Heritage things:

This year's English Heritage blue plaques to include the 1888 Matchgirls' Strike, the Ayahs' Home in Hackney, and a pioneer of humane psychiatric care, Dr John Conolly and the Hanwell Asylum.

Campaigners are celebrating a victory in the battle for public access to the countryside, after the government agreed to cancel a deadline to ( Read more... )

At 190, Jonathan the Tortoise Is the World’s Oldest: He will likely celebrate with some of his favorite activities: sunbathing, sleeping, eating, and mating:
"In spite of his age, Jonathan still has good libido and is seen frequently to mate with Emma and sometimes Fred - animals are often not particularly gender-sensitive"
In the case of the ( 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... )

The V&A thing is even worse than originally reported: V&A to say goodbye to departments by material-woodwork, metalwork etc-and 20% of its curators: major and problematic upheavals with 'radical restructuring' and merging of departments, breaking with tradition: The “mother” of decorative art museums all over the world, the V&A was founded in 1852 ( 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... )

More weirdness from the Harry Ransom Center - okay, when I was there I was nose-down in the British Sexology Society/George Ives collections and a few other related things, so I never really delved into the bizarre depths: collection of famous people's hair compiled by the Romantic poet and essayist Leigh Hunt: 'Hunt's interest in hair is well ( Read more... )

Okay, there is a looong tradition of strict priest/clergyman/schoolmaster and novice nun/schoolgirl as a kinky scenario, no?
I'm not judging, honestly! whatever floats your boat!
But I am not sure how you get from finding that pant-pant, hot-hot, sexy-sexy, to actually eroticising Casaubon/Dorothea?
Help! My Boyfriend’s Fetish Is Inspired by ( Read more... )

What between this:
The inimitable Nancy Banks-Smith on The night I watched Vera Lynn with Marlene Dietrich [T]hat image has stayed with me for more than half a century because I don’t quite understand it. Marlene Dietrich listening so intently to Vera Lynn and whipping herself.
It's like a scene from one of the movies she did with von Sternberg, no ( Read more... )

2 'People: weird':
Okay, maybe she gets a slight pass for 'we're all a bit stressed at the moment, luv', but, really: 'It devastated me': Bristol mum's fury after gender-reveal party 'ruined' - the sonogram operator '“blurted out” that the foetus was a boy during a scan'.
You could not make it up: Man acquitted of entering a home with a weapon ( Read more... )

We’re working from home due to coronavirus, and for me that’s great; in my head, we have all the time in the world to have sex.
Call me a fuddy-duddy, but, you know, your home is now your workplace and even if you are not Zooming or otherwise having online meetings with your colleagues, you are, you know, working?
Even if your preferred form of ( Read more... )