It's Always More Complicated

2 'People: weird':

Okay, maybe she gets a slight pass for 'we're all a bit stressed at the moment, luv', but, really: 'It devastated me': Bristol mum's fury after gender-reveal party 'ruined' - the sonogram operator '“blurted out” that the foetus was a boy during a scan'.

You could not make it up: Man acquitted of entering a home with a weapon after successful sex fantasy defence. Terrence Leroy found not guilty after proving that he was hired by another man to tie him up but given the wrong address. (Unlike the Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine novel, The Birthday Present, about the sex-game kidnapping that goes disastrously wrong.)

1 birds in Royal Park:

A priority for nature conservation in London, Regent’s Park supports one of London’s most important heronries. I don't think I've ever seen the herons in Regents Park, as opposed to the ones outside The National Archives.

1 whale (deceased) on beach:

Dead 12-metre whale washes up on beach at Clacton-on-Sea. Dead whale on beach is probably one way to keep people socially distancing...

1 wombatts:

Last night I dreamt of a wombat, and not just any wombat, a hairy-nosed wombat: Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombats at Epping Forest National Park - okay I was going WTF Epping Forest, given that my association is the ancient woodland and former Royal forest lying on the London/Essex borders (no, Good Queen Bess did not hunt that noble beast, the wombatt, here).

Charles Dickens: newly discovered documents reveal truth about his death and burial: the name of John Forster was fresh in my mind from the less than glorious role that he played in the sad saga of L.E.L. (and yet another case of reputation management...)

Passionate pioneers – increasing access to botanical artwork by women artists and putting women botanical artists back into the story.

The Shim Sham Club: ‘London’s miniature Harlem’: a queer-friendly jazz club described in Metropolitan Police records as a ‘den of vice and iniquity’.

A Book So Far Ahead of Its Time, It Took 87 Years to Find a Publisher: this must have been written a bit after the period when he was hanging out with Sylvia Pankhurst and the Workers' Socialist Federation, George Lansbury, & co, just after the Great War.

And on sex just after the Great War, it was very depressing to read this, over 100 years since the publication of Marie Stopes' Married Love: What I learned talking to 120 women about their sex lives and desires:

[A]s women further described their malaise, their dwindling desire seemed less the result of faulty biology than evidence of sound judgment. It was a consequence of clumsy partners, perfunctory routines, incomplete education, boredom and the chafe of overfamiliarity.

Should probably say that my part of London is pretty distant from Parson's Green.

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Dept of Fortuity: when you see news of a book that you would be really interested in reading, at eye-watering academic press prices, even for the ebook: and in a day or so having a request from the very same press to referee a book proposal for them, in return for BOOKS to a value that would cover this and a bit more.

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Dept of O tempora o mores: The Tatler guide to threesomes. If Sir Charles Dilke did do as alleged during a divorce trial, and suggest a 3some with a lady and her maid, perhaps had he read this he would not have got into the hot water he did.

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Dept of, is this a portent? Rare white giraffes sighted in Kenya conservation area. Are there local tales of the dire consequences of hunting a white giraffe? In this video clip the mamma has a rather 'I'm ready for my close-up now Mr de Mille' expression.

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Dept of, is this not the return of the prefab: Home sweet micro home: sleep-testing a pod for the homeless.

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Dept of, so out of touch he's floating in the void: Jacob Rees-Mogg seems to think that the poor are put into the world in order to allow people to acquire merit through charitable activity. O that Simon Raven were around to excoriate him as a fictional character as he did his father.

A determined spammer keeps asking me 'interested in safe floors?'

And since one of my current occupations is channelling a renowned author of Gothick novels and horrid tales, the image this evokes is of floors that suddenly open up beneath one's feet leading to an Oubliette of Doom, or possibly Hell.

In fact, it seems to be about becoming a distributor for some product that promises 'slip-resistant floor treatment' for the kind of public premises that have slippery floors.

WHUT.

Also, requires a set-up fee of $5000 to get into this promising business opportunity.

One is so tempted to put them in touch with relicts of dictators...

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In other news, and trying to look on the bright side (wot bright side there is no bright side):

The keynote talk thing that I have been sighing over has done that thing where it gives a little wiggle and suddenly looks a lot more close to DONE than I thought it was.

Also in being Some Kinda Academic, sent off the paper I gave in Montreal to the organising body's essay comp, as they had solicited attendees to do this.

In nature notes, today I saw a wee robin and some kind of tit (?) in my perambulations through local green spaces.

Also, have had the royalty statement for a particularly niche work of mine and it's still selling - the royalties are still pretty much tuppence-ha'penny once the non-sterling cheque has gone through the bank, but I never expected wealth beyond the dreams of avarice from it.

List of five favourite pop songs for tree_and_leaf:

(I wouldn't say this is the absolute all-time ranking.)

(Also, I have some problems around what counts as what genre, so this is going on what iTunes considers pop, and frankly, I find their categorisation can be somewhat weird.)

