Random musings on a Friday morning

1. Microplane graters are fantastic but lethal. The fingers on my right hand now have an attractive pattern of raised skin on their sides.

2.10°C is the worst temperature for cycling; you’re both cold and extremely sweaty at the same time.

3. Raspberries and bananas make for a damn fine muffin.

4. American Idiot by Green Day is genius. I realize that I’m coming to it rather late, but it rocks. I could have done with this on my iPod at the gym last night; it would have made it a little easier to get through 35 minutes on the treadmill.

5. David Lodge is also a genius. He nails the ambience of academia, the petty jealousies and rivalries, the self-serving nature of the dons. I worked for a university for three years and the dons -- particularly those at the graduate colleges -- were often deeply miserable people, always bitching about the stressful levels of teaching they had to do (8 hours a week) and the low levels of pay: “My friend in the media earns twice what I do” was a constant refrain, one that always invited the response, "Well, go find a job in the media if you can and stop complaining to me." In fact, universities exist not to educate the young, but to provide a refuge for those who lack social skills and a decent understanding of reality. And have tweed jackets with leather patches on the elbows: the horror, the horror!