I like to think that I am a fairly well-organised person. I try to be punctual for meetings; I take a dull pleasure in establishing arcane filing systems for my emails; I synchronise my online calendar with my phone to ensure I never miss an important appointment or birthday. I hope that something of this aspect of my personality shows in my prose, as I also delight in correcting every last stop and comma, and perversely enjoy conforming to the rigours of MLA style.

But, as is evidenced by the scores of poets and writers institutionalised in literary history, writing is a schizophrenic activity. The impulsive Byron can produce some of the most perfectly contrived metrics in English verse; conversely, the scrupulous yours truly finds his writing refuses to stay trim. One morning I awake bursting with inspiration; the next, mind and page are a literal blank. Sleepless nights and restless dreams give rise to expansive Xanadu's of prose; hours of attention in the library yield nothing. Reconciling my writing personality with my more fastidious one has been a challenge for me, in my PhD years, as the months since Christmas (and since my distant previous entry in my Postgraduate Diary) have evidenced sharply.

Over the vacation, I attended a workshop on planning for completion. This explored the practical timetable of submitting titles choosing examiners and getting the thesis printed and bound, and also the intellectual planning required for writing up, honing abstracts and proof reading. Duly, after the workshop, I poured procrastination into the coloured bars of an Excel project planner.

I would devote March to the four conference papers I was giving that month; April and June would be focused on writing the Introduction and Conclusion chapters; three months at the end would be set aside for proof reading; and the three months between Christmas and March would provide ample time for me to write a brief chapter on The Matrix, the final part of my thesis's body.

But over the months since Christmas, that brief chapter became greedy. It swallowed contextual thinking on philosophy and religious allegory; gulped down postmodernism; fatted itself on phenomenology; and then it demanded more. More on the history of Artificial Intelligences in cinema. More on postmodern simulacra. More on representations of Cartesian deceiving demons in fiction.

By March - when I had to break off to write my conference papers - that simple, final chapter had become a confabulatory hydra, chattering about Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and about disincarnate intelligences in early science fiction, and about androids in Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and about replicants in Ridley Scott's adaptation of the former, Blade Runner, and about how these different texts (the first two from 1968, the latter from 1982) illustrated the move to postmodern grounds for science fiction which The Matrix then occupies, and about how postmodernism has been conceptualised by Frederic Jameson as the product of late capitalist logic. By April, when I had beaten it into a shape suitable for showing to my supervisor, the beast was 30 000 words long, and I had not even started on The Matrix.

My carefully laid plans thus became horribly corrupted. But - and here is the thing that is both frustrating and thrilling about writing and research - the mutant that unexpectedly now constitutes a third of my 100 000 word limit has made the overall project far stronger. The fact that I was not able to predict I would cover this ground from the outset implies that I have inadvertently uncovered cultural connections and currents that will, because so unexpected, probably lend my research some originality. And, on reflection, it only took three months to write; that is to say, a third of my word count took one twelfth of my three years. Why, writing must be almost becoming easy.

Nevertheless, it is only with hindsight that I can be so positive. The last few months have been a dark and agonising period in my research career. Things now, though, are looking up. When I finally got around to it, the chapter on The Matrix only took three weeks to write, probably because the time away made me realise just how redundant many of my notes were, and to construct an argument based on just a couple of premises. The body of my thesis, though punctuated with "xxx" that mark gaps I have to fill, is now generally complete. I can even afford to take five days off, on a camping trip which I delight in planning to the last detail...except the weather.

Labels: PhD, Postgraduate Diary

On July 1st, 2007, a much-trumpeted new environmental directive came into force in the UK and across the European Union: Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment, ironically abbreviated to WEEE. The European Commission claim the legislation ensures that:

Producers will be responsible for taking back and recycling electrical and electronic equipment. This will provide incentives to design electrical and electronic equipment in an environmentally more efficient way, which takes waste management aspects fully into account. Consumers will be able to return their equipment free of charge.

