Firstly I want to draw attention to two excellent websites:

Stuart Whitton
- illustrator and loud-mouth extraordinaire. What this man can't do with a pencil shouldn't be attempted by the sane. Just don't get him talking... (only joking Stu). In seriousness, he is hugely talented and keeps his blog up to date with his work - check it out.

The History Blogging Project
- a venture I fully support and which my old friends at the History Lab have also put their weight behind. It's high time that the more interesting developments, findings and approaches associated with 'doing History' made it out into the wider world. Although blogs are a new platform, previous generations of historians appreciated the value of micro-dissemination. It will never replace books and articles, nor should it, but we have a responsibility to share our knowledge with whoever seeks it.

In other news...

As for me, the last 6-9 months have been some of the most challenging in my life so far. The PhD funding came to an end which meant job-hunting took over my time. Almost as soon as that was resolved, we decided to move to a new flat. 

The new flat is beautiful - now - but initially required a degree of work to be done quite quickly, meaning that there were a lot of late nights/busy weekends as we approached winter. Christmas allowed a respite for family and recovery after a six-month period of job-hunting, new-job-starting, packing, moving, painting, building, fixing, despairing, and generally wanting to die.

Since late January 2011 progress has been much better, and I have returned to the successful balancing act of work/life/thesis that I managed in the first few weeks of employment (before the new flat drama kicked in). It is difficult, and sacrifices have had to be made, but there is light looming at the end of the tunnel. Even if the tunnel is littered with syringes full of pain and face-eating rats. Did I say tunnel? I meant colon. 

It was actually good to have a short break from the thesis because it helped me to read my text with fresh eyes, and to see how I could improve the prose to make my arguments clearer. Subtle changes that needed to be made to the structure and prose throughout now seem obvious; the thesis increasingly hangs together as one. It is a coherent narrative rather than a collection of related chapters. Important points raised in earlier chapters have payoffs later in the argument. This can only be good.

There will be dark days ahead. But it won't be long before the dark days ahead are fewer that those behind. March is a make-or-break month. Whether it is a success or not depends partly on forgetting about it being a make-or-break month and just continuing to hone, to polish, to perfect.

Like on cup final day, I must forget about the enormity and significance of the occassion, and all the pressure it brings, and just concentrate on playing my game. Fingers crossed that'll be good enough. If not, hey, it's only four years of my life down the pooper.