What I read
Well, Fabulosa was pretty good, both about Polari per se and the gay social history, even if I thought it was a tad broad brush about the trajectories of change post 67. I was also a bit 'huh?' that someone who works in British slang and its diverse influences missed the Indian/or at least what one might consider Hobson-Jobson ( Read more... )

What I read
Finished Eight Miles High (Cat Caliban #8): downsides the possible lack of former editorial hand noted in previous volume, also the move out of the community Cat's normally operating within; upside is the amount on Women Airforce Service Pilots of WW2, though one feels possibly Borton was stretching a bit to find a mystery to go with ( Read more... )

Lucy Mangan speaks for me, and I am sure she (and her family) and I are not outliers in this:
I don’t know why, at the age of 46, ringing any kind of authority to make any kind of request or complaint fills me with apprehension, stress and tearful anxiety, but it does. I have tried to unpack my own root issue here in the hope of addressing it, but ( Read more... )

What I read
Finished Paladin's Strength - just possibly I could have done with a little less of the prolonged UST on both sides? - not to mention the various acts interrupti - but kept me gripped.
Ditto Arkady Martin, A Desolation Called Peace, which arrived last week, and which at first I was, do I want to plunge into this or not, and before I ( Read more... )

What I read
Finished Love Lives, and while I'm a bit raising my eyebrows at the title which I felt didn't entirely do it justice, and not sure I learnt anything entirely new from it, on the other hand, and this is quite A Thing, I was pretty much completely in concurrence with Dyhouse's take on the changes and continuities in romance/sex/marriage/ ( Read more... )

What I read
Finished Anna Buchan and O.Douglas and there were a few things I'd have liked more details on, but most of them were me and my particular interests (she was involved with the National Vigilance Association?!). Reading her Pink Sugar (1924) shortly afterwards made me think about the role of house-porn in her works and whether, in fact, ( Read more... )

Michigan couple with 14 sons finally has a daughter.
I mean, I'm hoping that this is not one of those cases in which a woman is so desperate to have a lickle gurlie that she can dress up in pretty pink frillies that she goes on popping out disappointing boy after disappointing boy -
- though even if not and this is one of those weird cults, I ( Read more... )

[T]hird beaching of a dead whale on the Thames in two months: 8-foot minke whale made it as far as Battersea Bridge before expiring. British waters boast one of the most diverse ranges of cetaceans in Europe, with 22 species living around the UK - a quarter of all cetacean species in the world.
This does not, however, as far as I can see, include ( Read more... )

(Two week's worth of reading)
What I read
Finished Carmilla - suspect it had more impact back in its day, but has perhaps been overwritten for the modern reader by later developments in the genre?
Finished Mistress of Ambiguities, which sort of tied up some loose ends. I also note that the series started being written by two hands collaborating ( Read more... )

And, at least according to Wikipedia, neither, so far, is 'big girl's blouse'.
Though we do feel that anyone who descends to that level of playground namecalling is not exactly in charge of the debate, hmmmm?
And apparently a 'journalist' (clearly anybody, anybody at all, can call themselves a journalist these days) with some connection with The ( Read more... )