Don's Diary

SATURDAY. Conference on religious pluralism. The morning session is against it, the afternoon for. I am confused. God isn't. In the evening He shows His singular disdain for theologian and theorist alike by mounting a spectacular light show above St. Paul's and the city, as my wife Barbie and I cross Westminster Bridge on our way from King's College to the National Theatre. At the NT we spend the last of the vouchers I was given by the Graduate Students' Association when I left York last March. The choice is between a good supper in the first floor restaurant or John Alderton and Richard Wilson in "What the Butler Saw". We choose the supper.

SUNDAY. Work on essays. I am writing one on Constantinople after its conquest and sack by the Crusaders in 1204, Barbie, who is also studying at Kings is writing one on guilt and atonement.

In the evening dogs Emily and Oscar return from their holiday camp weekend in the country, dirty, slightly chubby but radiantly tired, so much so that they have difficulty in wagging their tails in greeting. A bath seems unavoidable.

MONDAY. Back at college I return eight books to three different libraries. The library at King's requires students to return books to the particular sub-library from which they were borrowed. I have to admit that there are times when, as a mature student making a rushed visit to the college from home, this is inconvenient.

As usual I lose my way between the Macadam building entrance and the Embankment library. To say that King's is badly signposted would be unfair, because this would imply that there is enough signposting for it to be described as bad.

Eventually find my way to an advanced Greek language class. Pleasurably painstaking. We do a little Homer, a little scansion, even Thucydides, all in an hour. No chalk.

TUESDAY. Two-hour class on the history of the Byzantine empire. Only three students fall asleep this week. This is no reflection on the tutor, who is highly informative and entertaining. It is just the result of having 17 people in a small, poorly-ventilated room. Chalk, but only one peg holding up the blackboard (the blackboard is in the corner of the room and the wall holds up the other side, in case you were wondering).

WEDNESDAY. The dogs return from their morning walk sopping wet, and we therefore decide to bath them. The surprise assault works, but a sullen, mutinous air of resentment pervades the flat.

To the institute of classical studies for a class on Greek drama - Aristophanes' Ecclesiazusae, which surprisingly grows in my estimation as we discuss it. Although all the courses I have been taking this year have been well taught, this one has been outstanding. Ideologically unsound though: almost all talk, a minimal amount of chalk and nothing as new-fangled as an overhead projector.

Back home, where Barbie has started planning her 10,000 word essay on Kierkegaard. She cannot make up her mind whether Kierkegaard is maligned or malignant, but she is certain that he is male.

THURSDAY. Another advanced Greek language class. In its way this course has been as taxing as anything I have done. Today we finish the Thucydides passage, and are warned about the test next Monday.

Spend the evening completing a paper on research degree appeals for the Higher Education Quality Council. While I am ambivalent about some of the ways quality theory is put into practice, I have no doubts about this one - an area which is completely under-researched, even though it impinges directly on a very vulnerable group of students.

FRIDAY. Walk the dogs in Kensington Gardens at 7am on a clear, frosty morning, a huge orange sun squashing the Albert Hall.

It is a year since I left York. I am not sure that I have spent the time quite as intended. I have not cut the apron strings of the higher education system; and, after some early rejections of articles by cricket magazines which do not recognise talent, I have done less writing than I had hoped. On the other hand, we have seen much outstanding music and theatre, we are enjoying our courses, I have enjoyed the freedom - especially from committee meetings! - and most of all we are enjoying the time together. But after 14 years in one post, I find it odd not to know what I will be doing in six months.

Emily, who is a West Highland terrier, takes advantage of my inattention to wipe her face and neck in the wettest, smelliest patch of mud in the park.

I ruminate on the recent THES, a table with this year's recurrent grant allocations. York is 193=, King's is 196=. Both have excellent records in the Research Assessment and Teaching Quality Assessment exercises. Obviously the grant table is a crude, year-on-year ranking; and I have now found out that there are complicating factors to do with efficiency gains on QR. But I wonder at the messages league tables send to the many high-quality staff in universities. How do they maintain their standards in face of such depressing working conditions? Still, they do, it is sunny, and the pleasures of reading Homer and Menander await - once I have cleaned the dog again.

Simeon Underwood

Former assistant registrar at the University of York and now registered for the postgraduate diploma in classical studies at King's College, London.