During a Twitter thread springing off the legitimate contention that prior to mass vaccination programmes there are a lot of tombstones for babies in graveyards - or at least, records of very young children on the family memorials.
So somebody contends that In Ye Old Days children were not loved then because parents did not become attached to ( Read more... )

I'm sure this is admirable, and people deciding to take their roads previously untaken even if they are no longer youthful is entirely excellent -
A stunning second act! Meet the people who changed course in midlife - and loved it.
But, I am just a bit, well, isn't this a bit like those people who throw up a steady job to 'follow the dream', and ( Read more... )

I saved, or thought I had, a couple of Twitter threads anent the role of publishing in the formation of the literary canon (in the other browser), only one of which actually appears in my tabs and turns out to be from last year.
But anyway, that had me thinking that well yes and well no, and what about V Woolf self-publishing by setting type ( Read more... )

Eighteen years ago, a timorous hedjog signed up to Livejournal...
And while LJ is somewhat of a ghost town these days, at least compared to the halcyon days of yore, there are still several of you who were there, back in the day, around now.
As well as new friends (hi, new friends, and some who are not all that new, but accumulated along the way ( Read more... )

Partner and I were watching An Old Movie the other day.
Talking it over later, I remarked that I had first seen Old Movie in question in the second-run/revival cinema in my hometown, and that we had gone in at a relatively late point in the narrative and had - as was the custom in those days - sat sitting there, through the ads and the trailers and ( Read more... )

Okay, I can see that with What A Year It's Been people want something that is What It Has Ever Been, and that this gets tagged to the Solsticial Rites as they are celebrated in a historically culturally Christian country even if they are largely secularised -
Except I was thinking, are they unchanging over, lo, these many years, and not just in ( Read more... )

(Please do comment below if you have any further questions you would like me to address over the course of the month.)
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There is a trope one sees about The Internetz concerning Ye Olde Family Receipt for Cookies or Muffins or Stuffing or Whatever, that has been handed down since Dayze of Yore, and possibly only communicated verbally, or handed on as shakily handwritten on whatever scrap of paper was available by frail old lady before she passed to the Chosen One ( Read more... )

I noticed on Twitter this morning somebody asking that question, which is similar to other questions asked on The Books That Made Me (The book that changed my life, The book that had the greatest influence on my writing), for people to provide instances of: [T]he single most important work of fiction you’ve ever read.... Just the one that’s ( Read more... )

Article in the Guardian 'The Guide' section, which is not online (at least as yet) - it's in the series 'Solved! your crucial cultural questions answered', on the question 'Do uncertain times always result in great art?'

(Historian, remembering an undergraduate lecture during which lecturer on ye medeevles remarked that 'all ages were ages of ( Read more... )