Last week's bread held out pretty well.
Friday night supper: sorta-nasi goreng, with milano salami.
Saturday breakfast rolls: basic buttermilk, 3:1 light spelt/buckwheat flour, turned out well.
Today's lunch: savoury clafoutis with Woodland Mushrooms, garlic and thyme, served with steamed asparagus with melted butter and lime juice, padron peppers, and baby pak choi stirfried with star anise.
With which we had our traditional unwedding anniversary Bollinger (41 years).
This week's bread: Len Deighton's Mixed Wholemeal from The Sunday Times Book of Real Bread: 3:1:1 wholemeal flour, strong white flour, mixture of wheatgerm, coarse cornmeal, pinhead oatmeal, splosh of sunflower oil: v nice.
Saturday breakfast rolls: the ones loosely based on James Beard's mother's raisin bread, made with strong brown flour: not the best these have ever come out (?not enough mace).
Today's lunch: game crumble - game casserole mix (pheasant, partridge, venison) cooked with garlic, onion, bayleaf, salt, pepper and red wine in a low oven for an hour or so, then a crumble topping of 2:1:1 strong wholemeal flour/strong white flour/pinhead oatmeal + butter + seasoning + crushed coriander seeds spread on and baked in a moderate oven for a further 30 minutes; served with slow-cooked broccoli florets, and baby leeks vinaigrette - gave them rather longer simmering, a dressing of olive oil, white wine vinegar and wholegrain mustard, and toasted breadcrumbs, rather good.
With that we had the traditional anniversary champagne - 40 YEARS!!!
I honestly thought this was a historical tradition in which naturalist named new species after the patron who had actually funded his expedition, or maybe after the devoted wife who actually prepared his notes for publication while he went off on the next expedition, or other friends-and-relations.
But apparently it is a Big Thing and has been for quite some time to name newly-identified species after celebrities:
The justification for star-power monikers is that they can raise the profile of overlooked plants and animals, and pay tribute to the conservation work of celebrities. In 2022, scientists at Kew named a Cameroonian tree in honour of the actor Leonardo DiCaprio to highlight concerns about the Ebo rainforest. DiCaprio had campaigned about the threat of logging where Uvariopsis dicaprio is found.
However, while celebrities may come and go and in a very few years people may be going 'who they?' if they name registers at all, there is 'the difficulty of revising names for figures who become increasingly divisive over time'. Creepiest of the creepiest instance:
Celebrity links have not always been helpful to the survival of species. In Slovenia’s humid caves, the Adolf Hitler beetle has become a favourite for collectors of Nazi memorabilia – so much so that it is threatening the insect’s survival.
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In entirely unrelated news, it is apparently 21 years since I signed up to LJ, which is now tumbleweeds, pretty much, but has led to Other Things.
Given the date....
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Infamous spam:
(I'm not even sure what this one is trying to do)
Appointment notice
Hello info,
I am instructed to inform you of your appointment as the funds administrator to your deceased relative estate. Kindly indicate your acceptance by providing your current Address & Direct Phone Number for immediate processing of the funds release to your control via the deceased bank directly.
At least the one informing me that my Amazon Prime subscription was due for renewal but whoops, the card needed renewing, was framed in a plausible mockup of an Amazon communication. Except, er, I don't have a Prime subscription, make considerable efforts to evade their upselling of same, and if I did inadvertently click the wrong button, would not be renewing.
***
Infamously intrusive 'friends' - reading this I just thought: RUDE.
Everyone is starting to guess how wealthy my fiance is
He really is very wealthy and not even my family knows the extent. I am not a kept woman by a long shot and we are not flashy. But a few of my very good old friends have asked me outright: ‘How much money does he actually have?’
Happy 175th birthday to public health.
The Public Health Act 1848 was a major landmark in the history of health in England and Wales. It is 175 years old on 31 August 2023. Testament to the vision of the act, life expectancy in England and Wales has nearly doubled between 1841 to 2011. The largest increases have been through improved drinking water and sanitation, better housing, and better nutrition. Life expectancy continued to improve through the first 65 years of the NHS and the welfare state. But austerity policies since 2010 have seen life expectancy stall and inequalities widen.
