Anyone who talked to me on Friday would have been subjected to extensive bitching about the fact that my teaching has been set back three weeks and I'd been prevented from taking another job because I was theoretically busy on Tuesdays. However, I have, in the last two days, watched so many episodes of Desperate Housewives that real life now seems like a distant memory.

I had an 8-episode binge last night, after a similarly lengthy binge of Freudian analysis of literature, and consequently took it all much too seriously. Still, overintellectualising aside, I do think there are some good moments in it, if a little too much slapstick for my liking, and the voiceovers are annoying and unnecessary - why have a dead woman giving trite summaries of things that can be equally well expressed by the writing and the acting?

This weekend my house has been invaded by rugby players who spent the whole day yesterday sitting in the living room making cockerel noises and laughing extremely loudly. They went out in the evening, came back on the earliest Métro and spent the entire morning (by which I mean early afternoon) wandering around looking hungover and half-naked.

Here is a quote from the literary theory book, which I feel is an example of why translations should be used with caution:

"The Women's Liberation movements are correct in saying: We are not castrated, so you get fucked."

And one from Le Rouge et le Noir :

"Mme de Rênal pensait aux passions comme nous pensons à la loterie: duperie certaine et bonheur cherché par des fous."