Am in Ghent (if they had had to take the tram into town with the good news, the burghers would still be waiting, just saying.)
According to the guidebook, the Central Post Office, erected 1913, includes sculpted heads of important attendees at the Ghent International Exhibition held that year.
Including the Lady with the Lamp -
Even if she hadn't ( Read more... )

Was at exhibition launch at the Florence Nightingale Museum yestereen: it was a Very Small Exhibition, but in the general Flo-related areas I spotted this lovely thing of hers: writing desk (very unlike a raven). I tried to take a photo on my phone but couldn't get a good angle as it was in a case.
I see that the FNM now has a token mention of Mary ( Read more... )

John Mullan's 10 of the best: imaginary meetings:
James Barry and Florence NightingaleBarry was a pioneering doctor who made his name in British colonies but became notorious after his death when it was realised that he was in fact a woman, Margaret Bulkley, who had disguised herself to pursue a medical career. In Sebastian Barry's play Whistling ( Read more... )

Things you need two hands to do.

Things the other person in the household does.

The existence of elastic self-locking laces for trainers.

Partner had a fall on Monday and has a small elbow fracture, he discovered on Tuesday when he went to the doctor and was sent off to the local A&E for x-rays.

This is actually making a significant impact in all ( Read more... )

I'm still pretty much chewing on the issues I ventilated in this post and also the thoughts evoked by that article on Countess Bathory I linked yesterday, which is that there's a third position which is pretty much implied in Russ's essay that I linked, which is Evil Bitch, i.e. a woman with some kind of power, and not just one who uses it for ( Read more... )

I liked this column in yesterday's Observer: It's about time we gave nurses a degree of respect.

And I am 'yeah, right-on' over a number of things there - e.g. her riposte to "Compassion can't be taught": 'Compassion and degrees are not mutually exclusive. Which reminded me of a trope that really annoys me, that the cerebral and rational and ( Read more... )

I don't know why I'm still boggled by manifestations of the sheer know-nothingness of meedja researchers.

Today it was asking whether we had, or knew of, film footage of someone who died when even still photography was still in its embryonic stages.

One of these days I'm convinced someone is going to ask us how to access Florence Nightingale's ( Read more... )

Okay, it is probably shooting fish in a barrel to snark at this: Elizabeth Gilbert was 34, burnt out, her marriage in tatters when she left New York to travel the world. Her confessional book, Eat Pray Love, with its happy-ever- after ending, has sold millions. No wonder she says she's a 'favourite of destiny'. One (at least, I) can't really feel a ( Read more... )

Okay, I am not the person who is ever going to jump up and down and go 'wheee!' at the prospect of a biopic of James Miranda Barry which promises that it's likely to be heavy on the 'secret forbidden lerrrrv' theme.

But while kudos to Natasha McElhone for getting this project off the ground, she is far too tall to play Barry, who was under 5 ft. ( ( Read more... )

Not entirely unknown before, but now I know much more about her (though not as much as I might like*), after reading Pam Hirsch's biography.

Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon is not, perhaps, one of the most well-remembered names of Victorian feminist heroines/female achievers. For example, who hasn't heard about her cousin Florence, the Lady with the ( Read more... )