There was also, of course, the surge of therapeutic optimism is the wake of penicillin and the idea that medical science was on the verge of discovering the Cures for Everything, probably in the form of a swallowable pill.
These magic bullets turned out to have their own downside, as I discovered I remarked in a panel on the history of contraception when I came across a recording of it: that the idea of A Pill was absolutely in tune with the zeitgeist, pretty much, even if the actuality, even in the early stages, turned out to be Rather More Problematic (just look at the things male scientists considered 'minor side-effects').
And Sid is over here waving....
But the idea that, these days medical science can cure All The Things rather cuts against a public health agenda, and (arguably) this could have something to do with the erosion of the public health system from c. the 70s.
And now we're pretty much back to the era of the Great Stink.
This week's bread: Greenstein's Psomi Loaf, turned out nicely.
Saturday breakfast rolls: brown grated apple, strong brown flour, malt extract.
Today's lunch: game crumble (diced game casserole mix of venison, pheasant and partridge, onion, garlic, bayleaf, black peppercorns, juniper berries, coriander seeds, red wine); served with buttered spinach and baked San Marzano tomatoes. With which, it being our 39th unwedding anniversary, more or less, we had the traditional (Bollinger) champagne.
Yes, it was twenty years ago today that I signed up to LiveJournal, and while LJ has alas become pretty much a wasteland, many of my old mates migrated along with me to Dreamwidth, where I made new friends as well.
Twenty years, in marriage, is apparently the China Anniversary?
China, in cockney rhyming slang, stands for mate in the sense of friend (china plate = mate), so appropriate?
I also find it somewhat suitable since among the various things that would not, I think, have happened without that momentous step then, have been the exploits of a certain connoisseur of fine china.
But there are quite a number of things that are the result of that step, and numerous friends made (even if they are not all here any more).
So I pass round virtual champagne or other beverage of choice, accompanied with a virtual snack of Famous Aubergine Dip (the vegan version with vegan Worcester sauce) and foccaccia (I am not sure glutenfree foccaccia is a feasible proposition, alas, but suitable crackers are provided).
Cheers: and absent friends.
I see that it is 50 years since the foundation of Virago Press -
(Take, o take that peach away.)
And certainly, back in the day, it was a Good Thing bringing back into print and recognition a vast number of women writers, even if quite a number of the writers & works were ones I knew before they were cool before they appeared arrayed in green with the apple logo. And not all of them were that forgotten.
I could also go on a rant about the works and writers they did not revive, perhaps more about when they did the relatively well-known work/s of some moderately forgotten writer and did not delve further into their oeuvre.
I also have a few Massive Personal Irks: even before the recent massive debacle over Outrages, they published A Certain Work promulgating simplistic misleading narrative on Victorian psychiatry by someone who was clearly on excellent terms with Carmen C. Okay, I will forgive them a fair amount for also publishing e.g. Judy Walkowitz's stuff (which is great), but fear their academic peer review process was not perhaps All That and somewhat haphazard.
Also, over the course of decades, things have changed, as organisations and institutions do - reading those histories and memoirs, even though one felt that a fair amount had been omitted on legal advice, there was obviously a lot of upheaval and change with the moves from being an independent publisher to being an imprint of a conglomerate, as well as all the other stuff that was going down.
I have a belief that a) just because a thing doesn't last, doesn't mean it wasn't important and influential and b) a thing may last but is it carrying on the mission and the vision for which it was founded? (there are of course entirely legitimate reasons for course-change.)
In an Artist's Studio
By Christina Rossetti
One face looks out from all his canvases,
One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans:
We found her hidden just behind those screens,
That mirror gave back all her loveliness.
A queen in opal or in ruby dress,
A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens,
A saint, an angel - ; every canvas means
The same one meaning, neither more or less.
He feeds upon her face by day and night,
And she with true kind eyes looks back on him,
Fair as the moon and joyful as the light:
Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim;
Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright;
Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.
