Woez

Developed a cold on the incoming flight - had the preliminary symptoms while in flight but thought they might just be local and environmental.

No. (Cough, hack.)

So have not gone into work today: although neither the jetlag nor the cold are of crushing severity in themselves, in combination they are enough to make me think that taking it very easy for now may prevent more tiresome repercussions down the line.

Links have recently been missing, I know - so have a few now

Awwwww, bless! Article on Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, married last week after 50 years together.

I found this a much more congenial take on the subject than Julie Bindel whingeing about her disappointment that Valerie Singleton was not really a 'lesbian icon'. Maybe not: but isn't there a value to women visible in the media who do run in any way counter to the usual stereotypes? (I am always looking out for women who are icons of different models of heterosexuality - hi Tilda Swinton!).

A v sensible and thoughtful article: The horror comedy Teeth takes rape-revenge movies into dark new areas. Kira Cochrane on the trouble with cinema's avenging angels. Good points. I quite enjoyed the 1983 Handgun, but even then I was troubled by the fact that in a sense the protag was empowered by the rape - from being a rather meek and passive girly-type she became much more active and dynamic and taking on agency (she did survive to the end, though, and there is, as the review on the IMDB mentions, a really nice twist at the end). I found this part of a larger trope about rape somehow licensing women to be active and to take up power, if only for vengeance: it was about the same time as the breaking news about Phoolan Devi, the 'Bandit Queen'.

From Sidelines on Guardian Women's Page (second item):

While harassment in either direction can never be condoned, I can't help observing that the canny girls at West Kent are obviously keen observers of gendered behaviour stereotypes in the public sphere, enjoy subverting social norms in order to provoke and amuse, and that the college is missing a trick if it doesn't start a women's studies course, pronto.

Dept of Whatever is the Opposite of O Tempora O Mores: Butlins, bastion of the great British seaside holiday, is to open its first sushi bar.... The move follows Butlins's plan to reward children who eat five portions of fruit and veg a day while staying at its resorts. How very, very different from the summer when I worked for several weeks at exactly that location (yes, my dearios, bugger Bognor indeed) - okay, the food for the staff was particularly revolting, but healthy, or even exotic, eating was very much not a motif.

Monet, Monet: record price for waterlilies.

I liked the points made in several of these letters about the current troubles in the Anglican communion - especially the critique of the dodgy appeal to 'tradition' and 'the real'.

Zoe Williams suggests that When an ad featuring men kissing is one of the most complained about, that matters: not as a reflection on the nation's scattered homophobes breathing their last gasp, but as a sign that the rest of us don't complain anything like enough.

Because everybody's doing it, and my score is 10x the average, nyah-nyah

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed - when I go to the actual Big Read site, the list is not quite the same. Go figure. However, this under the cut is the list that's circulating, so I'll use that.

Look at the list and
1) Bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Strike through the ones you couldn't stand.

( My list )

As with all such lists, v odd omissions and inclusions, not to mention a couple of repetitions.

IAMC notes: A lot of these I read a long time ago and might detest if I tried to re-read, e.g. Lord of the Flies, and I'm not sure how well Steinbeck would hold up (I got yay irritated with Dune on a recent reread). This also goes for books I may have adored in earlier years - while I loved GwtW in youth, I think I'd find it far too problematical now for enjoyment, and it's too long since I last read To Kill a Mockingbird to remember what my feelings were, though I'm pretty sure there were several rereads. There is in addition a category of books that my classification goes, 'yeah, I can see why this is admired and a classic work of literature, and maybe I'm even glad I read it, but it doesn't really do it for me, though saying I detested it would be going too far'. Plus, 'this was better than I had been led to expect'.