I seem to have an inability to keep the theme for this blog (if you’re reading this on Facebook or Hyves, go to www.tredford01.co.uk) the same for any length of time, but I’m hoping this redesign will persist a bit longer than past designs have. In a fit of geekery, I ported the whole blog from RapidWeaver to Wordpress, so I can post new stuff without having to republish every file on the site. I borrowed the theme from my other blog, changing the colours a bit. One other advantage of this change, is that the site should work on Internet Explorer, without it running away screaming (which is exactly what happened with the old theme, try clicking one of the links in the navigation bar above in IE if you don’t believe me).

Anyhoo, apart from multiple Wordpress installations on one database, I’ve been combating the extreme boredom that comes from having nothing whatsoever to do by trying new recipes in the kitchen. I managed to make bangers and mash for the first time last night, and thanks to a Nigel Slater recipe, it had the potential to be exceedingly good. It had that potential, if I used the right type of potatoes, which I didn’t. But it tasted nice, even if the mash was a bit crunchy. Tonight, I’m trying something with pancetta, lots of cheese, double cream, and more potatoes.

I’m back in Manchester now, getting settled back in to the university routine. With only a little difficulty, I’ve managed to get my timetable sorted, and everything should be in place for the start of lectures next week. I say ‘with only a little difficulty’, because for some totally pointless reason, the university has abolished departmental offices. So now, if I need to find out something about my course, I have to wait in a very long line to speak to one of the two very harassed, and totally clueless admin people at the ‘Student Information Point’. It’s gone from a system where each department in the faculty had an office of its own, with a couple of full time staff, who knew what they were doing, and knew who the academic staff were, to a system where the whole faculty shares two people who don’t seem to know who half the academic staff are, even the well known and respected ones! Anyway, rant over. The professors are revolting, and trying to put pressure on the university administration, so maybe it won’t stay like it is for long.

My new politics blog seems to be doing well so far. Iain Dale linked to it in one of his lists of new blogs, and I seem to be developing a small audience. This is possibly the first time in about three years of blogging, that I have a successful site. I thought “Code is Simple” would be the site that’d work out, but that clearly didn’t happen.

Anyway, I have the luxury of time just now, so I can easily post updates and keep relatively up to date with political goings on. I don’t know whether that’ll be the same when I get back to university later this month. Hopefully the Thursday Briefing will still keep going.

I’m quite looking forward to getting back to Manchester. Edinburgh is a nice place to be, and the thing I’m working on in Parliament is particularly interesting just now, but there will be so much more to occupy me when I get back to uni, which should be fun.