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brewsternorth!
brewsternorth!Seem to have been seeing a cluster of things about litter, and picking it up, lately, what with this one Lake District: Family shouted at for picking up litter, and the thing I posted recently about the young woman who was snarking on the Canals and Rovers Trust about what she perceived as her singlehanded mission to declutter the local canal bank: "Elena might feel alone in tackling London's litter waste", and then this week's 'You Be The Judge' in the weekend Guardian is on a related theme:
Should my girlfriend stop picking up other people’s litter?
(She is at least throwing it away in a responsible fashion: I worry about the couple whose flat is being cluttered up with culinary appliances where one feels maybe the ones that aren't actually being used anymore could be rehomed via charity shops before they are buried under an avalanche of redundant ricecookers etc).
As far as litter and clutter goes, National Trust tears down Union flag from 180-year-old monument. Actually, carefully removed, and we think there are probably conservation issues involved: quote from NT 'We will assess whether any damage has been caused to the monument'. See also White horse checked for any damage caused by flag. We do not think respect and care for heritage is uppermost in the minds of people who do these jelly-bellied flagflapping gestures.
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Okay, my dearios, I am sure all dear rdrs are with me that tradwives are not trad, they are deploying an aesthetic loosely based on vague memories of the 1950s - and meedja representations at that - and some very creepy cultish behaviour - they are not returning to some lovely Nachral State -
And that as I bang on about a lot, women have been engaged in all kinds of economic activity THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE OF HISTORY since economic activity became A Thing.
I have a spot of nitpickery to apply - it rather skips over and elides the move from the household economy into factories e.g., leading to 'separate spheres' with wife stuck at home (and even that was a very blurry distinction, I mutter); and also the amount of exploitative homeworking undertaken by women of the lower classes (often to the detriment of any kind of 'good housekeeping').(Not saying middle-class women didn't also find ways of making a spot of moolah to eke out household budget.)
And of course a lot of tradwives are actually performing as economically productive influencers: TikTok tradwives: femininity, reproduction, and social media - in a tradition of women who made a very nice living out of telling other women how to be domestic goddesses, ahem ahem.
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(tamaranth Sep. 12th, 2025 08:00 am)
tamaranth Sep. 12th, 2025 08:00 am)2025/143: Twilight Cities: Lost Capitals of the Mediterranean — Katherine Pangonis
...in Syracuse, the ghosts feel like they raise the city up; in Ravenna, Nicola thinks they hold it back. [loc. 3703]
Pangolis explores five ancient capitals (Tyre, Carthage, Syracuse, Ravenna and Antioch) leavening historical detail with her own impressions of each city's modern remnants: a blend of history and travel writing which works better in some chapters than in others. ( Read more... )
Text today from my general practice to book Covid + flu jabs - actually in a months time, but I now have a slot booked.
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Having been moaning on over at bluesky about scholars these days not acknowledging existing (older) historiography, Dept of Preening Gratification was coming across footnote cite to 30 year-old co-authored work as 'A key starting point' for certain 'productive considerations' within the field.
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On the other prickly paw, I am still failing to get up to a proper swing at the essay review - keep niggling and picking at the bit I've already done.
Partly due to Interruptions happening.
Also partly due to not sleeping terribly well this week for some reason.
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Discovered today that I had somehow acquired an ebook of recent work on subject I have had far too much to do with and had totally forgotten about it. Looking up an area of Mi Pertikler Xpertize, o dear, a number of niggling Errours.
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Attended a webinar the other day where someone claimed that a certain class of records did not survive in respect of the lower orders on account They Could Not Write, and I was more, no, it's an issue of preservation, what about those postcards that I spoke about on a TV programme once - but that is such an annoying story, what DID happen to the cards after the filming? - apart from the flaunting of Being Meedja Personality, so decided not to raise my virtual hand.
