Profile

'Oursin - comme l'echinoderme.' My username is due to a confusion (late at night, rather tipsy) over the French for hedgehog. 'Oursin' is actually the French for sea-urchin, and is thus pronounced in the French way ('urs[e˜]'). I really wanted to be Brush the Wandering Hedgehog, who appears in my default icon, but that was too long and the various elements already taken as usernames when I created my LJ account. And while I've thought of changing my name since, I think Oursin has accrued enough identity and brand recognition for me to feel reluctant to alter it now.

Vocation: Archivist (no, I'm not a librarian)

Avocation: Historian

Secret (and currently rather torpid) Identity: writer of fiction

Age: of a certain (and inclined to concur with George Eliot that 'The long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age.')

I AM a feminist (but...)

Long-term marriage-protester

Founder, life-president and currently sole member of Tired of London? - Tired of Life!

Interests: numerous (please see shortlist below).

My posts: an eclectic mix of reading notes, cooking notes, links to things, history, pedantry, rants, moans, whinges, feminism, research, whimsy, sheer silliness, a certain amount of Mr Toad-like boasting, and thoughts on things. No particularly 'Adult Content', but nonetheless, written for grown-ups.

Reading/access policies: still evolving.

I have a very strong preference for this place not to be explicitly connected to my passport name.