9.00 am. A PhD Fine Art proposal-development consultation with one of our former MA graduates. The MA degree enables you to measure the breadth of the ocean, a PhD degree, its depth. But one must first jump-off the end of the pier. The proposal is that leap. 10.00 am. An MA Fine Art tutorial with another colleague’s student on matters related to ‘thin places’, seeing the future in the present, seeing the past by means of deep-space telescopy, scrying, and John Dee’s obsidian mirror:

John Dee’s Obsidian mirror (courtesy of the British Museum, London)

11.00 am. A PhD fine art tutorial in which we constructed a sound sample based upon a stitch made in fabric. The aim was to manufacture a menacing tonality, such as one might associate with the ringing in the ears and loss of acuity that follows a bomb blast (which this student had been involved in, many years ago). What other job would enable one to move between such fascinating and different worlds in the course of a morning’s work?

2.00 pm. Back to filling in/out the research database. So much of what I produce ends up in the ‘other’ category. To my mind, this demeans the outputs even before they’re considered by the reader/audience/audient. Projects due for completion between now and 2019 were added, finally.

Some good news: I secured an award for the production and release of the double CD next year. (‘I get by with a little help from my fiends’.) In the background, I sneaked a view at the on-going debate in Parliament over Syrian airstrikes. The outcome is almost inevitable, alas:

6.30 pm. Practise session 1. 7.30 pm. I endeavoured to complete my final self-monitoring review form by the end of the evening. Too much navel staring is unhealthy. Blowing one’s own trumpet is noxious. Parading one’s achievements is against my grain. ‘Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing’. 9.40 pm. I was closing-in on completion. One more hour and I’d be home.