2025/142: Everfair — Nisi Shawl
He had been warned, but had thought Everfair too remote, too obscure, for Leopold's dependents to seek its destruction. He had thought that because this land had been legitimately purchased they were safe. He had trusted to his enemy's basic humanity to preserve them. [p. 95]
Everfair is a steampunk-flavoured alternate history, beginning in 1889. The Fabian Society, instead of founding the London School of Economics, purchases land in the Congo as a refuge for those fleeing the oppressive, violent regime of the Belgian government and their rubber plantations. Everfair, as the new country is called, is initially populated by African-Americans and liberal whites, as well as escaped slaves. King Mwenda, whose land it was before the Belgians stole it, is not wholly pleased with the way that Everfair is run: but he and his favourite wife, Josina -- a fearsome diplomat -- are playing a long game.
( Read more... )
What I read
Finished Love at All Ages - think I said most of what I felt moved to say last week, but there was also a certain amount of Mrs Morland whingeing and bitching about the Burdens of Being a Popular Writer (when she wasn't being Amazingly Dotty), whoa, Ange, biting the hand or what?
Sarah Brooks, The Cautious Traveller's Guide to the Wastelands (2024), which I picked up some while ago on promotion and then I think I saw someone writing something about it. I liked the idea but somehow wasn't overwhelmingly enthused?
Read the latest Literary Review.
Since there is a forthcoming online discussion, dug out my 1974 mass market paperback edition of Joanna Russ, The Female Man - I think this was even before excursions to Dark They Were and Golden-Eyed, somehow I had learnt of Fantast, a mailorder operation with duplicated catalogues every few months that purveyed an odd selection of US books. It's quite hard to recall the original impact. Possibly I now prefer her essays?
Carol Atherton, Reading Lessons: The Books We Read at School, the Conversations They Spark, and Why They Matter (2024) - EngLit teacher meditates over books that she had taught, her own reading of them, their impact in the classroom, general issues around teaching Lit, etc - this came up in my Recommended for You in Kobo + on promotion. Quite interesting but how the teaching of EngLit has changed since My Day....
Lee Child, The Hard Way (Jack Reacher, #10) (2006) - every so often I read an interview with or something about Lee Child who sounds very much a Good Guy so I thought I might try one of these and this one was currently on promotion. It's less action and more twisty following intricate plot than I anticipated with lots of sudden reversal, and lots and lots of details. I don't think I'm going to go away and devour all the Reacher books but I can think of circumstances where they might be a preferable option given limited reading materials available.
On the go
I literally just finished that so there is nothing on the go, except one or two things I suppose I am technically still reading.
Up next
Dunno.
2025/141: The Nature of the Beast — Louise Penny
One person, not associated with the case, would be chosen to represent all Canadians. They would absorb the horror. They would hear and see things that could never be forgotten. And then, when the trial was over, they would carry it to their grave, so that the rest of the population didn’t have to. One person sacrificed for the greater good. “You more than read his file, didn’t you?” said Myrna. “There was a closed-door trial, wasn’t there?” Armand stared at her... [p. 34]
This was a real contrast to The Long Way Home: there's a murder in the first couple of chapters, and a plot that spans decades and continents. We learn more about some of the less storied inhabitants of Three Pines (Ruth and Monsieur Béliveau, the grocer, were activists in the 1970s: one of the villagers is a veteran of the Vietnam War) and a terrifying new -- or old -- threat is introduced.
( Read more... )
For some reason, concatenation of open tabs on this theme.
Sociability was intrinsic to British politics in the eighteenth-century:
Although women were prevented by custom from voting, holding most patronage appointments or taking seats in the Lords (even if they were peeresses in their own rights), politics ran through the lives of women from politically active families — and their political activities largely took place through the social arena, whether it was in London or in the provinces. Like their male counterparts, they used social situations to gather and disseminate political news and gossip, discuss men and measures, facilitate networking and build or maintain factional allegiances, or seek patronage for themselves or their clients.
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This Is What Being in Your Twenties Was Like in 18th-Century London:
Browne wrote that he needed money to pay rent—and to purchase stockings, breeches, wigs and other items he deemed necessary for his life in London. “Cloaths which [I] have now are but mean in Comparison [with] what they wear here,” he wrote in one letter.
