This post, with the aid of the simple functional device of moving from the past to the present to the future, will describe events in a wholly narrative manner, lacking in-depth analysis, moving emotion or skillful prose. (As ever, you say…)

Yesterday, I made a gigantic leap forward in the pursuit of knowledge: I now know what Gordon Brown meant by post neo-classical endogenous growth theory. Aside from my tendency to want to substitute in erogenous for endogenous – which, to be fair, would be far, far more interesting – I feel this is a substantive achievement. Free free to grow now, post neo-classical economy. I give you my blessing. The other, rather disturbing feature of yesterday was the following exchange over dinner:

“Did you make it to the party in the end, then?” asks a stranger to my right. I look blank, and confused. “Eh? Party?” (The concept of parties is a difficult one to slot into the weekly essay cycle at the best of time, let alone parties I didn’t know I ever knew about.) “You know, for CUCA…” he says helpfully. CUCA, incidentally, is pronounced as in coo-ca. It’s a soothing sound, but it doesn’t help. “I’m sorry… CUCA? ” I ask, confusion mounting in a little pile in my brain. The stranger next to me seems to realise the chance of an intelligent conversation is fast fading. “…the Cambridge University Conservative Association?”

I must admit, this threw me, and I may have slightly choked on my drink. Hopefully not rudely. The Conservative Association? How?! Either I have a Tory twin, or I have a rare variant of sleepwalking which also involves night-time political conversions. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

If I was a frequent attendant of the Conservative Association’s parties, of course, I might have been more comfortable with the task that befell me today: buying a bow-tie from Marks and Spencer. Let’s get this straight – I’m not a tie person. The only possible purpose of wearing a suit and a tie, to my mind, is to manoeuvre yourself to a position of power and wealth where you can return to jeans and t-shirts with impunity. Nevertheless, if the History Society dinner on Friday night requires a bow-tie of all things, I will accede. Just. Don’t push this.

Tomorrow’s Utopian Writing class won’t require ties, but I am rather apprehensive about the task as soon as I saw an e-mail with the phrase “two large pieces of coloured cardboard and a couple of large markers”. You just know what’s coming with that, don’t you? Presentations. Visual aids. Group work. All of the things you do in school to make essay-writing seems not so bad after all. You never know, though. It could be great, and the people themselves should be lovely. It just remains to be seen whether we’ll pull together to make good use of cardboard, markers and all the assorted paraphernalia. Maybe we should just wear ties.

Supervision soon! Last week’s essay was on the prosecution of witchcraft, which was fascinating and really good fun to do. To research and write about, that is. It wasn’t much fun to actually be a witch, but then, you already knew that, didn’t you?

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