I thought I might be reduced to bemoaning the fact that I was obliged to, after resisting it for months, months, go onto Zoom in order to attend the virtual AGM of an organisation of which I have somehow become a trustee.
However, dr rdrz, your hearts will be gladdened to hear that instead of this, I perchanced to come across an interview with the ( Read more... )

You know me, I cannot let terrible ancient jokes die, and on the lines of 'Do you like Kipling? - I don't know, I've never Kippled' I can now answer the question re Stirling.
Which was indeed very pleasant, aided by weather rather better (though with some showery outbursts) than it was earlier in the week and fairly good luck with transport.
Okay, ( Read more... )

I can quite see that a lot of 'itsajoke!!!' is merely a feeble cover for something that is not funny at all.
I also observe that there are people who do things for their own amusement and that of others that is cruel and unusual to somebody somewhere.
So, I was thinking, but are there not jokes which are simply harmlessly entertaining? e.g. the ( Read more... )

Today's Guardian Guide has various articles on comedy in the present day and whether it is in danger from plitikle krektniss and so on, or whether it is just taking new turns.
And on the 'not allowed to say anything' and 'it's going soft' I am inclined to think of women writers being praised for 'gentle humour' or 'subtle wit' and wondering, did ( Read more... )

Standup comedian's husband drops defamation case. The case raised concerns that if Beamont - who faced bankruptcy - lost, it could prevent comedians from using material about their loved - or unloved - ones in standup shows.

And indeed we felt that that might have created a troubling precedent in law, even if Les Dawson is long deceased and ( Read more... )

What I read
The most recent Slightly Foxed.
Finished EM Delafield's General Impressions (1933) - several series of humorous articles from Time and Tide. Possibly funnier in their day. Also People You Love: On the Status of the Family Under Nazism, which is terrifying.
Lucy Neville, Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys: Women and Gay Male Pornography ( Read more... )

What I read
Finished Someone Like Me which somehow I did not get on with as well as the other Careys I've read: possibly it's in that genre of 'psychological thriller/horror' that is just not my thing. Well-written, etc, but not quite my thing.
More Delafield short stories, the play, To See Ourselves: A Domestic Comedy in Three Acts (1930), which ( Read more... )

What I read
Elizabeth Bear, Stone Mad (2018), sequel to Karen Memory: short (novella-length) but v good and packs a lot in.
Reread two of the D. B. Borton Cat Caliban mysteries from the early 90s still on my shelves: slightly cozier than I recollected, but not entirely squishy. Our protag is a 60-ish recent widow in Cincinnatti with ambitions to ( Read more... )

Well, okay, Will Self sez, yet again, that Novel B Ded, or at least, on its way out, though this does not seem to stop him writing and publishing the things -
But I do wonder to what extent when people say X or Y is DEAD they are actually talking about some particular niche manifestation or subgenre - and I very much doubt that there is a ( Read more... )

What I read
Finished Into the Fire.
For some reason, there tends to be a confluence between Slightly Foxed and Literary Review every three months (but I think The Scribbler may have been previous week and I forgot to log it). I suppose, re The Scribbler, that if you are featuring stories about learning to play the Old Joanna, and your wheelhouse is ( Read more... )