A further distraction from my studies

Like the greatest cricketing all-round of all time, Sir Richard Hadlee, I am similarly driven (on the odd occasion at least) by the shameless need to claim my place in statistical legends. While I can't boast an overall bowling average of 21.3 runs per wicket or a batting century against the West Indies (in my one competitive match I struck a flukey four before being bowled second ball), I can boast that, with your help, we have made July the second most prolific month of this blog. Give yerselfs a pat on the back.

As the title indicates, I'm just using this as a distraction from my studies. I was meant to submit my third assignment today, but I'm only about a fifth of the way through it. Have to write seven annotated bibliographies of long-winded and dense academic tracts on ecofeminism. I could have chosen another topic, but by the time I thought about it it was too late (I'd blindly started into the text book without bothering to discern what the subject matter was). No time to change tack now. I did find out some tidbits of mildly interesting trivia, however. Apparently, women condemned to be burned at the stake as witches in medieval times were in fact nothing more than your local family planning consultants who advised the female population on contraception methods. This is was deemed to be a challenge to the authority of the lairds and the church, and so death it was. And I always thought 'tree-hugger' was a pejorative term dreamed up by some nutso right-way nazi American columnist like Ann Coulter, but actually it stems from the Chipko people's movement in Uttar Pradesh, India, formed to prevent the decimation of their forest habitat. Chipko, or its longer title, which I can't remember at the moment, actually means 'to hug a tree'.

Um, yeah, that's it really. Rotten will be pleased to learn that I've finally purchased some HST and am currently imbibing that each night. Will hopefully be able to swap quotes with you shortly.