Cohen, long babies, tutorials and essays

For my birthday I was given a ticket to see Leonard Cohen. I am not one to get excited. A wry smile once in a while normally suffices. Yet I confess I am rather pleased about this forthcoming event (next week).It does however collide with a meeting of my tutorial group, and so on Tuesday evening just gone I phoned up my tutor and apologised in advance for my absence. I was informed that normally they would move the date if one of us couldn’t make it, but I had really not given enough notice. I am of course less than convinced about this, and more to the point, the tutorials really are not earth shattering events – while the chance to hear Leonard Cohen sing live – well that happens once in a life time!

Some examination of baby sites reveals that at birth my baby (well, all babies) are expected to be around 19-21 inches long. It’s a sentance that trips off the tongue fairly happily. It seems a reasonable length. Some people might even nod on hearing that figure and think to themselves, "yes, that sounds about right". To put this into perspective, however, a measurement can be made from the waist band of your trousers to your collar bone – on me this is 20 inches. So if I had a baby standing up inside me, it would in fact take up all the space in my stomach and chest. I would need to remove such things as my rib cage and my heart. Now I know its curled up, I am aware that its not standing up in the long suffering wife's stomach. I know it can't. Walking will take a while. It is however a little odd to think about, isn’t it? I mean.... If you had 20 inches of baby standing inside you it would have to kill you wouldn’t it? I know it can't. Look I'm not crazy. But seriously. If it could stand up….

In other news I have an essay due in on the 15th November. I have started it…just not done much on it. Now that I have started it I am realising that its not one I can just knock out in an afternoon. Hmm. If I don’t make it to the deadline – do you think they will accept an explanation of "I was busy thinking about babies standing up?"

Yours as ever,

The Broken Man