I mean, really, those people who say this kind of thing: A former naval surgeon whose Wiltshire constituency includes Stourhead - named in the colonialism and slavery report because its 18th-century owner inherited money made partly from trading shares in the South Sea company, which supplied slave labour to central and southern America - Murrison ( Read more... )

I've just been reading Celia Brayfield, Rebel Writers: Seven Women Who Changed Their World (2019), which, though it covers some of the same territory as Anne Wellman, Angry Young Women: six writers of the sixties (2020), is actually rather different in approach. Also, leaves out Penelope Mortimer, only passingly mentions Drabble, adds in Charlotte ( Read more... )

Have been noticing on Twitter people remarking that spectacles are not a stigmatised assistive technology and neither is the need for them -
Well, maybe that is so now, but I think we have had some discussions in comments in this here venue about the Victorian resistance to letting people with myopia wear glasses rather than struggle and try to ( Read more... )

It's just over two years since I wrote these three sentences, intended to be an entire one-off, for 3 weeks for Dreamwidth; and that turned into a world and nearly a million words, still going.
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And in other business:
As someone who is not a grandparent, but is a retiree, I somewhat resent this suggestion that we are a 'reserve army' that can be ( Read more... )

My attention has been drawn to this article about OMG getting to 50 and growing old, which I'm actually finding quite annoying.

How many people can say, following a fall which (honestly) could surely have happened to anybody at anytime, like the moped/pedestrian crossing thing that happened to me in my 50s:
I’ve never regained an absolute trust ( Read more... )

A Certain Journalist Writing in The Spectator has recently reported on a paper by Real Scientist Type People saying that dyslexia is not A Real Thing.

And CJ is going Haw Haw always knew it was middleclass term for little Tarquin dimmer than Toc H Lamp, whereas my own smart money is on the paper actually being that dyslexia is too coarse and broad ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

I was linked recently by a fellow-spirit to this article, in THE: Times Higher Education, on independent scholars.

And being sort of in that category myself, since I don't earn my daily crust in a university history department, I find it interesting if possibly missing some of the points.

Whether you're a professional or an amateur, it's highly ( Read more... )

I had an instance of this myself on Saturday. I had moved away from the till after making my purchases so as not to hold up the line behind, and was juggling putting them into my shopping bag while holding my wallet.

And some woman came up and tapped at the open flap of my handbag (my handbag, that would be, that I had carefully positioned betwixt ( Read more... )

I could hardly have found a hotel closer to the university campus without actually staying in a student residence - I looked out of the window of my room this morning and saw an entrance to the campus on the other side of the road. Mind you, I had to circumnavigate the block to actually get there, but still.

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I'm not sure an English person - or ( Read more... )