It's Always More Complicated

One of these things I was not anticipating and turned out to be more troublesome than I expected going in, but still, I have done that thing which is at least put it on 'Action Going Forward' (it is a financial thing which I need to Do Something about in the not too distant future, where I had managed to mislay certain sekkrit access codes for the account - at my time of life there are Too Menny Memorable Names/Places/Dates, just saying).

The shredding, I had thought, was DONE, but in the course of looking for info re the above, came across various other stuff that seemed ripe, even over-ripe, for the shredder.

There are still a great number of old clothes - and indeed clothes which are not that old but I am like to suppose no longer fit terribly well - about the place that I need to sort out, but as I have three largeish carrier bags of items in reasonable nick, washed, ready to go, I have scheduled Traid to come and collect next week (they will also Gift Aid, go them).

Interested persons probably already know that after a certain hiatus another volume in the somewhat interminable chronicles of Madame C- is impending.

And I have also done a post for my academic blog which had been on my mind for a considerable while and involved me in the purchase of two biographies which I have no particular intention of reading in detail, just to see what they said about particular episodes (and if they gave sources). It will not, I daresay, prevent the continuing proliferation of the Errours it is attempting to correct, one of which was spotted in the wild in a leading newspaper at the weekend. Fume.

Thinking about the things I'm indulging myself with during this time...

This was a thought generated when I was in the process of buying myself Yet Another Kind of Shower Gel, looking for one with vetiver notes (what is it with the butch coding of vetiver? I did not go for this one: 'Man's Best Friend: All our products are purpose built for men and contain amazing natural ingredients').

I suppose splashing out for a whole year's subscription to the British Newspaper Archive was a bit of an indulgence, but it's great to be able to look things up when a research rabbit-hole strikes. (And if anyone would like me to Run And Find Out on their behalf, do ask.)

It is hardly splashing out to purchase a pair of joggers from Marks and Sparks, but I found them so comfortable, except for the thought that, maybe, these days I should be going a size larger? that I went for several more pairs. Also some sweatshirts. Very comfy all round.

I have discovered that Waitrose now sell margaritas in a tin - okay, they may not be The Greatest Margaritas I Have Ever Had, but neither are they the worst.

I don't think books count as an unusual indulgence, really.

Nor Yogi herbal teas, though I was well chuffed to be able to get my hands on Licorice Mint Ayurvedic Blend recently.

What are your treats?

And, at least according to Wikipedia, neither, so far, is 'big girl's blouse'.

Though we do feel that anyone who descends to that level of playground namecalling is not exactly in charge of the debate, hmmmm?

And apparently a 'journalist' (clearly anybody, anybody at all, can call themselves a journalist these days) with some connection with The Sun, which I believe may be used for lining cats' litter trays, but there is some risk the cats may go and poop in corners instead? decided it would be yay hilarious and possibly even srsly satirical in the trad of Swift, Hogarth, Cruikshank, etc, to turn up outside J Corbyn's house to deliver a floral blouse -

At which I thought, J Corbyn is almost my exact contemporary. He went through the 70s and even if he did not sport a dashing floral shirt, possibly even a kaftan, himself, I daresay he had mates who did, I don't think he is going to perish of sheer chagrin at the mere concept, you know?

On the one hand: James argues that digital technologies privilege our impulses over our intentions, and are gradually diminishing our ability to engage with the issues we most care about; on the other: A longitudinal study of student writing finds that digital technology has not been the downfall of written expression:

Students in first-year composition classes are, on average, writing longer essays (from an average of 162 words in 1917, to 422 words in 1986, to 1,038 words in 2006), using more complex rhetorical techniques, and making no more errors than those committed by freshman in 1917.

And sort of fitting onto that, I was irked, peeved, niggled, by someone making the blanket statement that in Ye Victorianne Era, 'in that era, women had no power, with men deciding what was best for them'. I'm not just 'tell that to the Queen Empress', I am, look at all the Victorian woman who achieved a helluva a lot, including changing laws, reforming hospitals, etc etc. It All Depends What You Mean By Power, and indeed, I am seldom inclined to get Foucauldian on anyone's ass, but I might make an exception.

