There is a conspiracy against me. My husband has cleared off to Ireland and now Evil Fuzzy has got back into the house and it stinks again. And our buyers are visiting on Friday so I'm going to have to keep scrubbing it: my smaller cat has learned how to unlock the catflap

And I hit another car on my way back from nursery with my daughter (it's like 5 mins away and slow traffic - I must be really preoccupied right now).

And would I help out a student who wants to transfer by going over the ENTIRE first year course with her aaaaaaahhhhhhhh! Yeah right - in my spare time I guess...

The packers are coming on the 5th to move on the 6th so the 4th is my Absolute Deadline or my whole (very precarious and somewhat optimistic) schedule will collapse at the first hurdle.

How is everyone else getting on with their Chapters. Chris - can you cheer me up with the story about the kangaroo?

Shortly after British exploration of Australia a number of live kangaroos were brought back to London. A number of these were on display in a menagerie. They were a male and female and eventually had a small baby - crowds flocked to see them, and people were amazed by their pouches and jumping ability.

Anyway, people could buy animals from this menagerie. And somebody purchased a kangaroo. A porter carried the kangaroo in his arms (presumably actually a wallaby or smaller species of kangaroo) and walked down Picadilly (central London) and the struggling kangaroo bit the porter in fright on his ear. The porter hit the kangaroo and threw it onto the ground where it lay stunned.

A coach driver was driving past - and saw the man hit the kangaroo. He stopped the coach and beat the porter until he was laying on the pavement. At this point a crowd has gathered - they and the coach driver retrived our poor kangaroo and took him to his new owners...

Smilodon - you are so busy!!!

Poor Kanga! It reads like the opening to an Ian McEwan novel. And so the theme linking to your chapter is.....? Unpredicable chains of event? Misunderstandings between humans and other animals? Class, pets and transport ... oh I think I remember - your thesis is about relationships/beliefs (?) and exotic animals I think, yes?

I don't think I will have the same scope for an interesting intro.

This chapter is on animal commodities. This chapter will chart out the area of London in the late eighteenth-century that was home to a host of animal retailers and exhibitions. I am looking in part in the chapter part at the relationship of animal commodities to other material culture, as well as changing relationships (physical and conceptual) between 'living' and 'dead' animals, as well as products made from animals.

At such a time, many human natives were also considered to be exotic animals. Do you touch on that at all?

Absolutely! Yes, I talk about non-Euorpeans in my research as well as heteroclites ('freaks') as people displayed alongside animals. A lot of my research is interested in animal-human boundaries in this period. No suprise that this is a period in which non-human animals in clothes and doing tricks should be so popular.

A decent 800 words written today. Pleased. I spent this morning wetting myself in fear.