Downing Street forces U-turn on Nadine Dorries abortion proposals: No 10 decides to vote against Tory backbench amendment seeking to stop charities offering abortion counselling.

Meanwhile, Abortion law reform plans criticised by women's groups: Charities and health bodies call on equalities minister to intervene and protect rights of women to get ( Read more... )

I have ranted (surely) before about people who think that because they have never come across [particular thing] before they have made a unique and unprecedented discovery. And while what they may have discovered may not entirely be something that eny fule no, the chances are very strong that when they jump up and down and proclaim about their ( Read more... )

I posted recently something about the Great Tate Gallery Archives archive-corruption case (art forgery scammer playing a long game inserts documents into the archives to provide entirely spurious provenance records). Someone should write a book, and someone has: The Conman: How One Man Fooled the Modern Art Establishment by Laney Salisbury and Aly ( Read more... )

Next Thursday is, apparently, World Book Day (only one day? for some of us it's every day): Lucy Mangan thinks about this. May I say (and I am sure, dear readers, that many of you will concur) that black t-shirts saying 'Fuck Off, I'm Reading', would be a totally brilliant idea - though alas, probably would not deter that class of person who is so ( Read more... )

Currently all over my reading list, the thing about Amanda Palmer and the pretend-conjoined-twins-with-backstory-of-abuse-and-exploitation, who were being presented as real people whom she has taken up as proteges, but are really her and someone else.

Which is being defended as some kind of edgy art project pushing the boundaries etc, and really ( Read more... )

Today's Life of the Day: Chudleigh, Elizabeth [married names Elizabeth Hervey, countess of Bristol; Elizabeth Pierrepont, duchess of Kingston upon Hull] (c.1720-1788), courtier and bigamist:
Elizabeth's lifelong acquisitive streak undoubtedly sprang from her impoverished childhood. Colonel Chudleigh died in 1726, having speculated disastrously in ( Read more... )

Wow, this gets that really annoying trope absolutely spot-on and bang to rights ('HAI! Mi name iz ANIMA and I will B ur muse for the evening!!'):
[T]he stock character first pinpointed by US film critic Nathan Rabin - the "manic pixie dream girl ( Read more... )

Starbucks pretends to be boho coffee-house

And in further news today: Fakes, forgeries and classification blunders to go on display in exhibition at the National Gallery.

Kathryn Hughes ponders on the desire to believe in groups and movements in a column on the Pre-Raph soap-opera Desperate Romantics:
The irony is that in real life a group is only ( Read more... )

[I]f boys are to be considered "cool" by their male friends and get good grades, they must come across as effortless achievers: and this continues to apply at university level:
To be accepted by their peers, the boys and men admitted they had to avoid overt displays of diligence. If teachers awarded them high marks, the impression they had to give ( Read more... )

Spotted in the wild today, Virago reissue of Stella Gibbons' delightful Nightingale Wood. Unlike Cold Comfort Farm, but charming nonetheless. (The intro by Sophie Dahl looked extremely slight, however.)

[T]his enchanting selection of writing from books by seven Victorian female horticulturists will both nourish your soul and tell you what to do ( Read more... )