On my way home this evening, I went over splat on my face with sufficient velocity to knock my glasses off at the traffic island on Gordon Street.*

And the thing about that is: it knocks the wind out of you, it's a shock, and I whanged my left elbow and both knees. (My glasses were fortunately undamaged.) Plus, embarrassment factor like whoa, do ( Read more... )

I am still chewing over a conversation that happened some several weeks ago with a complete stranger, in which they expressed the opinion that a certain wellknown woman (wellknown, at least, in the circles of which we and other participant in the conversation could be presumed to be part) who came out some years ago with a public statement about ( Read more... )

But a couple of incidents recently made me think that when I see praise for 'helpful archivists' it may mean that the institution itself is not very sorted and the researchers actually need the hands-on help.

(This is partly brought to you by serious miff on receiving a copy of a PhD thesis in which My Own Beloved Institution is not included in the ( Read more... )

Given to think, by this post by yuki_onna, that some people seem to think it's easy-peasy to decide what acts are selfish and which unselfish.

But while this may be something that looks easy when judging some immediate action, within a larger view of the scheme of things it may not be that simple. (Can I invoke George Eliot's image of looking through ( Read more... )

I've been chewing over (something I really rather seldom do), Oliver Burkeman's column in this week's Guardian Weekend, Beware the kindness of strangers.

Probably to do with my own issues around random acts of kindness and generosity and the extent to which they are morally problematic.

Even without going down the road of ranting on people who ( Read more... )

Have just received an email which begins
You should add to your website...

An author who

for starters
I don't think I've read (or I may have started but not finished one of her works, many years ago)

and to go on with
Does not fit the definition I'm working with on the particular list of authors in question.

But really, it lost me at 'You should ( Read more... )

I'm having one of those weeks which seems a bit like walking uphill instead of on the flat, or with the resistance level set higher than one expected. No major problems or troubles, though a number of niggles and annoyances (something that was supposed to fix a problem, and does, except that it reveals that there's another, less fixable problem ( Read more... )

Yesterday's post by suzych about the unwanted lopping off by workmen of two branches that were meant to be growing as they were, made me think more generally of the phenomenon of people doing things they think are 'helpful' and are anything but. The paradigms of this kind of thing are some well-meaning person tidying up an apparently chaotic study to the ( Read more... )