Soooo.
We’re all settled in Cambridge, surprisingly enough this time around the house is already box-free after only two weeks since we moved in.
Last time it took about two years. By the time we finished unpacking we were ready to pack things up again and move to another country.
Anyway.

Tomorrow it’s the first day of my new job. Oddly enough I’m not nervous at all, although the other night I dreamt about being in my office naked from the waist down, wondering if by acting normally my colleagues wouldn’t notice I went to work without covering my junk.

I wonder if my subconscious is trying to tell me something.
(note to self – remember to wear trousers tomorrow morning).

We didn’t go out too often during the past two weeks, the weather has been miserable most of the time and after all we were quite busy making the house a livable environment. Today instead the sun was shining, and I just realised that what we did, instead of – say – going punting on the Cam, was going to a museum.

The exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, though, was great.
The second floor was all dedicated to the Iranian poet’s Ferdowsi (Hakīm Abu’l-Qāsim Firdawsī Tūsī, 940-1020), whose epic poem Shahnameh, despite still being regarded after a thousand years as a literary masterpiece of the Persian culture, is poorly known in the western world.

Don’t tell me I’m the only one in the western world ignoring the unspellable Shahnameh because I won’t believe you.
However, I have to confess that my Persian isn’t that good, so I actually went there for the beautifully illustrated pages.

Without going down the road of commenting on a form of art I completely ignore, I was actually surprised by the clarity of certain illustrations, and how ideas and stories were conveyed so effectively even with a taste a thousand years old.
Some of the layouts and the composition choices were incredibly modern, with figures and scenes often spilling over the decorated frames.

As for the rest, well, Rostam – the Persian equivalent of Hercules – should have his seat in the Hall of Fame of the badasses.
He slayed dragons, ripped hearts off demons’ chests and all the other stuff that every hero should have in his portfolio.
I mean, in a bar fight I would chose him over Hercules to watch my back any time.

He even has his own comic, I mean.

And also, err, a movie. Maybe that one still needs some TLC:(