O dear, yes, Ms Rossetti: one can tell that you had some acquaintance among the Pre-Raphaelites. Did they get it?
Which seems both a long time, and yet each of those months in themselves all seemed to flash past...
I have seen a lot of history pass by in my time (have I not been Doing My Bit as a Living Archive) but really, I could do with the present bits of it being, well, less eventful.
Though as as I am always saying, things are always going on in history, not just the big bow-wow stuff.
***
Anyway, here I am again offering up virtual slices of Rich Dark Gingerbread (with, of course, gluten-free, vegan and diabetic-friendly versions) and sanitive madeira and other beverages to taste, to all you lovely people who light up my life.
This week's bread: the Collister/Blake My Favourite Loaf, strong white/wholemeal/wholemeal spelt and a couple of tablespoons of wheatgerm, v nice.
Saturday breakfast rolls: basic buttermilk, which I know we have had v recently but a) I did have buttermilk b) did not have open ordinary milk, only some kind of plant milk drink which it is not at all clear is suited to baking c) nor did I have enough apples to make grated apple rolls. So it was basic buttermilk, 3:1 strong white/rye flour, quite pleasant.
Today's lunch: venison crumble, the venison casseroled in red wine with onion, garlic, thyme, coriander seed, juniper berries, salt and ground black pepper, and a crumble of 2:1:1 strong wholemeal flour/plain white flour/medium oatmeal (which I made up and put in fridge while casserole was cooking slowly), served with buttered spinach and baked San Marzano tomatoes (all of two in the order but they were WHOMPERS).
This was technically the vegetarian cuisine week, but I could not think of anything very fancy of a vegetable nature to have with our traditional anniversary champers (Bolly, sweeties!!!) for 38 years of unmarriage.
How better, I thought, to celebrate the Bard, whose works are so very full of jokes pertaining to the male genitalia, than to post this for the amusement and enlightenment of my dr rdrz?
Experience: I opened the world’s largest penis museum
I love the economy of that headline: the museum is, as far as anyone knows, the largest museum of its kind in the world.
It also contains what are probably the world's largest penises, since it includes those of whales: 'The largest, from a sperm whale, is about 6ft long'.
There is one human specimen: 'from a 95-year-old man who left it to us in his will in 2011', as well as several promised bequests.
In 2011, my son took over and the museum is now in a much larger building in the centre of town. Alongside the collection is information on the cultural history of the penis, displays of memorabilia, such as carvings and drawings of the penis from different places and eras, and so on. It’s a wonderful museum and I’m proud of what my son has done with it. Tourists visit from all over the world, as well as doctors and biologists.He also appears to have worked on the issue of conservation of specimens:
There are a lot of different ways to preserve a penis and I have tried all of them, so the collection varies between dried, stuffed and mounted penises, and also those floating in alcohol or formaldehyde.
Yes, my dearios, today is International Women's Day.
And I was going to go very gloomy and mutter that we seem to have skipped right over the 20s and gone straight to reiterating the 30s, because even before there was war there was OMG wymmynz not having babbyz, declining population being one theme of that decade -
And if there is no actual marriage bar on women's employment, the demands of work these days seem to preclude much in the way of private life, and certainly motherhood. Don't seem to have saved the link but there was some article about the stressed life of the single high-powered working woman who was assumed to have no domestic responsibilities and therefore could cover for everybody else, and one of them was reported saying, 'Haven't even found time to freeze my eggs yet'.
So I think that while Dame Alix Meynell may have had a lot to fight against if she was one of the first two women appointed to the administrative grade in the UK civil service, the civil service in those days had regular working hours and decent holidays, and moreover, although she couldn't marry and keep her job, she was in fact happily shacked up in an irregular menage with the poet, book designer and founder of Nonesuch Press Francis Meynell. Although in her autobiography, Public Servant, Private Woman, mentions that she kept £100 on hand in case she ever needed an (illicit) abortion.
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Also thinking of the 30s, and people quietly getting on with things: Unsung heroine who saved refugees from Nazis honoured in Leeds: Esther Simpson saved hundreds of scholars, calling it the academic equivalent of the kindertransport. I have come across her in so many archives.
