A Qualification

It was pointed out to me by my ever vigilant wife (after she'd finished giving me a whuppin ) that my previous post could constitute a form of moral blackmail, particularly as I will be back home in Ireland to celebrate my birthday for the first time in the 21st century.

To which I replied, gleefully rubbing my hands together and cackling with manic laughter, "But of course, my dear. Of course. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

She then gave me another whuppin.

In truth, my wishlist will have to remain just that, a wishlist (with the exception of The Promise. Which I have already ordered from Amazon. Because, damn man, that Houston gig, ya know. It's gotta be seen. Now).

Region code incompatibility rules out the Thin Red Line and the sure-to-have-accompanied-it Blu Ray player; the New Yorker subscription would just result in another pile of unread magazines to go with my already mildewing back issues of The New York Review of Books, Backstreets and Hello magazine. Reading, by professional necessity, is now dominated by books and journal articles with titles like "Multilingual language policies and the continua of biliteracy: An ecological approach", or "Acoustic analysis of the production of unstressed English vowels by early and late Korean and Japanese bilinguals".

Oh, I know, the unrelenting glamour of academia. Still your beating hearts.

And, well, Castlebar on New Year's Eve would probably just result in another whuppin.

The Galaxy caramel bars, though...