History and the state: supporting institutional memory or challenging national myths?. Several historians' essays addressing this issue of particular present relevance.
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And on something that is not perhaps quite perpetuating national myth, but is still, perhaps, trying to fudge a dreadful record: ‘A Dark, Difficult, and Shameful Chapter’: Dr ( Read more... )

This poem by William Empson has been much on my mind... Missing Dates Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.
It is not the effort nor the failure tires.
The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.
....
It is the poems you have lost, the ills
From missing dates, at which the heart expires.
Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills ( Read more... )

Happy 139th birthday, Dame Rebecca West! O to read what you might have had to say about the present lot in the present circs, thinking upon your devastating commination of the Men of Munich in Black Lamb and Grey Falcon... (and especially, perhaps, given that your sister Letty was a Public Health doctor with a senior post in the London County ( Read more... )

I.e., 'She did it - but - '
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Early scientists - tracing the contribution of female alchemists: “The female alchemist takes on different guises in the writings of these women: she is a medical practitioner and distiller; a religious meditator; a woman poet-maker; a female friend; patroness; a transformative widow-poet; and spiritual visionary,” ( Read more... )

This comes top because, wow, triumph of commonsense, how is it that this can be? National Trust report on slavery links did not break charity law, regulator says. The National Trust did not breach charity law by publishing a report that found itself at the centre of a “culture war” after it made links between its country house properties and the UK ( Read more... )

A Place: Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich - The Legend Of Xanadu (or if you insist on a real place, Bobby Bloom, Montego Bay)
A Food: Millie Small - My Boy Lollipop (or if you want a little more sustenance, Bessie Smith - Gimme a Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer)
A Drink: UB40 - Red Red Wine
Animal: Smokey Robinson and the Miracles - Mickey's Monkey
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But this morning, Gold Radio woke me up with, after the monstrously depressing news headlines, Fontella Bass going 'Rescue Me':

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A bit pointed, I thought.
So then I thought, well, what else might be on that play-list?
Aretha exhorting 'Think'?

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Maybe, The Beatles suggesting that 'We Can Work It Out'?

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Canned Heat saying, 'Let's Work Together'?

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The ( Read more... )

In this instance, become Professor of Piano at the Paris Conservatoire for many years - even if she had to struggle to get equal pay - and compose music that was, in her lifetime, acclaimed by her peers.
Louise Farrenc.
Good article here on the problems for female composers (in C19th and at other periods) and the factors facilitating Farrenc's ( Read more... )

Today to the funeral/memorial service of a former colleague at the West London Crematorium at Kensal Green Cemetery, which, alas, I did not have time to explore - it was the first large commercial cemetery set up in London at a time of pressing need for burial reform. Numerous notables are interred therein but I only noticed the gravestone of the ( Read more... )