Weekend linky things
Didn't know we still had these, given that the civil status of 'pauper' was eradicated in 1929: Lonelier lives lead to rise in pauper funerals
Round-table with seven women business leaders, organised by business editor Ruth Sunderland, discusses City culture, machismo's role in the crisis and how women can help bring about a resolution: and what we note, besides the fact that they are not cooing that women are so much cuddlier cooperative bunnies than men, is that these women are all of mature years - not one under 35. How much is that a factor too, and would maybe men who weren't seething with youthful testosterone also be a bit more risk-averse and thinking of the long term? And how much do I love this:
This idea that you put women in to clean up the mess men have made is a very dangerous one. I don't know the women in question in Iceland but I just hope they have the requisite skills because if these women are not competent it will horribly rebound. I don't like the idea of women being appointed to clean up messes unless they have the skills.
Which resonates with something I read some while ago about 'the glass precipice', where, if things are going to hell in a handbasket anyway, you appoint a woman...
Scent of tragedy lingers in a 650-year-old perfume bottle buried by victim of pogrom: Medieval cosmetic set is part of treasure trove found under ancient city wall
How creepy is this: Herman Rosenblat survived a Nazi death camp. Fifty years on, he told Oprah of the little girl who had thrown food over the fence and kept him alive. Years later they married. But, as he prepared to publish his sensational memoir, the truth emerged - i.e. that there was no way it could have happened. But I liked this comment on the imbroglio:' the dark truth was hidden to spin a story of romance, to portray the universe as an orderly and just place', and I suspect that that desire for neatness underlies a lot of persistent mythicisation of historical events.
As a letter in response to an article last week asserts:
Picasso: "Was he a playful genius, as some suggest, or a capricious and cruel misanthrope who left battered lives in his wake?" ("The many faces of Pablo Picasso", last week.) Is there some law that forbids us to be both?
Give Patrick O'Gara the IAMC award of the week.
A Life With Bells On is a charming tale of one man's battle with the morris mafia. It may be a charmingly comic spoof documentary, but do we discern that it is very much about morris MEN?
Hadley Freeman reviews In Bed With the volume of erotica by pseudonymous litfic lady writers - from the review it sounds, alas, as if that is the just description for most of them, though she does suggest that at least it's 'anti-chick lit'.
Wow: Drug giant GlaxoSmithKline pledges cheap medicine for world's poor: Head of GSK shocks industry with challenge to other 'big pharma' companies; Profits before the poor? Drugs giant offers an answer to the toxic question facing a 'heartless' industry