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And talking of unsung, and finally commemorated: Bristol Cathedral is to install a new plaque commemorating the first 32 women priests, who were ordained by the then-Bishop of Bristol, the Rt Revd Barry Rogerson, in the Cathedral in 1994. The plaque originally mentioned only the man who did the ordaining...
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In a very different social niche, this lady was flagged up to me today by the National Trust IWD circular:
Catherine, Countess of Stamford was a strong and ambitious woman. She was a former circus bareback rider who defied Victorian society by marrying the Earl of Stamford and Warrington. When he died, she took over the running of the household and racing stables. She is also remembered as a much loved hostess and for her work in the local community.We note that she was 'very popular for her lively mind, kind heart and lavish charity. She also cleared the massive debts her husband racked up'. While Lady B never did anything so flamboyant as jumping through flaming hoops off horseback, came from similar humble origins...
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Also via the National Trust, Beatrix Potter and her support for the Trust:
When she died in 1943, Beatrix left 4,000 acres of land, including 15 farms and buildings to the National Trust. All of these farms are still working farms managed by National Trust tenant farmers, in accordance with her wishes.The money came, as far as one can tell, from the proceeds from flopsy bunnies and fierce bad rabbits etc.
Happy 139th birthday, Dame Rebecca West! O to read what you might have had to say about the present lot in the present circs, thinking upon your devastating commination of the Men of Munich in Black Lamb and Grey Falcon... (and especially, perhaps, given that your sister Letty was a Public Health doctor with a senior post in the London County Council).
Otherwise, I feel that even Ginger Rogers might be somewhat lowkey about exhortations about the year reaching the time to pick itself up, dust itself off, and start all over again. Because it doesn't seem like starting anew, more like one of those board games in which you interminably keep sliding back down the snake to GO.
And facing the music and dance? I think might instigate a dancing plague.
Sigh.
You know, I would be a bit more convinced by this (article about The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes), if the author were not described as holding a post which does not exist - people are not Professors of 'the University of London' but of one or other of the constituent colleges federated to it. This may be a reporter's error, I suppose. There had also been a similar previous case, although it had only involved being listed in the Peerage as the heir, rather than actually succeeding: Michael Dillon. (Would like to check Clare Tebbutt's work on 'sex-change' cases of the 30s, too.)
But you know me and revelations about history of startling secret cover-ups...
(Okay, that thing about the Mountbatten papers is still muttering on, if we are talking about cover-ups.)
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Again, I'm a bit 'is this really a secret history?' about this: ‘Sex workers, reggae girls, squatters, all the ones who didn’t fit in’: how Rebel Dykes reveals a secret lesbian history. Some of that reminds me of heated hoohahs in the feminist periodicals back in the day - a forgotten rather than secret history?
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Are we surprised: Nazis based their elite schools on top British private schools.
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Somebody gets perhaps a little over-excited on first looking into Victorian pornography - or at least, over-generalising (#NotAllVictorians is I think appropriate). It was a very niche genre! But even so, has struck a very interesting and previously unexplored (to my knowledge) element, i.e. menstruation (NSFW, and usual content warnings for Victporn).
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Not exactly news to anyone who works on STIs in the early C20th, military health in WW1 and related issues: These Are The Forgotten Sex Workers Of The First World War Who Played An Important Role In Soldiers' Lives. The historiography on prostitution and its control around the front line and concern about this particular threat to military efficiency exists.
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Happy 50th. Predictor: The First Home Pregnancy Test.
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WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO KNOW THE TRUE SIGNS OF WITCHCRAFT, IN CASE THOSE DANGEROUS AND DEADLY VOICES COMES FOR YOU OR SOMEONE YOU LOVE? THE VOICES NEVER STOPS UNTIL IT DESTROYS YOU! deeply weird and in design terms, a real blast from the past.
