I'm writing this now partly because if I watch more of the propaganda that passes for news nowadays (about the student protest) I'll have to go down the police station and stuff some paraffin soaked rags through the letterbox. The best thing about it was the slogans that the students had made up, one of which is the subject heading for this post.

I've had my girls for five days this week and neglected the washing of clothes, the tidying up, and everything that didn't absolutely needed to get done at that precise moment. I accidentally sent Julie to school without her drink one day, although that's an improvement on the time when they were younger and needed help to get dressed and I sent Melanie to school without any knickers on.

I emailed Frances (the sexiest 56-year-old I've ever met), saying we should probably cut out the sex bit and carry on as friends. I'm seeing her next Wednesday for a bit of a Christmas drinkies / meal thing. As much as I fancy her, I don't want the dull, circular conversation which rakes pointlessly over "us" that I have to nod my head through in order to get her clothes off. The women who want relationships with me (Felicity) I don't want one with them, and vice versa (Linda). Linda was never interested in me, but now she's met a Swedish economics professor and that seems to be going quite well. Damn. I mean, I'm very pleased for them.

If you are hard up in West Yorkshire, head over to Dewsbury. I had a couple of hours to kill there last week and saw a barber's advertising haircuts for three pounds. Inside, a notice said that they refuse to cut any hair which has too much gel, is greasy, or which hosts head lice. Dewsbury's also got a proper market selling big knickers with elasticated fronts, spanners, and tripe. The tripe stall advertises "50p mixed bags: dog bits, cat bits, husband bits!"

I got to Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival by the skin of my teeth, dragging together at the last moment a few pounds and a couple of places to stay. After train fares, my budget was about 4 pounds per day. On Wednesday, with the festival starting on Friday, I had nowhere to stay, my intended host letting me down ("I'm sorry looby, I've got to go to Poland.") I rang Kim, she of the ill-advised kiss lunge on Platform 14 at Leeds after our one and only date,  asking rather diffidently if I could stay with her for a couple of days, thinking that it was a request too far. Seeing as we don't really click in any way, she's been good to me: it was in her house that I finished my MA at 4.40am on the day it was due in, and she agreed to put me up for the weekend until my other billet was ready.

Being hard up at the festival was difficult at times: trying to dodge train fares and having to exit our stewards' party after one drink saying I was tired wasn't much fun, and in a moment of madness in Wetherspoons I saw an abandoned pint, stole it, then had a man march up to me asking me what I was playing at. I really did think there would be violence. But I gave him two pounds for another and went and sat down. He brought me the penny change.

There was a flicker of erotic interest (just a flicker) as I got talking on Day Two to a flame-haired hippyish woman. We met the day after and decided we both fancied the singer in a concert we'd just seen. Over the week we swapped relationship disaster stories and email addresses. I told her that I was at HCMF to do some participant observation for my PhD and that I was off to the pub to write my notes up. "Do I figure in them?" she asked. "Prominently," I said. Unfortunately there just wasn't quite enough spark to conclude the festival friskily.

I met Radio Kootwijk Live, giddy and wired after a successful performance. They invited me to sit with them and refused to let me buy any drinks. As her tea arrived, a Dutch woman turned to me and said "What's this?" "A Yorkshire pudding," I said. "Oh. What do I do with it?"

I accidentally knocked a bottle of official HCMF wine into my bag one night. I borrowed a glass, and took it into a John Cage concert. My second supervisor was there so I sat with him. "Your night off then?" he said, cocking his head towards the bottle I thought I'd concealed.

I got home and went to see my girls, bringing my meagre presents of a mini box of Ritter Sport chocolate each. I don't know how my haircut looked, but Melanie asked "Was it a violent festival?"

It was a bit of a cock-up on the parenting front last weekend as Kirsty asked me really late in the day if I could have the children. One, the gorgeous Melanie was coming up. Two, I was quite ill. But I'm going to be away for ten days shortly so I couldn't say no really.

On Thursday I was shivering in a duvet and went a bit doolally, taking rubbish and forgetting people's names (this is on absolutely no drink at all, before you start wondering). Friday morning I dragged myself onto the 0722 to Leeds for a supervision meeting. In Leeds I kept looking at the TV trying hard to remember why it is that everyone has poppies on at this time of year.

Melanie arrived that evening and we went down the Sun which felt like being immersed in a head-filling din of white noise. I was exhausted and had to sleep on the too-small sofa as there wasn't any more room. I didn't have any more blankets so had to make do with my coat and a couple of jumpers. When she came down in the morning I went to introduce her to my housemates and I had completely forgotten her name. "That looks great doesn't it," she joked. "We have actually met before last night."

