left to my own devices – occasional thoughts on higher education

Early last year a concerned former colleague asked me what would happen to this blog when I ran out of Pet Shop Boys’ songs to use as the title for my posts.  I couldn’t quite tell if the concern was of the more frustrated ‘when will this end’, or the more empathetic ‘what will you do, my poor friend’, variety.

I reassured (or further alarmed/depressed/infuriated) said former colleague by reassuring them that once I got to that point I had a Plan B.  Simply to delve beyond the song names and into the lyrics.  Consequently I had a supply of titles for my posts that would outlast either my stamina and desire to keep posting, or my corporeal existence, whichever came sooner. .

I’m not sure how close I am to Plan B.  It’s tempting to think it’s still some time away, given the combination of the size of the Tennant-Lowe corpus and my own willingness to stretch my text to draw an analogy to the title.

However, it’s probably closer than I think given the number of PSBs songs that will always defy any link to higher education.  So given that, I thought I’d do a playlist of PSB song titles that are never, ever going to be post titles on my blog (and as a bonus by calling it a playlist, and providing one at the end of this post, I get to use another such song name in the title of this piece).

10. If Jesus had a sister

Lyric based around the idea a messianic male leader who would have benefited from a wise woman to offer him sage advice. There may be an HE-related post in this title, but I’m not writing it.

9. Cricket wife

I’ve already managed (at least to my own satisfaction) to mash together in a single post three of my pet obsessions: PSBs, cricket and higher education.  I’m not going to push my luck and try that again with this particular song title.

8. Sexy northerner

Excluded from being the title of a blog post for two equally valid reasons.  As above, difficult to see any parallels to higher education. And it’s a tautology.

7. Dreaming of the Queen

This might have been a candidate prior to September 2022, given the annual January rush of press releases about the new year honours awarded to members of the higher education sector.  Alas, I only started my blog in August 2023 so that I think it’s out of contention for a post title.

6. Requiem in denim and leopardskin

Unfortunately I had to miss the leaving do at which this farewell speech for a departing colleague was given, so unable to write the blog post reporting on this event.

5. We’re the Pet Shop Boys

Possibly peak-PSB post-modern irony and therefore a beautiful thing, but a song so self-referential no route towards higher education issues feasible.

4. Love is a bourgeois construct

Unsurprisingly there’s a fair sprinkling of PSB songs with the word ‘love’ in them, and I’m never able to see the fit of such titles with blog posts about higher education (or at least the type of posts I tend to write).  So there were a few songs to choose from with ‘love’ in the title to include in this list, but I went with this one as I can’t see how I’d use it as a post title despite that I really feel I should be able to given the lyric (it’s inspiration was a David Lodge novel, and at one point the protagonist is reading the copy of Marx he still has from his time as a student).

3. New York City Boy / Paris City Boy

Off the table due to the increasing restrictions on overseas travel, rooted in financial constraints and the increasing interest of sector journalists in such matters.

2. I want a dog

Although this is, obviously, a laudable desire, couldn’t see me getting an entire blog post out of the SU’s and/or Student Services’ therapy dogs initiative.  Though if anyone thinks they can, I’d definitely be up for a guest post on this.

1. West End Girls

No chance of me borrowing this for the title of a post.  Never.  Some things are sacred.