What I read

Finished Antigua, Penny, Puce, which is strange (not just for being an outlier in Graves' oeuvre) but fun. Plus, leading women characters whose value lies in their competencies rather than how they look in slightly hazy sunlight or how they affect the hero's amorous propensities.

Two Ngaio Marshes: one pre-war, Death in Ecstasy, and one ( Read more... )

Another dire idea in approximately the same category as 'cosy sitcom about funny suffragettes': Cecil, George and Bert, the only young men left in the sleepy provincial village Rittle-On-Sea who are either too scared, morally challenged or physically disfigured to sacrifice their lives for the great war. Do we feel that this merits being mentioned ( Read more... )

Comment by somebody to an FB friend's post of that thing about 'If someone from the 1950s suddenly appeared today, what would be the most difficult thing to explain to them'.
Divorce. It used to be shameful. Because of having been born in the 50s, I still don't trust divorced people.

W.T.F. I say W.T.F.

How much notice does one take of the ( Read more... )

I'm not entirely persuaded that these statistics are entirely meaningful:
Majority of UK doctors struck off have been trained abroad.

Let's say I have the strongest suspicion that the General Medical Council has a good deal of prior form on stringent disciplining of doctors who are not part of Dead White Male networks, while Good Ol' Boys with the ( Read more... )

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I was musing about something I have remarked (in one of the Wiscon panels and in other places, possibly even in a post here) about reading the contemporary-set novels of Charlotte Yonge by treating them as an AU in which the premises of the narratives are true (this is after all not so very different from the skill of suspending one's disbelief ( Read more... )

Can someone elucidate for me what exactly the status of the Chronicle of Higher Education? I seem to have encountered several WTF moments over links to pieces in it. Is it equivalent to THE: Times Higher Education? (The THE has perpetrated some lulus of WTFery itself, commented upon by moi over the years.)

Anyway, it has just published a frothing ( Read more... )

Wow, the reek of testosterone is strong from this list: The 50 Coolest Books Ever

Written by 90% white men in, roughly speaking, the second half of the C20th.

Are you kidding me?

These are books that give off the 'look at me, I'm SO KEWL!' vibe, no?

If I saw someone ostentatiously reading on of these on the Tube or in the trendy bar, or scanned ( Read more... )

Answers to the unguessed items in the music meme: with bonus YouTube links.

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O alas and woe is me, we are already into the 'suggestions for Christmas gifts' thing in Guardian Weekend this week, which includes the startling statement:
Girls love posh knickersI am not, and possibly never have been, a girl, if so. Because if someone is ponying up c ( Read more... )