Rather poor ton
Email from correspondent (whom I may have mentioned before) who seldom if ever gets in touch except to ask me for a favour, responding to mine sending editorial suggestions on article, expressing a certain amount of miffiness (at least, it seems like miffiness) that these were not accompanied by a chatty email about what I've been up to lately. What part of the bits about sorry this took so long, have been frantically busy, were not clear?
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Student sends email asking me if we can meet in order to discuss possible dissertation topic and sources. I hold over responding until I see how my preparations for giving conference paper are getting along and whether I will be able to slot in a meeting before going to Brussels. I get a somewhat nagging email asking if I got the previous one and expressing a certain amount of urgency about meeting for this discussion (towards the end of last week). As things are relatively well in hand for Belgian jaunt, I suggest that I could manage a meeting on Monday afternoon. Did I hear anything back about this? I did not.
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And to get away from personal gripes, some bozo has been kicking up a great fuss claiming that OMG the suffragettes wuzz TERRORISTS!!! a fact concealed by the biassed feminazi historians of the subject. There's a report here in the Times Higher: unfortunately other articles, their leader on the subject, correspondence etc, requires being registered. I don't know if this guy thinks he's saying anything new: because a great deal of recent history of the suffrage movement was specifically engaging with the misogynist works of David Mitchell and the ilk during the 70s and 80s. Why do I get the feeling that he's probably one of these people who goes around claiming that he can't get a job because of eviiiiilll PC conspiracies of wimmin and minorities: while other people think 'No: it's all about you'? (Rather like the Nightmare List Person who claimed to be discriminated against because of being of a particular demographic, whereas other demographics were all in cosy conspiracies to promote those like themselves...)
I think the amount of injustice and violence suffered by members of the suffrage movement is not really a matter for historical revisionism. I have just been refreshing my memory with The Young Rebecca:
I do not know whether you have ever seen an elderly and heavily built lady thrown down a flight of stairs by half-a-dozen policemen. It gives one a peculiar buzzing sensation in the head. And when you look again and see that two more elderly ladies behind her are being thrown from side to side as dockers pass sacks of grain into a hold, the sensation increases.
....
She simply went into the lobby and waited to see what would happen to the deputation of her friends. The police... lost their heads at the sight of Mrs Pethick Lawrence, and decided to clear the lobby. That it was not mere good-tempered jostling is proved by the fact that Miss Macmillan was unable to attend the evening meeting of the Conference owing to her injuries.