To a seminar this pm on an early C20th collector/collection of erotica, actually, sexually-themed items, a large number of which were distinctly less than arousing phallic amulets. It was all quite interesting (there were issues about classification, display and censorship that related to my work on printed sexological material of the era), but I ( Read more... )

I will concede, she concedes, that I have never read anything by Nicholson Baker, because just reading the reviews and descriptions of his books gives me a sensation somewhere between revulsion and apathy. (And don't we rather feel, gentylle readyrz, that if a woman wrote an entire book about her thoughts while feeding the baby or about domestic ( Read more... )

Rather small and possibly not terribly representative poll of academics rates Clement Attlee, the Labour leader who established the National Health Service, [as] the most successful prime minister since 1945, with a rating of 8.1 out of 10. Yay Clem! I am also intrigued to see that Harold Wilson is rated at exactly the same level as Winston ( Read more... )

First, a poll*

View poll: Byzantine Empiress
(okay, I will concede, dr rdrs, that you, and I, may constitute a statistically odd group for our bodies of knowledge.)

( But, just in case this topic happens to be outwith yours )

(Because I rather suspect that this is asking the question of an atypical group.)

Poll Louis Wain

Poll Suffragettes

Interview with Rebecca Lenkiewicz, writer of play on the suffragettes which is going to be produced in the National Theatre:
'I wrote the play because I felt the suffragettes had been forgotten. They suffered so much.
....
She was particularly shocked by the way the suffragettes were force-fed in jail.Wot ( Read more... )

Poll Perceptions of LJ people
Poll What size is oursin? (roughly speaking)

I'm thinking of changing my name: since oursin not only means sea-urchin, not hedgehog, but is also pronounced in French, which is not at all obvious. I'd still like to have a name that conveys hedgehogginess, and none of the following with the 'erina' root (from the zoological genus 'erinaceus') are yet taken. If you have any alternative ( Read more... )

The poll has a limit to the number of options that can be included, chiz, chiz, chiz, so I will have do it in batches. You can vote for as many contenders as you like. Further suggestions in comments if you have them.
( The Wet Codfish Award Polls )