(We all know the famed apothegm of Mrs Patrick Campbell, apropos the Oscar Wilde case, that she did not care what people did, as long as they did not do it in the street and frighten the horses? [thought: that London horses about the streets, c. 1890s, had probably been there, done that, seen it all, squire, I could tell you a thing or two, buy a ( Read more... )

Museum of creepy curiosities opens in London. Hmmmmm. Has he ever been to the Horniman, which far from being a higgledy-piggedly Cabinet of Curiosities, always strikes me as being about Educating The Masses About the Glories of Scientific Understanding of the Natural World, with added benefit of the really manky stuffed walrus, taxidermied by ( Read more... )

While the general situation differs in several significant respects from my long-past Slow Motion Train Wreck Relationship, I still got a certain amount of flashback cold grues from this post on Captain Awkward.
The first time I got consumed with An Idea For Writing I communicated that this had happened and he was all 'ooo, let me read it', when I ( Read more... )

Let big data unlock the secrets of our bodies: Technology will help to map female mysteries, from menstruation to menopause.
You know what: I am so not there for another iteration, even if it's a woman doing the iterating, of 'Wymmnnz! Mysterious!' because this depends on an entirely uninterrogated assumption that Men Are Straightforward and ( Read more... )

What I read
This was a week in which there was a confluence of the latest issues of The Scribbler, The Literary Review, and Slightly Foxed, so all those got read (or, in part, skimmed - the LR these days seems to review quite a lot of things in which my interest is somewhat minimal).
Finished The Poison Court - this was one of those times when, ( Read more... )

It's bad enough being got into conversation with by extroverts who think someone minding their own business must be gagging for somebody to talk to them -
- but really, preserve me even more from an introvert who is trying to cure their basic dislike of talking to strangers by, well, talking to strangers.
(Is this not rather involving people ( Read more... )

I have probably seen the odd movie or two with Bill Nighy in that I enjoyed, but there's something about any role in which he is massive amounts of *EPIC MANPAIN* that makes me wish you could hurl movies at the wall as well as books (he was not the only thing wrong with the movie of I Capture the Castle, but his being entirely wrong as Mortmain was ( Read more... )

Shutting Down Nosey Strangers.
I mentioned the highly inappropriate and intrusive query about my black eye some while since.
And I particularly noted this comment as being relevant to my experience: And how would you feel if random strangers kept asking what your hairstyle means, since you choose to go out in public with it so you must expect ( Read more... )

Am currently reading a book by somebody, and I like their fiction, but they have shown themself to be a bit of a prat on Teh Intawebz - I don't know whether it's vanity googling or what, but people will be discussing their works and possibly making some minor criticisms and cavils about certain inaccuracies (as it might be: no, archives just do not ( Read more... )

Glancing through the comments to last week's dilemma in today's 'Private Lives' in Guardian G2, I was creeped out by the description of working environment here:
As I’ve got older, I’ve realised that being quiet is seen as a flaw and from experience, especially in the workplace, being quiet frustrates people because they want you to be open and ( Read more... )