Standfirst = the meaty chunk of text at the top of the page that gets you salivating to read the whole article. It's a magazine for all the alumnuses/alumnas/alumni (I try very hard to stop people calling them 'alums') that I hoik together twice a year. Some very clever freelancers write the three or four tricky articles, under the direction of our managing editor, but I write one or two, and pull together all the news pages, and the message from the Dean (in my guise of professorial ventriloquist). It takes bloody ages.
This week, I am mostly writing parts of a booklet to accompany a new professor's inaugural lecture in June. It helps that I find the subject interesting.
Going to view a house this afternoon. I'd buy it if only for the delphiniums in the garden and the uninterupted view out of the kitchen window across fields, rows of aspens, willows and alders, countryside and rivers to Europoort and the Pernis oil refinery and its flare stacks on the south bank of the Maas/Rijn (Meuse/Rhine), but the windy miller might take a bit more persuading. As many of you know, every time I moved jobs, I moved house (and usually at least 150 miles). He has never moved. Ever. This might be an interesting experience.
I am distressing un-British in my concept of the perfect breakfast. Coffee, really good bread, cold meat/dry sausage, cheese/cream cheese. Optional glass of red wine if it's a late breakfast. Almost needless to say, I haven't had that breakfast for about 18 years now.