Even Better than Using the Phrase 'Historical Deixis' in your Thesis is...

...mucking around on your blog when you should be writing your thesis.

Just a quick post-Manchester note, rather than a serious aesthetic encounter. I'm reading Frederic Jameson's book on Adorno and Late Marxism, so we'll save that for later (though I did enjoy reading Giles Foden's The Last King of Africa, which I'm teaching tomorrow, on the train back).

Manchester was good: boozy, talky, football-y although not particularly eat-y until I cooked a colossal chilli on the last night. My chilli, by the way:

Minced beef
Large onion, finely chopped
3/4 cloves of garlic
Chopped tomatoes
Kidney beans, not 'chilli beans'
2 red chillis, 1 chopped finely, the other roughly
Chilli powder
Cumin
Salt and black pepper
1 1/2 or 2 Beef Oxo
Red pepper (optional)
Green pepper (optional)
Red wine (optional)
Can add chopped herbs at the end, probably coriander but parsley would work too

Cook for ages, occasionally adding stock so the pan doesn't stick. Serve with rice and sour cream.

I'll add more recipes as and when, including my all-time-low (black glue fire gumbo with pork and clagged up rice- thanks, BBC Food).

Anyway, we got up to Gigg Lane safely to see Darlo v. Bury. I'm a big fan of the Manchester Metrolink trains. Once there, we went to an old-man pub with Camra and Cask Marque signs on the door in time to get a couple of beers. We were a bit late for the game because our real ale fug drew us into a conversation with some Bury fans, which seemed to consist of rather English mutual acknowledgements of impending defeat ('We're rubbish!' 'No...we're rubbish...')

Anyway, Darlo won a penalty within thirty seconds of us finding our seats. This was neatly converted by the prodigal Guylain Ndumbu-Nsungu, who went on to waste two fairly easy chances in quick succession. He does look like a valuable addition to the forward line though, largely because he can actually run with, and head, the ball. Half-time was greatly improved by a Chicken Balti pie although I could also have done with a cup of tea. Micky Cummins got the second after good work by Kevin Gall, who looked far more impressive in this game than he had done in any since his arrival from Carlisle. Pawel Abbott returned from injury as a substitute to put a foot on the ball up front, and we held out- despite a late Bury goal- with a last minute goal-line intervention from Stephen Foster.

Back to Manchester, back to booze, back to wandering around Rusholme at two in the morning feeling distinctly un-Kansas. I postponed getting the train back for a day on the grounds that I wanted to avoid the rail replacement bus that I ended up having to get on the Monday anyway because of a factory fire in Peterborough.

A fun weekend, then, but one in no way conducive to a coherent posting. Back to Green.