Financial worries didn’t stop Browne from enjoying his time in the city. “Despite telling his father how short of cash he was, Browne maintained a lively social life, meeting friends and eating and drinking around Fleet Street, close to the Inns of Court,” per the Guardian.
According to the National Trust, Browne’s descriptions of his social life evoke the scenes captured by William Hogarth.
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The Friendship Book of Anne Wagner (1795-1834):
What is a friendship book? As Dr Lynley Anne Herbert relates in her post for us on a seventeenth-century specimen, it is a lot like an early version of social media, a place to record friendships and social connections.
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This one is actually Victorian (and I think I may have mentioned before?): Peter McLagan (1823-1900): Scotland’s first Black MP - notes that he was not even the first Black MP to sit in the Commons.
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And this is actually a bit random: apparently the Niels Bohr Library & Archives 'is a repository and hub for information in the history of physics, astronomy, geophysics, and allied fields' rather than exclusively Bohring. Anyway, an interview with the staff there about what they do.
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2025/140: The Long Way Home — Louise Penny
Armand Gamache did not want to have to be brave. Not anymore. Now all he wanted was to be at peace. But, like Clara, he knew he could not have one without the other. [p. 42]
After finishing the first big arc in the Gamache series last December (with How the Light Gets In) I had been saving the rest of the series for this winter: but unseasonably poor weather enticed me to read the next book. It was like coming into a warm room after a long cold journey: the familiar characters, the emotional honesty, the humour, the intricacies of crime.
( Read more... )Yesterday evening I was trying to print something out and printer status popup kept telling me that there was a paper jam.
No sign of actual paper jam when I pulled out the paper tray, also looked behind printer cartridge, etc etc.
Did a little light internet searching and discovered that Lo, 'Tis A Knowne Thingge, and here are several fiddly things you can do which might fix it.
By which time I thought I would leave it until the morrow.
So, on the morrow (today) I had Other Things To Do First, so I only got round to turning on the printer just to see what it would do just now.
Whereupon it spontaneously printed a scruffy and mangled page - WTF, had this been somehow lurking hidden and unseen? - and then presented itself as ready for duty.
And lo and behold, mirabile dictu, it has printed A Thing for me.
Just a moment while I go to the foot of our stairs.
Of course, whether this happy state of affairs will continue to pertain is in the lap of Hardy's Purblind Doomsters.
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In response to shewhomust's question about my last post, here are a few more pictures of wild carrot (aka Queen Anne's lace). Wikipedia tells me that 'Queen Anne's lace' is North American usage, but it's the name I was taught as a child in the UK.
The flowerhead (umbel) with many teeny white flowers and a single dark pink one at the centre. Not all the flowerheads have a pink one, and the internet tells me that the purpose of this flower is uncertain. But it's definitely not a male/female thing, as I had assumed.
As the flowers turn to seeds, the umbels curl inwards, forming the 'sceptre' in my previous post.
shewhomust's question about my last post, here are a few more pictures of wild carrot (aka Queen Anne's lace). Wikipedia tells me that 'Queen Anne's lace' is North American usage, but it's the name I was taught as a child in the UK.The flowerhead (umbel) with many teeny white flowers and a single dark pink one at the centre. Not all the flowerheads have a pink one, and the internet tells me that the purpose of this flower is uncertain. But it's definitely not a male/female thing, as I had assumed.
As the flowers turn to seeds, the umbels curl inwards, forming the 'sceptre' in my previous post.
2025/139: Rainforest — Michelle Paver
... it was such a surreal experience being up there among the leaves, in that green inhuman world. I felt completely other. I didn't belong. [loc. 1123]
The year is 1973. Dr Simon Corbett, entomologist, is forty-two and in need of a fresh start after the death of his beloved Penelope. An expedition into the depths of the Mexican rainforest, hoping to find new species of mantid, seems just the thing. But Simon can't help blaming himself for Penelope's death, and he's haunted by memories of her. Discovering (he didn't read the paperwork) that the expedition he's joining has an archaeological focus, he's indignant: but despite not believing in life after death, he's beguiled by the secrets of the Maya, and fascinated with the local indigenous people ('Indians') descended from them.
