For me at the moment, summer = archives. The end of my funding is a better motivator.

Mokey, my most heartfelt sympathies. I think Juno's suggestion may be a good one, although I'm certainly no expert.
Maybe try not to think in terms of sorting out your whole life, future etc, while you're feeling like this? Smaller objectives are easier to face sometimes, if you take them one by one. Hope things improve for you.

I would think it's possible that you are both right - even if there are not so many sources for the city you've chosen as for others, there could still be enough. You also want to consider how much has been written about the others...?

In my experience it is a bit hard to tell how much material is involved until you do start working through it. Are your supervisor's interests close enough to your topic that he/she is quite familiar with what's available? If so, and also assuming that they have supervised a good few PhDs, I'd probably tend to trust them on the quantity issue.

But if you're not comfortable with the topic at all, then it would do no harm to talk to your supervisor about tweaking it - better now than later, perhaps? At least don't avoid the conversation just out of worry about giving a bad impression.

Mine is purely my own fault drawback of arts subjects, I suppose!

I am - need another 3000 words if I can stay awake! Should be able to, though, am getting caffeine twitch already.

Yes, unfortunately - have been trying to finish a chapter all week and all last week, but it keeps getting longer. Probably will be at it all night because I fell asleep this afternoon...

Good for you!! What's it in?

I'm doing history also (3rd year). I started out with some research questions from the beginning, and by the end of the first year had a fairly solid idea of what issues each chapter should address...otherwise I think I would have found it hard to deal with the primary stuff because I use quite a broad range.

But I'm finding that when it comes to answering the questions, my opinion only becomes really clear in trying to write. It might have been more efficient to pick a very definite theory (in a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey sort of way), and then look for evidence, but I didn't want to do it that way for two reasons. I think some of the older secondary lit in my area has suffered from major selection biases, and primary sources happen not to be all that thick on the ground, i.e. it's possible to get through most of what exists.

What's your area btw?

Wow, VERY brave & disciplined...I'm jealous.

The only advantages I get from having a local account are pretty basic:
Saving on currency exchange fees (my American bank is brutal there)
Direct debit option for bills, if you like that,
Direct deposit - if you ever work part time, a lot of employers expect it; also true for some academic funding.

I should have said that at least the Bank of Scotland debit card is Visa Electron, so you can sometimes shop with it. Bank of Ireland is a bit more friendly, but I don't suppose that helps!

Great opening for a rant here (yes, I'm new). I opened a Bank of Scotland account this summer and have not been very impressed with them - e.g. deposits (/'lodgements') took days to clear, I wasn't supposed to use the counter service unless the transaction was over £300, getting internet banking set up took about 3 weeks and involved far too many letters, and the general attitude seemed to be 'go away student'.

Some of this might be avoidable, though, since you're based in the UK. I'm mainly in Dublin, but needed a UK account for research stints in Scotland... therefore had to take the most basic option because my ID is not from a UK university and my passport is American. You might be able to get a slightly better arrangement.