The AUT has gone bonkers. There don't seem to have been any motions demanding a boycott of Chinese or Russian universities in protest at what's going on in Chechnya and Tibet, but I guess I'm just a Likudnik or something.
Meanwhile, I got out of the smoke for a dose of the real world, visiting my home town. I wouldn't want to live there, but it's good to know it's still there. My companion described it as like going back to the 1980s. I bumped into the local MP, out canvassing in close proximity to the Tories - the two studiously ignored each other in the time-honoured way. I wished him luck, even though I won't be able to vote for him. Strolling through the street market on Saturday the sense of historical continuity was tremendous. That space in the town centre has seen markets week in week out since 1159 or thereabouts, the shouts of the vendors changing slowly from Old through Middle to Modern English, but the business of the day much the same as always. May it always be there.