( Read more... )
Bread held from last week held out for several days, and then there were leftover rolls.
Friday night supper: (as previously mentioned) sardegnera, with Milano and Napoli salami.
Saturday breakfast rolls: adaptable soft rolls recipe. 70/30 strong white/wholemeal flour, dried cranberries, maple syrup, turned out nicely.
Today's lunch: I'd actually ordered lamb ribs, got lamb cutlets as a substitution, did with them much the same: marinated overnight in olive oil + white wine with crushed garlic, salt, 5-pepper blend, thyme and rosemary, today sauteed chopped onion in oil and briefly browned the drained cutlets, poured on the marinade, heated up and then covered and put into a very moderate oven for 2 and a half hours - very nice; served with sticky rice in coconut milk with lime leaves, white-braised tenderstem broccoli tips, extra fine green beans and red bell pepper, and stirfried tat soi.
Kafka, thou shouldst be living at this hour? Non-smoker fined £433 for dropping cigarette butt in Manchester: Steve Jones was hundreds of miles away in Maidstone arranging family funeral at time of alleged offence:
He told the council it was a case of mistaken identity and he had not dropped any litter, but the prosecution went ahead regardless in his absence, and he received a collection order in the post for £433, which included a fine and costs. In July, he was sent a pack of evidence by Manchester city council, including a letter that said: “You have been charged with an offence of dropping litter”, and that a single justice procedure notice had been issued by the local authority in March.
....
Jones contacted the council to explain their error, and his email correspondence with council officers “went back and forth and back and forth for ages”, he said, “and then they had to go and find the guy’s camera evidence and that took a few days, and then eventually they realised that it wasn’t me”.... Jones said he initially struggled to get the council to provide a written apology, but had thought the matter was closed after he received an email apologising for the “administrative error”. However, Jones then received a further letter in the post, dated 28 August, saying he had been convicted and fined. “I just find it incredible that I’ve been convicted in my absence,” he said. ‘“I mean, that sounds really serious.”
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Noted rather far down in this piece on new owners forcing a traditionally nudist resort to 'go textile' (infaaaamy) there is a mention of a homicide on the property.
Which evoked in me the question, has there ever been a murder mystery set in a nudist resort? I have read ones involving all sorts of weird cults, and the occasional health spa, but I don't think actual naturism has featured.
Which led to the further question, which fictional shamus would you pick to strip off and boldly go to investigate in such a circumstance?
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Talking of textiles, this is rather lovely: A secret garden’: National Theatre turns roof into riot of colour with dye plants. Textile artists are reshaping how the theatre makes its costumes with the aim of replacing harsh synthetic dyes
I'm slightly raising my eyebrows at the whole 'luvverly nachral dyes' thing though (as opposed to those narsty post-aniline synthetics that cause 'dyer's nose') is that I've read at least one murder mystery in which dying featured, though I think it might have been the mordants employed to set the colours rather than the actual dyes themselves which were dangerous.
Just a selection of photos I like from August. I was going to say they aren't representative of the month, but maybe they are.
( and six more )
( and six more )
Including being gaslit by the Royal Mail, like, I know they sent me a text yesterday and a text this am saying they were delivering A Parcel, but when I went to look as the window was drawing to a close, could not find, while online tracking said something entirely different (parcel still in transit to local sorting office).
In fact, Parcel has just turned up, several hours after indicated.
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Phone doing Weird Stuff - well, part of this is not phone per se, it was O2, as in, when I was out and about in the world the other day my web data allowance ran out and they send this message about texting 'WEBDAILY' to get a top-up, so I did, and did it? not until yesterday, which was totally pointless.
Plus, in relation to niggle this morning about Downstairs Flat having an electricity thing doing which involved turning off the Main Meter deep in the cellar which affects both flats, was trying to use phone as a hotspot with my laptop and it wanted some network authorisation code? With old phone this used to come up on the actual phone? Though I was also having issues with bluetooth and this may be down to ageing laptop....
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So there was also that thing of morning routine being disrupted by electricity being turned off. (Though now this thing has been done maybe we too can get a Smart Meter set up, because as I recall having to get at that was the issue.)
