What I read
Frances Bingham, Valentine Ackland: A Transgressive Life (2021), which was very good, even if one's heart does still ache somewhat for Sylvia Townsend Warner. I made some comments in this post yesterday. I did think it gave a more positive picture of Ackland than The Akeing Heart, and in general a clearer story all round.
Finished ( Read more... )

I was predisposed in favour of this book because Lieberman co-authored an article which showed on what very specious evidence Maines had based her dubious contentions in her notorious and unfortunately influential work.
The book does indicate that the whole Victorian doctors and 'hysterical paroxysms' and vibrators is a MYTH, but in a fairly muted ( Read more... )

Okay, the article itself is pretty much on the side of It's All More Complicated:
Who Killed the ‘Female Pleasure Button’? In 1998, a North Carolina doctor accidentally discovered a device that could make women cum at the drop of a hat. Two decades later, we've got nothing to show for it. This is the long, strange story of the Orgasmatron.
(Me, I ( Read more... )

I was so cheering for what Polly Toynbee was saying about the 70s: Are the 2020s really like living back in the 1970s? I wish …: Most 70s imagery is a deliberately manufactured caricature, with its garish wallpaper and avocado suites, an ignored time zone between the swinging 60s and glitzy greed-is-good, big bang, big hair 80s. It’s an image that ( Read more... )

I know I first clicked on this because someone tweeted a line or two that sounded like ponceyness to the max begging for a codslapping, but when I actually read it, there was certainly something I would consider as deviation into sense, or at least what I could only acclaim as a recognition of It's All More Complicated:
Retail Therapy: An excerpt ( Read more... )

There were 2 damaged items in today's grocery order (Ocado/M&S) and you know what? they have a really nifty 'Request Refund' system where you can go to the actual order and tick the item and there is a drop-down menu of issues for which one might request a refund -
Boom! Done! Confirmation email received!
- and I think of the absolute run-around ( Read more... )

Well, I was a bit irked (to put it mildly) at Mariella Frostrup invoking '19th-century normality' as against modern confusions and complicated relationships -
Er, yes, do tell us about the strict and particular monogamous and heterosexual relationships pursued by Ye Eminent Victorians while I am over in the corner here giggling, when I'm not ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

Spotted on Twitter: RT if you would absolutely, in a heartbeat, give up your savings/discretionary income/wealth if it meant you would solve/end world hunger and poverty.
I dunno: this sounds to me a bit like the 'if you could do [desirable thing] by pressing a button which would kill a complete stranger a long way away from you, would you?' thought ( Read more... )

I.e. it is possible both to curse the darkness and to light candles, and in fact, going 'f*ck this darkness' is often the precursor to going groping in the cupboard in which one thinks one left the candles and the matchbox.
And, okay, some part of me is just nihilistically humming along with Sir Noel about 'Bad Times Just Around The Corner' (at ( Read more... )