The Mortal Wombat

• The real sound of Shakespeare?
  In August the Globe theatre will stage an 'original production' of Troilus and Cressida, with the actors performing the lines as close to the 16th century pronunciations as possible.
  (tags: shakespeare language dialect english)

Yay, I've got a job! My enthusiasm is slightly tempered, though, by the fact that said job is picking raspberries at just above the minimum wage; and even more tempered by the fact that I'm supposed to start work at 6. Eep. Today was the first day, so I didn't have to be there till 7. For the next few days the memory of a ‘lie in’ till 6 will be but a blissful memory. About 50% of the workforce are Poles, and most of the remainder are some other variety of Slav, so I don't get a great deal of conversation to occupy my mind while my hands fumble in the bushes. Still, I'm sure it's character building, and I only have to stick at it for another 8 days. Then I'm off to Normandy on holiday.

• Footprints of 'first Americans'
  Human settlers made it to the Americas 30 000 years earlier than previously thought, according to new evidence: human footprints preserved by volcanic ash in an abandoned quarry in Mexico.
  (tags: archaeology americas)

I've now been unemployed for 6 days, and I'm beginning to lose track of time. The photo perfectly exemplifies the desperate effects of my situation. Someone give me a job now! Please. I mean, I'm good at stuff. Really I am. All sorts of stuff. Web stuff, databases, editing, filing, tidying, speaking, cycling. I'm sure there are other things too, but I'm too modest to list them all. I think every agency in Cambridge has my details now. Only two interviews so far, though.

Live 8 was bostin'. Right bugger that we had to leave before the end. About two hours before the end, as it turned out, so we missed The Who, Robbie Williams, and, most annoyingly of all, Pink Floyd. WAGN are evil and/or incompetent—it was their fault that we had to leave early because they'd scheduled engineering works to begin at midnight that night, so there'd be a reduced service after 22:30, and no service at all between 00:00 and 10:00 the next morning. Idiots. The busiest day of the year in London, and they have engineering works. Tossers. Why couldn't they have done the works between 10:00 and 16:00 on the following Tuesday?! It would probably have inconvenienced fewer people, and it would cost them less to do the work during the day.

Grr. I've got myself all worked up now. If only you could see me, quivering and frothing at the mouth. Not at all like that dapper, toothsome chap on the left.

• Welsh blanket smoking ban planned
  Welsh blankets won't be allowed to smoke anymore. Hurrah! (Actually the story is that smoking will be banned in Wales in workplaces and enclosed public places within 3 years. Also hurrah!)
  (tags: news wales smoking)