Barbara Pym does the ton (and is Excellent)? Oxymoronic fashion: The biker cardigan.
I met her in the libraree
She turned around and sssshed me - You get the picture? -
Yes we see -
That's when I fell for
The Leader of the Pack
(Vroom vroom vroom vroom)

***

And on other internal combustion-related issues, yet another person claiming that competence ( Read more... )

Have been given to think recently of the odd disjunctions between what people will spend money on and the apparently incongruous areas where they will suddenly be overtaken by a fit of penny-pinching.

This thought brought to you as a result of various emails from relatives of partner's who are coming to Europe from the other side of the world in ( Read more... )

Not, I hasten to add, the inclusion of Harriette Wilson (Mrs Q), courtesan (and blackmailer) in the ODNB, whence she surfaces as today's Life of the Day, who shagged her way through the early C19th version of Burke's Peerage, but is largely remembered for writing her memoirs and offering to leave out names on receipt of a suitable payment. One way ( Read more... )

Yes, on the whole one may concur with Gandhi that
There is more to life than increasing its speed.

However, I don't know whether to laugh or be irritated when I see this sentiment expressed, under a drawing of the Mahatma, on a poster issuing forth from the Mayor of London -

Posted opposite one of the platforms in Euston Tube Station.

Because, ( Read more... )

Because I thought today could not top the extreme weirdness of Active discussions in related forums appended as relevant to my books when I did my daily check to see if anyone's bought anything (am sad person, yes). Which are not about the symptoms of syphilis or whether masturbation sends you blind and raving, but are all categorised 'Politics' ( Read more... )

Discovering a link to the Victorian vibrators debunking page from a Chalet School discussion board.

Boggle boggle boggle.

This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/1122610.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View
( Read more... )

Arrived at conference in decent time - tube to Liverpool St (one convoluted change) and taxi to venue, which turned out to be adjacent to site of former public baths where taxi driver learnt to swim - a Tired of London? Tired of Life! moment.

The conference, though small (it was never going to be huge, at the venue in question) went very well ( Read more... )

I'n currently boggling at the suggestion that I might like the new offical bio of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother -

Wait for it -

Because you purchased Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty and Love.

Carpenter - you know, the gay pacifist socialist simple-lifer anti-imperialist?

Or are there people who 'read biography' and it doesn't much matter of ( Read more... )

If somebody tells me they've come a long way, I really expect them to have traversed a greater distance than that from Surrey to Central London.

I don't think this is just the research-travel snobbery of one who has made intercontinental trips to look at archives.

Whence, o gentle readers, would you consider a journey to London to be a long way?

I ( Read more... )

Travel to the seductive heart of Argentina.

I ask you (gentle readers) does this alluring line on a promotional email and the leaflet they've sent out to their mailing list, really, truly, conjure up the prospect of an evening watching

A version of Jean-Paul Sartre's Huis Clos (No Exit), famed for the line 'Hell is other people' even among people ( Read more... )