And honestly, if it took this much faff to get dressed every morning (especially if you had to keep changing), I'm all about massive props to how much women achieved in the C18th and C19th.

E.g. Frances Rolleston - am tempted by a new biography of her.

And, on amazing C19th women, I had occasion during the week to look up Harriet Martineau, and find that she wrote a novel about Toussaint L'Ouverture and the Haitian Revolution.

In a mad burst of consumerish self-indulgence, I've just bought a jacket.

Well, it's not quite a mad burst, it's more that on my late travels I was looking at the jacket/short coat that I take with me for travelling, because POCKETS!!! and seeing that not only are the cuffs badly worn but one of the pockets is developing a visible hole from wear over the years.

As I've had this item for almost 25 years - I'm pretty sure I bought it just before I went off to Texas to do research at the Harry Ransom - I think it's possibly time I gave it a decent funeral and got something else.

(Actually I have made endeavours in this direction, but the pockets turned out not to be big enough or not enough of them, or there were other objections.)

Anyhow, there is a firm that keeps sending me its catalogues and I quite like a lot of its clothes but they tend to be just a little more pricey than I normally go for, but they had a jacket that looked interesting, but when I went to the site I could see (not clear from the way it was photographed in the catalogue) it did not have pockets. However, the sidebar did show me some other jackets, and I found one that looks just the thing.

But, later on, opening up a link to another site, I find that there is targeted advertising down the sidebar, from the company in question, showing jackets.

Maybe it's me: maybe other people buy half a dozen jackets in different styles at a time?

But this is a bit like the Amazon recs things where if you buy as it might be a peppermill, they start recommending you MOAR peppermills. Or some bit of computer equipment, ditto.

Goodness knows, the 'you read this, you might like this other thing' is bizarre enough: but usually they do not recommend the same book - although I've certainly seen the thing where they offer another edition of some classic literary text one has copped to owning.

Someone on my rlist was noting that cinematic trope of 'woman is alone at home, but is nonetheless wearing sexy underwear' (in movies other than the ones in which a plumber/pizza delivery boy is about to ring the doorbell...).

And okay, this was what sounded like a particularly schlocky horror movie, but it occurs pretty much across the board. In Revenge of the Nerds (don't judge me: it was showing on just about the only channel that was getting adequate reception on the superannuated tv in the room in the theology seminary at Yale where somebody had ill-advisedly recommended me to stay on a research trip to the Beinecke), that sorority girls in the privacy of their sorority house would be running around in frilly/lacy/scanty undies at least had a plot function. It was a really, really, creepy plot function but not entirely gratuitous.

Unlike that arty, arty, arty movie by Krzysztof Kieślowski, The Double Life of Veronique in which one of the Veroniques is lying around her flat in a fetching satin camisole. (This would be even more implausible were it Polish Veronique, but I can't really remember which it was.)

I haven't seem Working Girl but according to Kathy Maio's review, the Melanie Griffith character is seen doing her hoovering in fancy underwear.

We wonder if the people involved in writing and directing these movies had ever lived with a woman. Because - unless anticipating a surprise visit from one's secret lover or the advent of the hottt pizza delivery boy - why would a woman be wearing fancy undies in the privacy of her own place?

A) There are more comfortable things to wear for slobbing around the house, doing the housework, undertaking tasks of personal maintenance etc.

B) Also, that stuff is usually pricey and fragile and something one would keep for special occasions, or at least, not wear just any old time.

Far more likely, surely, that women would be snuggled up in comfy old dressing-gown, or wearing track pants or other garb suitable for cleaning in?

(BUT WOT ABAHT TEH MENZ?)

Somebody on my rlist was posting the other day apropos of the informal, but very marked, dress code pertaining in their new workplace.

This gave me to think about the anthropology of dress in my own workplace, which is a large building which holds, besides the various kinds of library people, corporate financial types, IT bods, certain types who probably self-describe as 'creatives', and assorted other groups.

Which you can pretty much tell apart by their sartorial style (though there are other factors of gender, race, age, etc which play into these categorisations), when, for example you observe them in the cafe.