So when our digital set-top box gave up its thirst for power and refused to give in to all bullying at the end of my screwdriver, and when two of my Xbox controllers became so clogged with dust that they no longer functioned, I assumed that it would be possible to recycle these in accordance with WEEE procedures.

Because we still had the receipt for the Freeview box, my first thought was to return it to the retailer, Tesco. I visited their website to check whether our local store has such facilities, at which point I started to suspect that the WEEE legislation is not so robust as is made out. Explaining their compliance with a benchmark piece of environmental legislation, the UK's biggest retailer devotes a mere small paragraph on their corporate website:

2007/08 finally sees the implementation of the WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) Directive in the UK. In support of this, Tesco has continued to play an active role in the development of the Distributor Take Back Scheme. This will provide a mechanism for retailers who do not wish or are unable to provide WEEE returns facilities in their stores to fund the provision of facilities at upgraded local authority civic amenity sites. We believe this arrangement will provide the most sustainable and effective solution for customers.

I am not sure that the most effective solution for customers - who presumably go to Tesco stores on a near weekly basis - is for the retailer to pass on responsibility to local councils with their distributed waste disposal sites.

With my nose now sniffing the air of waste (or WEEE!), I investigated further. Directed to the UK implementation of the legislation, The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations 2006, I found that - contrary to my earlier belief - it is not a requirement of either producers, retailers or distributors to provide like-for-like or instore recycling schemes. Rather, the legislation can be complied with if the retailer signs up to one of 37 approved "Producer Compliance Schemes."

One such scheme involves providing financial support for upgrading local council waste disposal sites, which is precisely what Tesco have done. However, the problem with the legislation is the lack of transparency. To register with a compliance scheme retailers must pay a registration fee and inform the scheme of the total of electronic equipment they place in the market each year. There will obviously be a tendency to underestimate this data. However, will this be picked up at the point of recycling by the public bodies now made responsible for the trade waste? The "financing of the costs of the collection, treatment, recovery and environmentally sound disposal of WEEE from private households" is determined by a formula: "The amount of the relevant WEEE" - seriously, it's hard not to laugh - "for which each producer shall be responsible shall be calculated in relation to each of the categories of EEE" through the formula (A / B) x C.

A is the amount of tonnes of EEE that has been put onto the market by that producer over the particular period (remember, this amount is estimated by the producers themselves). B is the total that has been put onto the market by all producers in the same period. Thus the division ensures that a large retailer like Tescos will contribute the appropriate ratio of total waste as compared to an individual small shop. C is the multiplier for the amount of EEE deposited at a collection facility, with a consequent cost of disposal and recycling.

The thing to note here is that for financing local authority recycling schemes, the formula applies only to the amount of waste that consumers themselves actively take to be recycled. Thus whilst the legislation also requires retailers to mark EEE products with a crossed-out wheelie bin, the retailer is not under obligation to make clear how precisely to recycle the product (though under Section 17 they are obliged to provide information on the different constituent materials in the product), nor to explain to consumers how they are complying with WEEE capabilities through third parties.

It is therefore entirely contrary to Tesco's financial interests to direct me from their corporate website to the specific council site at which I can recycle my old set-top box. My waste would add a small chunk to the "C" half of the equation. Rather, I have to take the initiative and work out my nearest capable site through Recycle More, and to transport it there myself (with the added cost of carbon emissions from my car journey).

In the case of my WEEE, when I did get to our nearest council facility, I could not see any signs of the added investment one would expect. In contrast to the neat skips for garden waste, cardboard, paper etc., the WEEE section is apparently just an undesignated pile in the corner: TVs piled on fridges, digital set top boxes mixed with desktop monitors, all items with different disposal requirements and hazardous materials. Where the money actually goes remains to be seen beneath the pile of rubbish.

