9 December

Interesting times. Students in masks saying they’ll have to deal in drugs to fund their studies. Rentacrowd posters all over the place. Police abused and attacked as agents of a repressive government – and, I fear, living up to the stereotype in some instances. Parts of it are reminiscent of the late Callaghan and early Thatcher years. I guess it’s to be expected when we have a totally un-mandated government at the helm (though ‘at the helm’ is perhaps optimistic). If the BBC were reporting events in Britain over the last few days in some banana republic or other, I think they might be predicting a military coup or, at best, early elections.

Odd to reflect that, in 1968 (annus mirabilis), with my mother teaching and my father on a bank clerk’s pension, I went up with enough of a grant to pay not only for my tuition, but also for my board and lodgings, leaving the parents and me to find books and beer money. And I began work with a small positive balance from savings from supplementary benefit payments! I clearly underestimated what it was costing the parents to feed and house me while I was unemployed, and failed to contribute. If you’re reading this, old ‘uns: sorry! Had we been looking at £9000/yr tuition fees, plus living costs, I would sure as hell not have gone to university, unless I’d learned to flip an awful lot of burgers.

It is cold. It is going to get colder again. There was more powder snow here yesterday. Still, my trip to London yesterday was, by and large, warm and comfortable, and the sun shone on us for a while today. An art class colleague came round at lunch time for soup and Christmas card layout and printing: their computer has gone tits-up, so they are having to make do with cards based on my template. A pleasure to do, though: the artwork is delightful.