But, honestly, I sometimes think the Dutch get a pass as being much more progressive and cooler than they are, because 'coffeeshops', enlightened sex ed, etc?

Quite apart from the ongoing annual mutterings over Zwarte Piet (which is not even 'tradition since time immemorial', but mid-C19th in origin), today I came across this charming thing in a ( Read more... )

Ten debut novelists - predicatably litfic and photogenic and mainstream published, siiiigh and all about the beginnings and the relatively young. Okay, they are becoming more diverse, modified yay.
And here we have the rediscovery, not for the first time, of the unexpected virtues of a despised genre, though, honestly, I am not sure all the works ( Read more... )

I keep meaning to mention this: I think I may have posted at some time about my friend who wrote a well-received book on what happened to the children of British women by black US GIs after the war (not an edifying story on the side of either government: the US Army authorities would not give per for interracial marriages to take place; British ( Read more... )

A male pill could be on the horizon after early trials showed a once-daily tablet was safe and appeared to work, according to researchers.
Lo, this is a claim I have been seeing for nearly half a century now*, and we still have not seen the thing in practice.
I do not entirely concur with this column: Women have had enough of the pill. So why foist ( Read more... )

I'm sure I've ranted before about my scepticism over those figures about the massive decline in male fertility since [whenever], and when I see woezing over 'in the last 40 years', when I think it was over twenty years ago when I was still finishing up my thesis that I was seeing woezing over 'in the last 50 years' male fertility had plunged -
And ( Read more... )

Men have all the time in the world to have a baby, right? Not according to the latest research.
Though on the 'freezing sperm' thing, is this about ticking biological clocks or about having other health-related things going on?
I find it interesting that there's a misleading narrative of (rich, celebrated) men achieving fatherhood at very advanced ( Read more... )

No really, after I do this thing tomorrow my dance card is practically blank. Okay, I have a work presentation but that is reprise of thing I did elsewhere, and another work-related thing but that is an 'in conversation' type of deal, and a day workshop (at least, I think there is - things have gone a bit quiet) at which I am just there to be an ( Read more... )

Dept of, yet another call-out to Joanna Russ and How to Suppress Women's Writing: it suited everyone to think of Thompson not as a journeyman writer but rather as a hedge-scribe, an empty vessel through which the rural England of the 1880s had channelled its dying song.

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Dept of, getting it Rong Way Round: This was a Rosetta Stone before the key ( Read more... )

Teenagers and social networking - it might actually be good for them:
New technologies always provoke generational panic, which usually has more to do with adult fears than with the lives of teenagers. In the 1930s, parents fretted that radio was gaining "an invincible hold of their children". In the 80s, the great danger was the Sony Walkman - ( Read more... )

But London today has been mistily recalling the days when she modeled for Impressionists.

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Dept of, what will they not advertise on the Tube next?

IVF and fertility treatments for eligible women 35 and under, through egg-sharing*, free seminars at Harley Street premises -

And, we note, the lovely chubby baby in the ad is not a blond moppet but ( Read more... )