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This Ghost Town’s 'Curse' Isn't What You Think:
For years, guilty souvenir-takers have been sending those letters to the park staff, detailing the misfortune they believe has plagued them ever since -- and desperately sending their “cursed” items back. Yet the most curious thing about this so-called curse isn’t even how deeply people believe in it: It's how it began. This myth did not originate with superstitious Gold Rush prospectors, or credulous ghost hunters. It was started by the California Department of Parks and Recreation itself -- and it's had an effect the state parks service didn't expect.***
Everything You Thought You Knew About ‘Hobo Code’ Is Wrong. Incongruously, I am reminded of those articles that pop up from time to time about the alleged 'fan' code of Victorian ballrooms and similar. People like to think there are secret signaling systems? (Well of course there was the handkerchief code, but that was specific to particular settings where everybody knew what it meant, not bat-squeaks between strangers in public spaces.)
And given the present circumstance, I'm going with a very long and still unconcluded war, in fact, one that is only in certain of its phases a matter of remembrance rather than a present matter.
The War Against Disease.
Thomas Nashe, In Time of Pestilence:
ADIEU, farewell earth's bliss!
This world uncertain is:
Fond are life's lustful joys,
Death proves them all but toys.
None from his darts can fly;
I am sick, I must die—
Lord, have mercy on us!
Rich men, trust not in wealth,
Gold cannot buy you health;
Physic himself must fade;
All things to end are made;
The plague full swift goes by;
I am sick, I must die—
Lord, have mercy on us!
A couple of stanzas from Kipling's 'Natural Theology':
How can the skin of rat or mouse holdPerhaps Dr Robert Levet could not do much, given it was the C18th, but he turned up and cared for the sick, in his humble quotidien way:
Anything more than a harmless flea?
The burning plague has taken my household.
Why have my Gods afflicted me?
All my kith and kin are deceased,
Though they were as good as good could be,
I will out and batter the family priest,
Because my Gods have afflicted me!
My privy and well drain into each other
After the custom of Christendie...
Fevers and fluxes are wasting my mother.
Why has the Lord afflicted me?
The Saints are helpless for all I offer—
So are the clergy I used to fee.
Henceforward I keep my cash in my coffer,
Because the Lord has afflicted me.
When fainting Nature called for aid,Sir Ronald Ross discovers the vector of malaria (and was really not a great poet):
And hovering Death prepared the blow,
His vigorous remedy displayed
The power of art without the show.
In Misery’s darkest cavern known,
His useful care was ever nigh,
Where hopeless Anguish poured his groan,
And lonely Want retired to die.
No summons mocked by chill delay,
No petty gain disdained by pride,
The modest wants of every day
The toil of every day supplied.
This day relenting GodAnd given that he has been a subject of discussion sround these parts recently, JBS Haldane's 'Cancer's A Funny Thing': '[T]hanks to modern surgeon’s skills,/It can be killed before it kills.'
Hath placed within my hand
A wondrous thing; and God
Be praised. At His command,
Seeking His secret deeds
With tears and toiling breath,
I find thy cunning seeds,
O million-murdering Death.
I know this little thing
A myriad men will save.
O Death, where is thy sting?
Thy victory, O Grave?
Eighteen years ago, a timorous hedjog signed up to Livejournal...
And while LJ is somewhat of a ghost town these days, at least compared to the halcyon days of yore, there are still several of you who were there, back in the day, around now.
As well as new friends (hi, new friends, and some who are not all that new, but accumulated along the way since that memorable day).
Alas, there are those who are no longer here - either drifted away, or moved to other platforms, or, sadly, deceased (we will remember them).
Passing round trays of Pimms (because in London it is definitely Pimms weather) and other refreshing drinks to taste, and platters of delicious little snacky things suited to all tastes and dietary requirements.
Dispensing virtual {{{HUGS}}} to those who hug, and fistbumps or appreciative nods as appropriate.
Firing up the ancient CD of 'IT'S A BOGGLING DANCE PARTY!!!' and getting down to the groove.
50 years eh? and some of these things are still having to be reiterated/rediscovered/restated, SIGH: The clitoris, pain and pap smears: how Our Bodies, Ourselves redefined women’s health. But what is great about it is that it did change, that it didn't fossilise, and that editions in other countries were adapted to their particular circumstances - I reviewed Kathy Davis's history of OBOS some whole since.
