Snowy/Rainy days in London

Sorry - it's been a bit of a week. Last Monday London officially shut down, sulking that it was just too hard to cope with snow. Also Boyfriend had his wisdom teeth out, which involved a fairly treacherous drive through north London. Boyfriend then developed post-operative complications and I spent the rest of the week doing my Florence Nightingale impersonation. (It wasn't very good - I'm not very patient.) All this meant:

a) I've done no work.
b) I ran out of time to prepare for work experience placement.
c) I am*seriously* behind with my blogging/twittering.
e) I missed Russell Hoban's birthday on the 4th - see the sa4qe blog.
d) I came down with the mother of all colds (the snow may have had something to do with that...)

On another note, I had my first day carrying out work experience today with a view to the gaping chasm that is my post-PhD employability. As I've previously mentioned, I'm keen to work in publishing, and I already have some experience of copy editing. I sent out what felt like thousands of CVs at the end of last year, and had one reply from SCM Press (one of the major publishers of academic theology in the UK). Off I trotted through the pouring rain this morning to Barbican, thougts swinging between the harsh realism of a publishing industry struggling through recession and wild hopes that a job (any job) may come out of this placement. As I walked out of the tube station, A to Z in hand, a young woman thrust a free newspaper into my hand, saying, "Short stories!" [It was a free Arts Council-funded paper called Notes from the Underground which prints unsolicited stories, poetry, reviews etc.] This seemed like a good sign, somehow, and the day went on to be very productive and very informative. The people were lovely and, although I am to be based in the Sales and Marketing department, they seem to be fairly flexible about letting me drift over to Editing now and then. The only real danger of going along once a week to their offices seems to be that I will allow the PhD work to lapse, which I really cannot afford to do at this stage.

Aside from that, all is carrying on as ever. I watched part of the Baftas on the BBC last night and was somewhat surprise to hear Mickey Rourke named as Best Actor for The Wrestler, but not at all surprised to watch Slumdog Millionaire win award after award. The Baftas always tend to go for home-grown talent, and although this may somewhat compromise their standing in the awards season, it's nice to see the smaller (and smaller-budgeted) films have some success.