My name is Phil Edwards and this is my weblog.

I spent six long years writing a doctoral thesis on the Italian radical movimento of the late 1970s and its relationship with the Italian Communist Party. For some of that time I also worked for Red Pepper. Before that, I used to write for Casablanca, and before that I was involved in the Socialist Society.

I’ve worked at Manchester University, in the Criminology bit of the School of Law, since October 2004. I’m currently (March 2009) employed on a part-time basis and keeping an eye out for something better.

If you want to contact me directly, mail me at phil dot edwards at gmail dot com. I’ve also got a LinkedIn profile which you can view here.

If you’re commenting (and please do), bear in mind that I like to know who I’m talking to; if I don’t know who you are, please give your full name or include a link to a page where this can be found. Anonymous or impenetrably pseudonymous comments may be deleted, unless they’re particularly interesting or I’m in a good mood. Beyond this (in the immortal words of Tom Coates) I reserve the right to remove comments for whatever vague capricious reasons seem reasonable at the time.

I started this blog by merging three older blogs; at the time I hadn’t posted to any of them for a while. Hence the name, which is a quote from a song called “At the end of the day” by the estimable Robert Lloyd:

Getting to grips with your own lower self
Is more comforting than being left on the shelf
The gaping silence never starts to amaze
Let’s eat some toast to those near better days…

The idea being that what I write may be pretty unimpressive, but not writing at all is (usually) worse.

Incidentally, the press officer of the BNP is called Stuart Russell.