Abba, Super Trouper

The Monkees, A Little Bit Me A Little Bit You

The Shirelles, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow

Sweet, Little Willy

The Supremes, Nathan Jones (representing all the other Motown I could have listed, though iTunes is particularly aleatoric as to what Motown gets assigned as its genre)

At the Event at which I was doing my thing yestreen, I did not have quite such a large audience as some of the other things on offer, but, boy, they were really engaged, terrifically enthusiastic, and it was more of a seminar than a lecture, and as I hadn't quite got to the end of my material by the formal end (because of the discussions evoked) they were eager to continue in the bar afterwards. So I think, WIN.

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A most curious comment to one of my GR reviews, where the person has 'liked' my review (which is simply a star rating) and then comments 'i think you are out of your mind' though whether this is directed towards me or a previous commentator, deponent knoweth not. WHUT.

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I'm loving all the snark-back re women scientists to that ill-judged comment about o dear Love in the Laboratory and wymmynz KRI (which was particularly ill-judged after the kerfuffle around the advice to just ignore supervisor who gazed persistently down cleavage). Poss we should have segregated labs on account of MENZ perv on women scientists and suppose them to be mad with love for their masculine charms...

I really do not know how these Men of Science would have coped with Emilie du Chatelet or Ada Lovelace, whose portraits display a degree of decolletage that Miss G- might blush at.

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I have heretofore mentioned the theory that there is a conspiracy to invent several centuries of history that didn't in fact take place: have a new one: Historians Admit To Inventing Ancient Greeks. L:IFLOTG, emitting drayne-like noises.

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I thought I might have reached a natural break in the_comfortable_courtesan but find that it still weaves further bits of narrative in my head, so it continues. Current content-warning: period-appropriate attitudes to the USA.

Okay, this has been a bit of an up and down week in some ways, with some irksome health issues, BUT:

Successfully delivered Prestigious Public Lecture and received very gratifying feedback on same.

Have way ahead of schedule completed the cataloguing of a relatively substantial collection: all that's needed now is to label the boxes and complete the collection level description. (Stakanovite hedjog!)

So, ( Just wanna testify )

That ( I feel good )

In fact, ( Feeling Groovy )

Just ( Colour My World )

And let's take this outside (the weather being so very fine), and go ( Dancing in the Street )

Noticed in the lift at the Tube station: RNIB campaign to get people to read books for the blind/partially sighted (recorded, not directly, I think) on the National Day of the Blind.

Um, er. If I were dependent upon audiobooks for my reading, I think I should prefer them read by people who were trained and competent, rather than Any Old Person In The Street.

Plus, given that there are presumably people who eke out their living at this sort of thing, feel it would be more appropriate to employ them rather than random unpaid amateurs.

Though I think there did used to be a volunteer programme for putting books on tape for the blind, but that audition and training were required. I can see that there might be a niche for books that would never, in the normal way of things, get audiobooked. But I bet people don't envisage the task as signing up to read tomes on organic chemistry or whatever.

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Noted in linkspam elsewhere, something about the lack of female 'public intellectuals' who are very few in comparison with male public intellectuals even though numbers of women scholars are increasing.

While, okay, it may be that women are not getting the same kind of recognition and platforms, I am also wondering whether:

Women just feel less urge to pontificate and mansplain to a general audience, and that even if they are expert in one area, don't feel that this necessarily means that there's no knowledge but they knows it.

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Latest spam journal article solicitation: Immunology, Endocrine & Metabolic Agents in Medicinal Chemistry. A gig I would not be persuaded was playing to my strengths even if I did not recognise this as being one of the many journals put out by well-known dodgy 'academic' publisher.

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With 1940s vintage clothing and re-enactment weekends booming, are enthusiasts rose-tinting the horrors of the decade? And is it even the whole decade, or is there an element of WWII chic going on?

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State of the hedjog's health: still feeling a bit sub-par, elbow still making itself felt though definitely improving, so I think it's not broken or anything (when partner broke his elbow things definitely got worse over the course of 24 hours).

Dept of did she actually say that: Expression employed by one of the trainers at the gym during the week: 'I've got a memory like a fish'. I've never heard that before and am not sure whether it's an idiom I just hadn't encountered, based on what I believe researchers have proved is a scurrilous myth about goldfish and their memories, or whether it's based on a mishearing or misremembering of the expression 'memory like a sieve'.

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Dept of unexpectedly larfing liek drayne, and at work at that: Bangable Dudes in History.

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Dept of heritage in miniature: model village gets Grade II listed status.

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Dept of Cool People one only discovers when they die and one comes across their obituary: Bi Kidude, Zanzibari Taraab singer: fascinating further account.

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Dept of the price of everything and the value of nothing, while doubtless thinking it's all online now and that's just as good (if so, why is it worth a potential £50 million?): Field Museum may be planning to sell rare books. SIGH.

I meant to post something a bit more, um, thinky, but end of a long busy week, hedjog go flop.

I think I missed More Joy Day - was it yesterday? - but anyway, have some lovely Marvelettes to cheer the cold dark evening.

You're My Remedy

Too Many Fish In The Sea

Too Strong To Be Strung Along

Boy From Crosstown:

Destination Anywhere