My parents have been and gone (last weekend, along with my brother and his fiancée) and they were impressed by Brighton overall, it seemed. One of the things they saw during the sightseeing was the Pavilion, which was nice as it was something I hadn't ventured into before. Most of our eating out was confined to restaurants in Kemptown, based on the drunken recommendations of someone I met at a party the night before, and it's definitely a place I would like to live in next year if I can afford it.

Which brings me to money. I'm broke. Again. The grant cheque that I got is used up, and while I got another one the other day, all of it will be used on paying the accommodation fee for this term (I'm working out how I can get those people to back off for a while). My 30th birthday looms on the horizon as well. It's Wednesday coming, the 27th. The finer points have yet to be sorted out.

Thirty. I'm in denial. I figure I can make my twenties last for another ten years.

Another pope got elected on Tuesday. Joseph Ratzinger, hereafter known as Pope Benedict XVI. Much more important to me was the clinical exam I had that day, and afterwards the pub beckoned, so no, there was no feeling of awe at the occasion.

Apparently the election was 'tantamount to a stitch-up', and the new candidate has been nicknamed 'God's Rottweiler'. He also served some time in the Hitler Youth, though given that the Vatican have been lambasted for its lack of action during the Holocaust, that revelation is pretty small fry. His official stance is rooted in conservatism (as if, when it comes down to it, there is any other position that exists in the Vatican) and he has already spoken out against homosexuality, woman priests, and other religious beliefs. I can see a glowing future for him, where he endears the previously unsure to the establishment. Papal infallibility is the single greatest crock of shit the Vatican ever came up with.

While his position has influence on society in general, and as such shouldn't be completely disregarded, he has become a figure that is meaningless to me. I chucked out most of their doctrines when I was younger, but now it's official. If I haven't mentally washed my hands of the whole institution before, I'm doing it now. They had their chance, but they've blown it.

Incidentally, a term that was used in one of those Guardian articles to describe the world population of catholics as they relate to the Vatican is 'the flock'. Says it all really, doesn't it?