Yesterday afternoon witnessed the beginning of the end.

Between the hours of two and four o'clock PM, I was examined on the rather interesting matter of the Riemann Zeta Function. Besides being interesting for aesthetic reasons, this matter arouses attention in its capacity as the final examination I am ever likely to sit.

Since then, we have been on some adventures. To the top a hill of a hill in Chinley, to the depths of a Tib Street basement; we trekked and celebrated the end of our undergraduate examinations, and our new status as graduands ("not yet graduates", you might say) with much aplomb.

At 2:30 AM, Mr SK Blenkharn and I braved the long straight roads to Burnage, fighting opposition from Fallowfield drunkards. We shopped, returning to the Whitworth street residence of a certain Miss RL Chong, bearing with us the makings of a substantial chilli and an absurd chocolate fondue. We ate. We gorged. We could not stand up.

It is now 6:30 AM, and Chong has consumed all the tea she can. Surely, we cry, beating on our chests a sad lament, we have reached our limit. Enough is enough.

Why the sleepless night, spent in shameless revellry?

Simpy this: we proceed from undergraduate to granduand, slowly plodding towards graduation.

This stage of progression is peculiar to all. For myself, it represents a particularly interesting time, for in a little over twenty hours, I will be leaving this country to spend two and a half months in the glorious USA. I intend for this weblog to convey some of my experiences, thoughts and reflections over this time to all my wonderful friends and family.

For now, I am waning, my belly filled to the brim with the most molten of chocolate. I must make like Mr TC Sanders, or approximate Chong, and return to my bed, whence I rose approximately twenty one hours ago.

Much love.