Or indeed if you see them in the lift. I was recently in the lift with a young person I had not previously encountered going to the same floor as myself and I could pretty much predict that they would turn in the opposite direction to me when exiting. Because no way was that some new librarian to whom I had not yet been introduced, in that suit.

However, I was completely unable to decode the sartorial semiotics of the shoes I spotted the other day when buying my coffee in the cafe: red suede, with very high heels and gold trim. Possibly she had just blown in from Oz after going splat on the Wicked Witch of the West.

(Today I am wearing Ma Blue Suede Shoes, but they are nice flat comfy Eccos. Just don't step on them, right?)

I can no longer persuade myself that two of my favourite shirts are fit anymore for anything but slobbing around the house. Both were already demonstrating significant signs of wear more or less where my shoulderbag bangs against my side, and they have both just started to go in the cuff area.

I get attached to clothes. Not being a helpless slave to fashion, when I find something I like it is a cause for rejoicing and if I can afford it I buy at least two, and, you may have already gathered, wear them until they drop.

There are still garments I look back to with nostalgia, even if they are not anything that I would wear these days, e.g. the purple tweed jumpsuit or the golden-brown broad corduroy dress with the zipper. Some of them, however, I would: there was a pair of jeans I had in the early 90s that I have never found any of quite so satisfactory a shape since.

And then there are the things I keep for special occasions, like my being on TV silk shirt, and the brought out once a year to drink the anniversary champagne brocade house-coat thing (which is nonetheless showing some signs of age).

Loveliest of trees doing its blooming thang in the pocket park behind the house, framed right in the middle of the bedroom window.

Tra-la-la, hey nonny, etc.

***

People at Euston handing out leaflets trying to lure travellers to Marylebone, with 50p fares to Birmingham. When I first spotted these I thought of the old joke, recast as '50p from London to Birmingham, return £100', but it is, apparently, a promotional return fare.

***

In Dept of Mad Consumerism, I have not only purchased two waistcoats, one of which is described as 'vintage', which may mean 'whiffs powerfully of mothballs' when it turns up, I now haz Nexus 7 Tablet (Littler Willy?).

Dept of Health:

The tooth is lots better, although the inside of my cheek is still sore. I felt like an elephant had rolled on me on Friday morning, rang into work and went back to bed, but I was feeling much better on Saturday, well enough to go to a friend's 60th birthday party in one of those areas of N London forgotten by Transport for London except for a very occasional bus puttering between such places. However, I shall be delighted when I finish this course of antibiotics, as they are messing with my innards.

Dept of, mi akademyk activitiez, I show u them:

You may be asking, where is oursin and what have I done with her, when I report turning down 2, not one, but 2, invitations to speak. One is early next month - I am already scheduled to be giving 4 papers within 4 weeks and don't even have anything already written that I could dust off for the purpose, plus, it would be outside London and I have quite enough travelling to look forward (?) to. The other one was initially enticing, but while I consider myself reasonably up to speed on Victorian sapphism and female attachments, it would involve having to do more reading than I would really want to do about a Certain Eminent Victorian (one of the eponymous Stracheyan EVs), which would be really somewhat peripheral to my general interests.

Dept of consumerism:

Marks and Sparks have at long last brought back the classic stretch waist khaki cords, but are still falling down over the round- or crew-neck classic black lambswool sweater.

O NOEZ - Roger and Gallet seem to have discontinued their vetyver soap, woez woez. Can anyone recommend any other brand of vetyver soap?

Dept of Being An Archivist:

Cleared up one or two outstanding procrastinated things at work, and even managed to get in a little cataloguing time. However, the designated sorting area is currently freezing bloody cold and even if I take a cardigan with me next time, about an hour of it is all I can stand.

Dept of Internetz:

Broadband draaaaaaama yesterday, as in, internet no can haz, but I sorted it out with support after hanging on the line with the suspicion that on Sundays, 'all our operatives are busy' = one guy and a phone queue. It's not altogether clear to me that anything he did fixed it as opposed to its fixing itself, but anyway, it was fixed. He recommends leaving the router on - your thoughts, Y/N?

Dept of Gross Self-Indulgence:

And I am taking a few days at Grayshott late in November.