Incidentally, don't think I am picking on Tesco. At best, Asda have precisely the same policy. At worst, Morrisons and Sainsbury's do not appear to have any information on their websites or in their corporate responsibility reports. By contrast to all these four, the Currys group seem to have an excellent policy, offering free in-store recycling when you buy a replacement product from them, even if the old one was not sold by Currys. Their home delivery service will also collect old large kitchen appliances, such as fridges, as new ones are dropped off.

So what, then, is the solution for a piece of legislation that should have tightened the knot tying producers to the waste of products they promote, but which instead has at its centre a major loophole? Because of the formula, retailers will underestimate the amount of goods they will sell; more significantly, it is not in their interests to increase the waste deposited at council sites because this will be reflected in the "C" aspect of the equation, and so they do not actively advertise the scheme. The answer is to turn the formula around. The moment individual consumers take it upon themselves to recycle more, the more this will increase the burden on companies, encouraging them perhaps to take recycling schemes in house (as Currys have done) and certainly to look at the amount and nature of electricals waste they produce. Is it really worth promoting that shaver with a battery, over the simple plastic one? Is it counterproductive to encourage people to upgrade their computers every six months?

As ever, though, the real issue is one of the chicken and the egg. Local councils or government will not want to invest in encouraging individual recycling, for example through kerbside collections, when the companies should be paying for it under the legislative framework. On the other hand, retailers will not want to make themselves financially liable for the full mass of their WEEE, when they can paper over their corporate responsibility by claiming to be assisting councils (but not consumers) on their glossy websites.

Labels: Environment, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive, WEEE

The act of reading has to be one of the most uncomfortable activities devised in the name of leisure. Consider what is asked of the reader, when presented with a book. Here we have a device that dictates its own position with absolute authority. It is to be held not more than fifty centimetres from the face, else it will truculently dissolve its meanings to an inky smudge. The arms must therefore lock themselves at right angles to the body, neither moving forwards nor wavering, lest the print give up its contract with the eyes that are desperately trained on a sliver of word at a time.

Of course, one can rest the book at a table, or upon a desk, in which case all manner of props come into play, all with the sole purpose of keeping this object static. For it will insist on moving. Should you dare turn your back for an instant, pages will spontaneously leaf themselves backwards. Thus are pens, scraps of paper, food, tissues all recruited to mark the spot, such that the book over time becomes marked with an indelible debris of tomato ketchup, tea stains, snot. If you do keep attention for long enough, though, the book will become restless, transferring its weight from its right half to its left, necessitating subtle shifts in whatever tower - usually constructed from other books - you had devised to prop it at a forty-five degree angle.

Worst, though, is the trial of reading in bed. One's vision of the bedtime reader is the hairnetted housewife, herself propped by mounds of downy pillows, her dog-eared romantic novel supported by a mound of goose-feather duvet. Here she half-lies, half-sits, in perfect readerly comfort, until her husband's foot is heard on the bottom stair, from which point a scurry of activity ensures that, by the time he reaches the top, lights are off, she has been asleep for hours, and it is not only the novel's romance that has been tidily closed for this evening. But this warm vision of domestic ritual is impossible to enact in any house other than the snug double-glazed mansions of middle England. Dare to live (as does this reader) in a damp, stone cottage, for example, and night brings with it a tyranny of cold, that taunts the innocent reader with a Catch-22. For in this environment, one must choose whether to sacrifice the body to the mind, or vice versa. If one chooses to snuggle deep into the blankets and preserve the body's warmth, the arms alone can be allowed to protrude, but must do so vertically, holding the book directly above the peeking head; arms thus soon tire, and the book is cast in shadow from the anglepoise above. The alternative is to turn to the side, contorting the spine and using creased elbows as support for the rapidly leadening neck. Finally, one can satisfy the body's craving for warmth, and simply sleep, leaving the book dead on the bedside table. It is wrong to suppose that intellectuals are dedicated to the life of mind rather than body; witness the goose bumps, the back ache, the dry eye, all sustained in refusing dreams in favour of the imagination invested within this small cuboid.

