Another royal is dead, this time it's not such a big deal (sad evidence of the influence a late-summer news drought had those years ago, when Princess Di died painlessly in a chaotic amalgamation of fire and metal). The Queen Mother seems like a nice enough person, but I feel a tinge of anger at the existence of such figureheads at the government's expense.

Then again, I'm not completely familiar with England's political system -maybe the royal family has power to suppliment their clout, and an important function I have no clue about- and everything I've read about the royal family has emphasized their importance as symbols.

Here's a tidbit, though, while I mull over just how close the royal family approximates a bunch of government-funded celebrities. Brits have never made sense to me, but in person they've always been interesting.

In 1984, 77% of British adults thought the country would be worse off without the monarchy, with 16% indifferent. Now only 43% think it would be worse off, with 41% indifferent.

On a less anglocentric note, class today was fine. Rock Show Girl, a redheaded Weezer and Simpsons fan from my first term German class, is back again for German Lit, so I suppose I should introduce her formally. German Lit today was dominated by The Ukrainian. I wish his English was a little worse, so he couldn't speak as much.

American Writers was redundant; Prof Fritzell, however interestingly, spent the whole period explaining the problem of prolepsis (I looked the word for it up after class) in American literature, citing statements like "The first people to discover America came over from Asia over 22,000 years ago" for about an hour. The board was covered with variations on "Record is not equal to Reality".

At lunch I sat with That Fellow, The Poet, The Astrologer, Dungeon Master, and Helen of Stillwater, so all in all I was entertained. My entertainment being the most important thing, after all. Still, I felt a bit too cynical for that group, and I acted a bit too wacky.

Spurred on by other Lawrence Literati, I read more from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay today, but I've decided that the book is too long. No book should be over 300 pages -if it is, split it into two books so it looks more manageable.

In any case, this is enough. I'm off to price laundry detergent.