(I should remark at the outset, that the canceling is being directed downwards, by the powerful, as is so frequently the case, whatever their horrified screams actually claim...)
'We should have the right not to like men': the French writer at centre of literary storm When Pauline Harmange, a French writer and aspiring novelist, published a ( Read more... )

As my flight is this evening, checked out of my room and checked my luggage and set off to walk to Downtown.
I contrived part of this through a nice park with a lakeside meandering Japanese garden, but then struck streets again and came to the realisation that the trouble with the map is that it leaves out numerous streets and avenues so gives a ( Read more... )

Some months ago my dr rdrz may recall I was complaining that my phone battery was suddenly going down very fast. After several months of this, and following a recent software update, I find that it is pretty much back to the previous battery-life once charged. Go figure.
***
I have already been back to the opticians' twice to get my glasses ( Read more... )

Interview with Howard Barker in today's Guardian G2 -
Which had me screaming at the interviewer 'Have you ever seen a play by Terence Rattigan? Have you even googled the plot of The Deep Blue Sea, which opens on a failed suicide by gas-fire?' Calling them 'elegant dramas of the English upper classes' is so much Point Thahr Misst, Mark Lawson. ' ( Read more... )

Recent reports in the news about people who go on package tours to troubled places in the world:
Foreign tourists attacked in western Afghanistan
Attack on Afghanistan tourists puts spotlight on extreme holidays
Apparently for those who take the risk ‘the rewards are amazing’.
Somehow this makes me think of those people who do 'concern tourism' ( Read more... )

There's quite a meaty article in today's Guardian, apropos the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift, based on the book about them that I am currently reading myself.
However, is it not odd that nowhere is mentioned the current exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery (wot I went to see last week), which is curated by the author of the book, and to which the book ( Read more... )

Teepees are this season's favourite pop-up (scroll down):
But just when you thought the pop-ups had packed up, a new breed of winter spin-offs has arrived on the scene, complete with reindeer skins, hot punches and open fires ( Read more... )

Have been tackling an email recently received from a very nice person with whom I have had intermittent but very amiable interactions over a lengthy period of years being a Nexpert in my field of expertise.

Unfortunately, this tends to lead to people thinking I am Font of All Wisdom in my field of study defined very widely indeed, which ain't so.

( Read more... )

Have just noticed this:
When It Changed: Science Into Fiction Edited by Geoff Ryman
How much of Science Fiction is genuine science? Take away the fantastical clichés of space-travel, time-travel and artificial intelligence, and how much of what remains accurately represents contemporary scientific thinking ( Read more... )

For those of you to whose attention this has not already come, Dr Petra Boynton problematises Clitoraid (and includes some excellent further links on the matter).

Just a few points of my own: I suspect that, awful as FGM is, the women in question probably have other matters that they see as having priority over getting their clitorises restored.

( Read more... )