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Have actually, this week, started on outstanding overdue essay review, as well as putting it some more effort on keynote presentation for end of month (this is still a goer and is actually up on their site that I am speaking).
Moderate yay me?
Have just been contacted by A Young Scholar who I feel has imprinted on me like a gosling about an article of theirs currently going through the submission process....
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GP has requested to make appointment re routine medication review, which I have done, but am a bit anxious about (but perhaps I can get them put sumatriptan back on the routine medications list????).
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However, in better news, the grocery delivery came early enough that I have been able to get a sardegnera on the go for supper!
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2025/138: The Golden Gate — Vikram Seth
.. "Dear fellow!
What's your next work?" "A novel..." "Great!
We hope that you, dear Mr Seth--"
"In verse," I added. He turned yellow.
"How marvellously quaint," he said,
And subsequently cut me dead. [stanza 5.1]
Seth's verse novel, The Golden Gate
should really be reviewed in rhyme.
A story told in lines of eight
or nine syllables: worth your time.
A tale of love, protest and cats:
and death, and homophobia -- that's
the nineteen eighties for you, in
fair San Francisco, shrine to sin.( Read more... )
When her son died in utero, a venture capitalist went to extremes to punish her surrogate.
Sometimes one gets the impression that some people don't understand that pregnancy isn't a straightforward and simple process and that if it goes wrong it's not actually a matter of blame:
Although America is the world leader in surrogacy, it’s also the developed nation with the highest maternal mortality rate and one of the highest stillbirth rates, a situation described by many as “a public health crisis.” Compared to natural conception, carrying a genetically unrelated fetus more than triples the risk of severe, potentially deadly conditions, a statistic surrogates are rarely given. IPs do not always have to disclose complete medical information, including histories of certain conditions that may harm their GCs. They don’t have to be honest about how many kids they have, why they are hiring a surrogate, or how many other surrogates they have simultaneously pregnant.
Things happen. VICTORIAN DOCTORS UNDERSTOOD THAT. (See Alfred Swaine Taylor, A Manual of Medical Jurisprudence, 1879, on Criminal Abortion).
The whole thing sounds like an entire nightmare (the surrogate was expected to cover pregnancy care via her own health insurance WTF?).
And do we think the intending mother fit to be a parent?
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On people Being The Main Character: she's become a one-woman clean-up crew, sharing her efforts on social media and calling out the Canal and River Trust for what she sees as its failure to properly maintain the area:
In response, the Canal and River Trust said: "Elena might feel alone in tackling London's litter waste, however she is one of hundreds of volunteers who help our charity keep London's canals alive, picking up other people's rubbish and carrying out routine maintenance.
"We're delighted when more people take an interest in looking after their local canal."
However, the trust said it was "more effective" to collect bagged waste "when it's part of the regular organised volunteer events that our charity runs".
"These activities are scheduled alongside weekly clean-ups by our operatives and contractors, which ensures collected waste is removed and recycled or disposed of appropriately," a spokesperson said.
The trust also urged visitors to London's canals to take their litter home with them.
One feels that a little due diligence would have found her a spot on the volunteer rota and a supply of appropriate bags.
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2025/137: The Dream Hotel — Laila Lalami
“I didn’t do anything.” In a whisper this time.
Lucy nods. “Right. But what’d they say you were going to do?” [loc. 400]
Historian Sara Hussein, returning from a conference in London and eager to see her husband and their two small children, is detained by authorities at LAX. Her risk score -- the likelihood of her committing a crime in the near future -- has been calculated as over 500, marking her as a potential threat to her family. She's sent to a retention centre ('not a prison or a jail') known as Madison, for 21 days of forensic observation.
Nearly a year later, she's still there.
There are several contributory factors to Sara's 'retention': she's Moroccan-American, and she was impatient with the airport security officers. Most significantly, though, she has a Dreamsaver implant, which improves sleep quality and depth (invaluable for a mother of young children) -- and also (as mentioned in the small print of the EULA) records the dreams of the user. That data is just one of the two hundred inputs to the Risk Assessment Administration's crime-prediction algorithm.( Read more... )
What I read
Finished A Darker Domain, which I thought was a bit so-so but maybe the series kicks it up a bit as it goes on?