Of course, all these exertions and stresses are worth it, for the worlds to which the good novel will remove the reader can dull the ache of limbs better than any pharmaceutical. The keen reader lives for those moments of total immersion, when he or she forgets that this physical world exists at all. But such moments are made more ideal by the sudden discovery - the sudden happening upon - a reading position of infinite comfort which, having been found, allows the activity to be sustained for hours. Such positions are not signposted; they are not marked in a library or known in the ergonomics of a favourite chair. They are hidden, like secrets, around the everyday house. They come upon one who, having stood to put the kettle on, finds himself standing at the kitchen window with the light cast just perfectly on the page. They are lurking on the bottom step of the stair, when one meant to go and fetch something but has suddenly thought to sit and reopen the book which distracted him from the job in the first place. There is one on that particularly mossy patch in the garden, which, when hit by the warming sun at the right moment of the day, accommodates your posterior like a King's silk cushion.

And there! There is one in Peter Vilhelm's masterful painting "Girl Reading in an Interior." She is leaning against the sharp edge of a hard-looking chair reading an open book, or perhaps a thick letter. It should be uncomfortable, but is instead the picture of comfort happened upon fortuitously. Diagonally from upper left to the floor in the centre, is cast a sunbeam. From right to left, her weight is pressed on a delicate outstretched leg, and she has found herself as featherweight as the cast of incorporeal light that her stance mirrors. She did not mean to be here. She had been en route from the imagined front of the picture - the position of the viewer - through that closed door on the left, through which surely awaited some vital task or arduous chore. But something diverted her, and she found herself suddenly in this unfurnished, anonymous corridor - far removed from her designated "reading" chair in the stately drawing room of this comfortable suburban house - totally exorcised from her body, living completely through those other consciousnesses nested deep in the words on the page.

Labels: Girl Reading in an Interior, Literature, Peter Vilhelm, Photography and Art

By any standard, Shell's recent decision to sell their 33% stake in the London Array offshore windfarm is a disastrous turn of policy, which has rightly been lambasted. Shell this week announced profits of £4 billion, and it is hard to see how they can justify withdrawing their investment of £0.6 billion from the £2 billion renewables project, in which they were the major partner along with Eon. Their press release explained that their decision was taken on the basis that "We constantly review our projects and investment choices in all of our businesses, focusing on capital discipline and efficiency." So not much need to read between the lines there: with oil currently running at $120 a barrel, there is more money to be made elsewhere, possibly lurking beneath melting icecaps.

But whilst Shell's retreat exposes their much-trumpeted environmental policies as a superficial marketing gimmick hiding a hard core of greed, it also indicates something inherently flawed in the government's environmental claims. At a time of credit crunch and inflationary belt-tightening, the government justifies maintaining fuel taxes at their present level on the assumption that lowering them would have a detrimental effect on the environment. In reality, the only groups that win from high fuel prices are the major companies, whose ability to affect the environment for good or ill far outweighs that of the individual consumer, who needs to get to work and the out-of-town supermarket and will almost certainly do so by car, at any cost.

Rather than falsely sustaining the high price of oil, the route to encourage individuals to choose environmentally friendly transportation methods, and to reduce the effect independent oil companies have to undermine any national commitment to renewables, is through radical change in infrastructure at the national level. Increase subsidies for public transport, provide incentives and tax breaks for people to throw out their oil burners in favour of sustainable heating, and suddenly Shell might realise that there is more to be made in serving renewables, than digging for the black gold.

Labels: Environment, renewables, Shell

the relationship between Nora and Torvald Helmer could have been patterned on the "happy home-maker" image of women pushed by the media of the '50s. Nora as the "little squirrel" in 1879 is reflected in the "squirrels and bears" of Jimmy Porter and his wife in 1956.

Labels: A Doll's House, Erica Whyman, Henrik Ibsen, Literature, Northern Stage