A couple of other links about the dear despised 70s came up this week: Grass Roots Babies: Lesbian Artificial Insemination in Manchester throughout the 1970s and 1980s:
[I]n Manchester at least, most of the active donors were leftist men. To these men, sperm donation was a political act in support of feminism, their way of helping break down oppressive societal attitudes dictating only heterosexual, married women should be allowed to mother. To some, as Sue suggested, donating sperm for free was part of a wider commitment to radical leftist activism, a rejection of sperm as property and, by extension, capitalism.
Which sort of segues into this: Lucy Delap (who is working on the 1970s men's anti-sexism movement): What men’s roles in 1970s anti-sexism campaigns can teach us about consent:
My research on the anti-sexist men’s movement has uncovered men who identified with feminist goals who established groups such as Men Against Violence Against Women, active in Cardiff in the 1980s. They picketed films that they felt glorified violence against women, daubed graffiti onto sexually objectifying adverts, and handed out stickers that declared “rape is violence not sex”. In discussion groups, anti-sexist men scrutinised their own behaviour and criticised their own relationships. In Bristol, London and Nottingham, men also worked with the MOVE (Men Overcoming Violence) network. MOVE offered counselling to violent men through probation and social work referrals, challenging both sexism and homophobia.I feel this kind of thing has been somewhat overlooked compared to the macho male bonding in the woods stuff.
(For an example of toxic masculine behaviour: Man sentenced for shooting protected elephant seal dead on California coast:
Gerbich told prosecutors that he shot the seal after being challenged to do so by an intoxicated friend, “as a kind of grotesque test”, court documents show. He also told investigators he had a history of substance abuse and had suffered physical abuse as a child, which is why he struggled with the need to seek approval from others. He has expressed regret for the incident, saying that he knew the act was wrong, court documents show. Gerbich’s attorney said his client viewed the act as “so unusual and troubling”, but prosecutors emphasized that it was premeditated and “did not happen by accident or on a whim”. Gerbich and the friend who told him to kill the seal drove out to the area where the mammals rest and give birth, to shoot the animal.Presumably not being in the economic stratum which can fly to Africa and shoot elephants and pose for selfies...)
And to circle back to questions of translation: “Every Choice We Make Is Political”: Natasha Lehrer on Translating “Consent” and “I Hate Men”
Saying, o, here am I, a lorn lone forgotten old hedjog, no academic demands on my plate -
And I was actually thinking of reviving my old academic blog, as I occasionally do, because there are various things I don't think I'm ever going to turn into Propah Academyk Paperz that I'd quite like to get out there -
So then not only am I reminded of those things for the web project -
- I get asked to referee a journal article Within My Sphere of Expertise -
- and my essay for the edited volume comes back with a general aura of editorial approval but More Wordage to play with to expand various parts, yay!!
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In other news, partner is now also booked for vaccine!
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It is probably too late to remind dr rdrz to have their haggis, bashit neeps and champit tatties in the house for tonight if they don't already: but maybe you can at least raise a glass of whisky and toast the Great chieftain o' the pudding-race.
Bread this week: brown oatmeal loaf, 2:2:1:1 strong white/wholemeal flour/medium/coarse oatmeal (I covered this with foil during the first half hour of baking as otherwise it has tended to get a bit too browned), v good if a bit crumbly.
Saturday breakfast rolls: Tassajarra cinnamon raisin, 50:50 white/wholemeal spelt, which, for some reason of the confluence of cosmic energies or something, turned out exceptionally well.
Today's lunch: Dover soles cooked according to Eliza Acton's excellent recipe in a mixture of ordinary white breadcrumbs and panko crumbs, served with sweetstem cauliflower roasted in pumpkin seed oil with cumin seeds, and padron and friggitelli peppers.
***
As traditional for my birthday, I offer round virtual slices of rich dark ginger cake (with of course virtual gluten-free, diabetic-friendly, lactose-free versions) along with glasses of sanitive madeira or other sanitive beverages of choice, to be enjoyed in suitably socially-distanced fashion.
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