Elizabeth Bear, Angel Maker (Karen Memory #3) (2025), which apparently is not supposed to be out until this week but Kobo UK let me purchase last week - a lot going on there (steampunk Western, for those who aren't acquainted with previous volumes) including making of silent movie with possibly sinister other motives and a lot of other stuff going on.
Latest Slightly Foxed.
Val McDermid, The Distant Echo (Karen Pirie, #1). Okay, I was pretty much spoiled for this because A Darker Domain mentions whodunnit, but still, not at all bad, even though it's a bit of a push to tag it with Karen Pirie, who is a very minor character who appears very late along in the narrative though does provide a key bit of evidence. (I am also a bit sad that McDermid has become this really quite mainstream crime writer after those early Women's Press years.)
On the go
Angela Thirkell, Love at All Ages (The Barsetshire Novels Book 28) (1959) - good grief, Ange, you really were phoning in this one, weren't you? (I bought it on promotion.) Padding, repetition, breaking the 4th wall, inconsistency - there is one character - the American-born Duchess of Towers - who at one point is Southern womanhood/invocation of Confederacy and at another has strong New England character, and we wonder about Thirkell's geography of the USA.... plus there is a couple who seem to be having Schrodinger's honeymoon, they are offered somebody's Riviera villa, but later mention that they will be doing a tour of cathedrals, and then they go off to Brighton hotel. Also she is really working her grudge against Ann Bridge as the novelist Mrs Rivers. It has its moments but one does feel her publishers just threw up their hands and said fuckit, if we do a full copy edit it won't be out in time for next Christmas let alone this year's.
Up next
Not sure, though there is a new Literary Review.
2025/136: Summerland — Hannu Rajaniemi
Do you remember Doctor Cummings who treated you when you had measles? Well, soon there will be no doctors. If you get sick, you will just pass over.’
‘If you have a Ticket,’ Peter said.
‘That’s right. And soon, having a Ticket will be the only thing anyone cares about. Not studying, not working, not doing the right thing. Nothing real.’ [p. 125]
The setting is an alternate Great Britain in the late 1930s. The Nazis never came to power, because Germany suffered a crushing defeat in WW1 -- partly as a result of the new ectotechnology. '...the ectotanks were created to break the deadlock of the trenches in the Great War: weapons that grew more powerful the more they killed". In the late 19th century, radio contact was made with the dead: now, half a century later, ectophones and ectomail connect the great metropolis of Summerland to the world of the living. In Summerland, Victoria reigns; in Summerland, the Presence watches every Soviet citizen. Anyone in Britain can, in theory, acquire a Ticket to prevent their dead spirit from Fading before it reaches Summerland. Anyone in the USSR knows that when they die, they will join the Presence.
( Read more... )
Just back from dental checkup - no major problems, one tooth could do with having an inlay done, unurgent.
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Not bad for one of my years, eh?
The other day I was flitting around online and I came across some advice page where a young(ish) woman was complaining that her ma kept relying on her to do a fairly simple basic computer thing for her own business enterprise (!!!) even though daughter had A Life and increasingly busy career of her own -
- but, she goes, what can you expect, Mother Is An Old and they are not at home with Ye Tech, alas.
Age is given and Ma is young enough to be My Daughter, and not just Had I Been A Gymslip Mother in the 1960s, or even had I rushed to the registrar's office straight after receiving my degree -
For in those halycon days, my little ones, although we received GRANTS to go and study, did a lady-scholar marry while pursuing a tertiary education her grant was seriously reduced -
No, I could have been out into the world some few years before succumbing to maternity.
So really, that is no excuse, I don't consider that makes her even An Old - menopausal brain fog perchance? - but honestly, a woman of those years has had every opportunity to get up to speed with extremely basic computer operations, as in, creating documents and transmitting them to the persons with whom her business is dealing, in fact I don't know how she has managed to avoid this knowledge.
One suspects she is just exploiting Daughter.
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