Nothing

I have absolutely nothing to say.

Rephrasing your M.Sc. thesis – I’m using Norn as a case study for my Ph.D., but rather than a haphazard description I am now using a model so I need to restructure and rephrase everything – is very mind-numbing work. I wrote something along the lines of 800 words today, which isn’t too bad, but I still didn’t really work very hard.

The people on the LEL Staff and Research Postgrads e-mail lists are having a lively discussion about making new consent forms for recordings, what the purpose of them is and what they should say and all that. Seeing those e-mails come in was the highlight of ER’s and my day. I am working on Early Modern Europe, and ER’s dissertation is on breaking of Old English vowels. So those consent forms are enormously relevant.

I have been adventurous in the chips department today. (I know that is crisps for the Brits, but with WB away in Manchester I am left with ER and in South African English it is chips so I default to the Dutch chips.) I normally only eat ready salted, although I can branch out to the Kettle Chips (see, chips!) sea salt and black pepper taste. Today I had McCoy’s nacho and sour cream ridged tortilla chips (see, chips again!). Wow, they are good!

I am still not adventurous enough for the chicken and stuffing-flavoured crisps. I will repeat that. Chicken and stuffing-flavoured crisps. That is just wrong at I don’t know how many levels. They were left at our party, along with Sunday roast-flavoured crisps and lamb and mint-flavoured crisps. I don’t know who brought them (AF?) but justice will be done.

Also a lot of fizzy drinks were left at our party (along with a couple of half-emptied bottles of wine). AF brought cherryade which has a lot of chemical stuff in it, and only two calories per 250 ml serving. MG says the coloring is made by crushing beetles, so that’s where those two calories come from: healthy non-vegetarian drinks.

We also tried the bitter lemon and tonic over dinner today. They have quinine in them. I’m not sure: bitter lemon/tonic or malaria? The nastiness of the tonic almost goes away by mixing it with cherryade. I don’t think malaria works that way, so the tonic wins. Only just.

Shetland is coming closer. Read a nice quote about Foula today, it was described as ‘a peat bog on a rock’. Doesn’t sound too enthralling, frankly. I know we’re having a tour of Shetland on the Sunday, but I’m hoping we’re sticking to the Mainland. Will cope with Bressay, the ferries to Whalsay or Yell look awfully long already but I can probably do those too... but I wouldn’t be too sad to miss the peat bog on the rock.

I may have to look up the word ‘nothing’ in the OED.