Okay, I am fairly used to somewhat incoherent solicitations like the following: I am planning to release an Upcoming Issue, for this we are planning to start this prestigious event with your articles and the receipt of your eminent work is the good sign for our success towards [journal with a very broad and capacious remit but only the most ( Read more... )

I am still boggling over this article (it is not a new article, but somebody linked it somewhere and I clicked, and have been going WOT ever since);
The north-south divide is as old as England itself.
I have a codfish who says It's All More Complicated (surprised?).
The idea of the entirety of England south of the Trent being a weird pastoral- ( Read more... )

Apparently it was reported, late yestereen, that ‘Estimated 70 poisonous* snakes have escaped from a flat (according to the police) on the road between Manor House and Finsbury Park.’*
*Yes, we who know better know this should be 'venomous' snakes..
This is, alarmingly, just up the road from us, and given the various alarums and excursions that ( Read more... )

- I mean, it's already a horrible cruel windup if that's all it is: Girlfriend proposes to undertake a 'joke wedding' with boyfriend's bestie (who is gay, it transpires somewhere in the comments): However the marriage itself will be real. The wedding will be a joke and there are no feelings involved I trust that, and I’ve been asked to be best man ( Read more... )

Lately encountered in the spam-trap of my email account with my former workplace:

***Manhood»» Elongation Secret: African Tribesmen Ritual***

Given that I have had had some historical interest in the kinds of concerns that might lead to being taken in by such solicitations, I succumbed to the temptation to open this in quarantine space, and ( Read more... )

As somebody who earned something between 'peanuts' and 'ooh, free copy of book' for contributions to academic tomes, I am Very Much Appreciative of the work of the Authors' Licensing and Copyright Society for gathering together micropayments in respect of copying for student packs etc on my behalf annually. While this may not exactly amount to a ( Read more... )

Smuggler found with nearly 1,000 cacti and succulents strapped to her body: maybe I am a bad bad person with a twisted mind, but I found myself thinking Her Kink Is Okay, It's Just Not My Kink, also there are rules about importation of biomaterials into New Zealand...
***
Dept of, I had issues with this publisher when I did a book with them, ( Read more... )

Goodness knows I have seen some very weird 'if you bought/liked/read/threw this book across the room, you'll like X other book' suggestions (I may have mentioned, Goodreads actually recs books on the basis that I put Some Other Book on my 'Gave Up' shelf...)
But I'm really honestly not sure that any algorithm would go 'I see you have given My ( Read more... )

I have received a spam email inviting me, and my team at Alpha Chi Omega Fraternity, Inc -
- yes, that is so yr hedjog, no? though I do find on doing a little light googling that at least that body is what I thought one would normally call a sorority? On behalf of the International Trade Council, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the Republic ( Read more... )

Or, the things people - presumably - get paid to research and journals to publish their papers, what is this even?
Goodness knows I have researched a lot of rather weird things in my time, but most of that has been on my own dime or minute research grants, and I have not had to round up people to do tests on...
Who knew that 'Relationship between ( Read more... )