Wrestling both on and off the page

My trip to France was really excellent. I started the week feeling unusually anxious about it, wondering whether my GCSE French would enable me to even get to the venue, let alone allow me to understand anyone. Actually, it was a wonderful trip - very relaxed indeed, some truly excellent scholarship and some amazing food. I ate at least two delicious pastries every day! It made me realised that my interest in pro-wrestling and performance is actually a legitimate scholarly pursuit. Expect some articles out in the near future. Bordeaux is a beautiful city and I visited all the major attractions, despite the freezing cold weather. After the conference, I had the whole of Saturday to drink lots of coffee and simply wander about. I also (and trust me, this is quite unlike me) did a little clothes shopping, a complicated business when you can't quite fathom the sizes or how the discounts system works. On my flight home, I finished the original book version of Les Miserables, truly a novel that will stay with me for the rest of my days. Hugo was a genius! It is better than the musical and the recent film.

As well as that I have been working on a standalone book chapter on fascism and theatre (nearly done), faffing about (e.g. editing) the second chapter of the Book, and teaching futurism which has been very jolly. I am always surprised (and grateful!) that the students run with the ideas and documents on the Modern European Drama course. If you don't enter this course with an open mind then you are simply done.

Apart from that I have been getting better with my punchbag, drinking lots of soy lattes from our new campus cafe, watching the first episode of the new Stephen Poliakoff series Dancing on the Edge (despite his pretentiousness I really love Poliakoff) and rewatching the rather good boxing film Reel Steel, excellent not simply because Hugh is in it but also because it has a rather engaging story and some pretty great boxing moves.

Anyways, lunch beckons before an afternoon with Kermode and Mayo's film review and chapter 3. How I love days like these! I think I enjoy them even more than I did when I was on sabbatical as now they are interspersed with teaching days - individual scholarship and inspirational pedagogy...wicked combination.

CSW