What I Read
Finished The Reinvention of Humanity which was very good: clearly the author thought these people were doing important work around race and culture that we needed to be reminded of and was still of value, but he did not glide over the unexamined attitudes around race and sex that they still retained. But as far as saying people from, oh ( Read more... )

Discussion over on Facebook over bloopers in historical romances/histfic more generally over the state of the law/medical knowledge/etc in such a way as to undermine one's enjoyment -
Well, pedantic ol' mine, anyway. (Dr Rdrz may recall diatribes apropos over 'they did not know that about syphilis then', 'penicillin had not yet been invented', ' ( Read more... )

Because, honestly, I do not think that I am a total outlier in thinking that Mary Anning is not really 'until recently... a little known figure' and that it is only now that she is 'getting the recognition she deserves'. I think the very fact that there is a contemporary painting of this woman of humble origins with her hammer and basket and little ( Read more... )

Interview with Jenny Runacre: “I didn’t want Hollywood upending my life - or the humiliations that Maria was exposed to.”, who in fact had a significant film career of her own, just didn't, it seems, want all the hype and hassle, more power to her.
So Stuart Jeffries has her talking about working with Jack Nicholson, Derek Jarman and John ( Read more... )

Since there is no culinary post today for the same reason as last week - I did make a loaf of pumpkin seed and sultana bread during the week, quite nice - have these passing thoughts.
You know that thing whereby if a woman is being interviewed on whatever topic there will be some entirely irrelevant allusion to her physical attributes/attractions ( Read more... )

Journos writing about libraries from a position of, apparently, knowing nothing about the subject.
Only at Oxford could musty tomes about phallic worship be regarded as a genuine target for onanistic students.
Firstly, we sincerely hope that environmental standards at the Bodleian are such that the tomes are not musty: I would imagine that ( Read more... )

Or maybe, I am well-acquainted with the 'white slavery' trope that first flowered in the early C20th and went on being resorted to by journalists looking for a sensational story into, I think, at least the 1950s -
An ordinary young woman going about her business, though this was usually about pleasure such as shopping or going to the movies, was ( Read more... )

Rare fin whale stranding in Norfolk puzzles scientists: “It should not be in those waters,” he told the BBC. “We see fin whales occasionally on the southern coast or more the west coast of the UK, so Ireland, right up to Scotland. But you never get them in the North Sea, so what it was doing there, we have no idea at the moment.”

Not the first ( Read more... )

I think all that can be said about the creepy journo who outed (or did he) the writer known as Elena Ferrante has probably been said.
I think I have remarked, more than once, on that problematic elision from 'private' to 'secret': as in (to think of one instance) a 'secret tunnel' that was not actually secret: but it was private and not open to all ( Read more... )

Or, journos clearly do not even check Wikipedia.
From eggs to bacon - why food scares don’t scare us. But the industry doesn’t bank on consumers forgetting about risk and remembering how much they like burgers; it takes a major effort by food boards, manufacturers and retailers to manage crises. Few have pulled it off as well as the Egg Marketing ( Read more... )