Some months ago my dr rdrz may recall I was complaining that my phone battery was suddenly going down very fast. After several months of this, and following a recent software update, I find that it is pretty much back to the previous battery-life once charged. Go figure.
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I have already been back to the opticians' twice to get my glasses ( Read more... )

As I daresay my dearios are aware, one of the things that could be my Mastermind special subject (or one of them), is the life and career of Marie Stopes (1880-1958).
Though it occurs to me on reflection that I would probably be disqualified from choosing a topic on which I've actually published?
Anyway, I'm fairly sure that the format does not ( Read more... )

I was just skimming Reddit Relationships, and came across this:
My (24F) husband (28M) of one year thinks that buying books is a waste of money and space.
They have been married for a year and together for three and she has only just discovered the dead wives in the secret room that he has an implacable hostility to the notion that she might want a ( Read more... )

In fact, I'm pretty sure I have seen letters to the editor to the effect of when will Tim Dowling's wife kick him out or run screaming into the distance?
And one must think that this is a more general likelihood for the male columnist writing lifestyle columns very much based on his own life and domestic/familial mishaps.
But it turns out that it ( Read more... )

This? I don't even: My house is registered at the Land Registry in my name only. I married my partner in July - now he wants a divorce and I’m worried I’ll lose half the house. I'm - 'this July? barely 4 weeks ago?' - must be, because she acquired the house in November 2015 - and 'how long had they been together before tying the knot?'.
Were I a ( Read more... )

What I read
Finished The Fever - better than The End of Everything, not so good as Dare Me; somewhat wishful that Abbott would get away from the teenage girls and their angst and melodrama and back into the angst and melodrama of adult women. In fact back more into the thriller-mode and less of the litficcyness.
End of Term - I did eventually ( Read more... )

I am surely these 75% white, 100% male (I haven't calculated the average age - data isn't there - but suspect it would be above 40) group who form the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, are well-intentioned. But. We feel that their ponderings may be just a leeeetle skewed, hmmmmm?
These people are surely only boring if they insist on ( Read more... )

... into matters that are surely people's own business.

I was quite surprised, looking it up, to see that the Queen's (formerly King's) Proctor is still A Thing, legally.

I found this wonderful article by ESP Haynes*, a character who constantly crops up in my research, apropos of matrimonial law, censorship, etc, condemning the evils of the ( Read more... )

Okay, I am pretty sure that, were I to be given the choice, Stuart Jeffries is not the man I'd pick to write a piece on 75 years of the Marriage Guidance Council, now known as Relate, because he has form over replicating boring old stereotypes and downright historical canards.

Even if he is quoting somebody in the present-day association: I think ( Read more... )

A four day conference will put that kind of crimp in one's style. Though I have been doing some Sekkrit Projekt reading (even if it is increasingly giving off a winding uphill all the way, to the very end, vibe) and skimming stuff for research purposes on female friendship.

What I read

Finished Quintana of Charyn - these really got better over the ( Read more... )