Darlings, it's been half a year. Okay, so I say 'Darlings' as though there's more than one of you. I should say 'Darling', but that would imply that there's one of you. Which there isn't. Basically this is me talking to me. But I am a darling. So, Darling, welcome back! Mwah mwah.

So technically I remain a graduate student since I haven't yet locked down that little detail called a PhD. But .... (drumroll).... I - have - a - ****FUCKING**** - job. Not actually a fucking job, which technically I could have had at any time, and from which I would have clearly made several million. No, it's a FUUUUCCCKKING job. Yay me. In the current British academic environment, this is cause for celebration indeed. And it's not luck: nothing to do with it. No, it's all down to talent. And hard work. And sheer graft. And raw brilliance. And let's just not mention that first born roasted and fed to Robert Winston, ok?

Anyway, this blog is not about me, but about my fantasy greed. So here is what I'm having for new year:


No! Not Angela's milky lady parts! And she's already got a pearl necklace perverts, so sit the fuck down!
I'm talking about the German language. That's right, the language of the gods of perforated ear-drums and off-kilter eroticism. So let me admit straight off: nothing turns me on like an umlaut, unless it's ein scharfes S. Oh yes: ein scharfes S. Now change your knickers.
I really can't be bothered with learning languages. It's not laziness, just the wrong kind of brain. I try, I do, I do, I do, but I never get past the point of thinking that it is sufficient to say `Sprechen Sie Engelisch'. Which makes teaching German at Oxbridge a bit of a challenge. I'm kidding! It's Harvard. Gotcha!

What I want is to wake up on Christmas day fluent in German. If I was really rich, this could be quite easily achieved by bailing out the Euro on condition that all Germans spoke English but called it German. Sponsors, do form an orderly queue.