Melanie was a star on Saturday. Seeing me struggling to stay awake,  she said she could take the girls out for a couple of hours so that I could get a bit of sleep. I was so grateful to her.  In the evening she put them to bed as I had to go out and compere at the Yorkshire House for Lancaster Musicians Co-operative's 25th anniversary gig. I'd arranged for someone else to look after them later on so she came down to the gig and finally started having a bit of a weekend.

Melanie went back and Felicity came round for a bit of a roll in the hay. It didn't really work for me because I was aware of the others in the house. She's noisy, shouting down the stairs to me as I brought the drinks up, as if wanting to make sure Bela, Csilla and Stefan knew she was here. She further irritated my tired, humourless self by taking the foam inserts out of my expensive Sennheiser headphones and putting them on her nipples.

Yesterday I rang Frances, who I haven't seen for a while. We had another of her lovely meals (chestnut roast, roast potatoes and roast veg, onion gravy). She looked stylish and pretty, in a bluey-green shirt top with little folded up sleeves and a wide vertical layer of fabric overlaying the buttons, and a necklace of different coloured stones. Afterwards we sat on the sofa a couple of feet apart. "It's surprising how coy we're being with each other, isn't it?" she said. "Let's stop being coy then," I replied, and we started kissing and stroking each other, her lovely slim body and breasts against me.

I can't remember exactly what she then said: it was something along the lines of "We never did resolve why it went all wrong last time". Oh no. Not now, please! I tried to laugh it off but it all crumbled away in seconds, her accusing me of "clamming up" and "not wanting to deal with things." I stood up, straightened myself out and got ready to leave. I'm not interested in rehearsing the same pointless inconclusive conversations we had six months ago.

This morning I sent her an email saying that I just want things to be straightforward and easy, without big conversations. I said that it only seems to go wrong when things get frisky, so I suggested we just cut that side of things out and enjoy the bits that are less fraught.

Ten French wines, with little dishes of mussels, smoked chicken and venison pâté. All OK to good, but not enough tannin in any of them for me; you can see how the New World is casting its jammy, sweet shadow over France nowadays. Best was a nice dark Cabernet Franc, a bit dusty, like dark chocolate gone beyond its sell-by date. Personable, patient and socially adept hosts who put a lot of effort in to the evening, despite French pronounciation not being their strong point.

Ingrid was making me feel a touch nervous towards the end as she got rather surprisingly drunk. At the bus stop afterwards she said "That text you sent me..." (the one in which I said "There's something a bit sexy about you.") "Yes?" "I don't want to go in that direction. Let's keep it as friends." "Fine," I said. "Honestly, that's good. I like everything to be straightforward."

Then she went a bit odd, accusing me of talking about her in a disparaging and insulting way to Brian. Uh-ho - time to start talking in neutral. "Ingrid, there's nothing about you I wouldn't say to your face, as I hope that text indicated." "Well," she protested, "I don't want to be an object, or a..." "No, no, of course not. When's this bus due?"

The bus was uncomfortably hot and she said she felt nauseous, putting her head on the rail in front of her and sighing a lot. She stayed on the bus past her stop and got off with me. Why, I don't know. I walked a short way with her and then I left her to go home. Normally in such a situation, I'd have kissed her goodnight, but I wanted to indicate that I was putting a bit of distance between us.

I had a suspicion she was in the mood for one of those combative drunken conversations in which she could play with the power she has of me finding her attractive. But she came across as unstable and manipulative, and the burgeoning sexual attraction I had felt for her disappeared last night. And the woman who can't handle a bottle of wine a night is not the woman for me.

Felicity came round, my misgivings giving way to a more basic drive. Sex a bit one-sided as ever. Her vibrators make a bit of a racket and I wish Stefan hadn't chosen this afternoon to go clomping about putting a towel rail and a loo holder up in the bathroom next door to my bedroom. I was trying to shove the dildo in her as far as I could partly to keep its noise down. Felicity was as quiet as she could be but obviously moaning a bit. I couldn't work out whether Stefan, banging nails and knocking things in the bathroom next door, was absorbed in his work or listening to us.

Afterwards we went down the Sun and she paid for a cheeseboard. I say "she paid": she gave me the money for it, but I forgot to pick up the tab afterwards and just walked out without paying. It'll be alright but I'll have to rectify this tomorrow.