Elizabeth/Lidabet

Involved in proving, for certain life admin purposes, that partner and I are real people who are who we say we are, involving downloading an app, which one then has to validate by entering one's ID and they will send a code by text 'may take a few minutes', they have a very capacious definition of 'few minutes', ahem. Then entering various details, scanning various documents to a satisfactory quality (don't ask, just don't ask, I have done screaming now, thanks), and taking a selfie.

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Do we even wish to detain ourselves over Michael Billington's ranking of the works of the Bard? I pretty much Dorothy Parkered, as much as one can with a newspaper, when I saw he had not only put Much Ado 20th out of 35, but considers B&B the subplot.

Light the barbecue in the marketplace, I have a heart to eat there!

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Though it is hardly anywhere near the same class for utter crassness of this - honestly, why are these people? A tourist has been charged after allegedly climbing a colossal marble statue in Florence to touch its genitals for a pre-wedding prank.

What I read

Finished The Tortoiseshell Cat, which was Royde-Smith's first novel, and rambles around a bit before it gets going, and the protag is really somewhat unbelievably naive about the world and its ways, but it's still pretty good and readable. Okay, there is character who turns out to be a Predatory Lesbian with a backstory of relationships with other women with masculinised names, and it got namechecked by Lilian Faderman for being bad representation of the period (1920s) but there is a certain ambivalence (VV is awful but is the sapphic desire itself bad? Gill seems to feel a certain reciprocity.). And there is a certain amount of evidence that Royde-Smith had leanings at least, and did write another novel with v sympathetic lesbian lead. Anyway, quite aside from Here Is A 1920s LGBTQ Pioneer Who Is Not Radclyffe, would read more of her if it was only available.

Some while ago picked up Le Guin's The Books of Earthsea omnibus as a Kobo deal and while I think I have all except maybe some short stories on my shelves or somewhere, it's handy to have them all together with Ursula's commentaries. Made my way through the initial trilogy, found the narrative style rather reminded me of the various myths and legends recounted in works of my youth (and probably hers too). I do wish, see earlier post, she had had some contact with Mitchison's works but I don't know if they were even published in N Am.

On the go

Took a break from going straight on to Tehanu to do my re-read of Dorothy Richardson, The Tunnel (Pilgrimage, #4) (1919) - the text I originally downloaded from Project Gutenberg was no longer playing nicely with the ereader but I downloaded the most recent version and it's fine. This is the one that is embedded in bits of London very very familar to moi - even if Euston Station looks quite different these days.

Up next

Probably back to Le Guin and Earthsea.

That is, I have finally knocked off a review that has been hanging over me for months, probably needs a little more fiddling with but it was very much I had got to the stage of 'just sit down and write the bloody thing' and did it. It's a book I'm fairly lukewarm about, doing fairly useful work with what it does but it feels a bit all over the place and hard to get a proper grip on.

Also, yay, am feeling rather less washed out than the past few days following vaxx.

We have appointment to see solicitor about our Testamentary Dispositions next week - finally found one in the fairly close vicinity through the Law Society Find a Solicitor facility.

Have just been getting Documentation from the local authority who are actually paying me to go and talk about johnnies in their collections in just under two months, so I guess that's sort of the next thing on my agenda.

Though am gradually making my way through ms by deceased colleague, though there is not major urgency on this as my collaborator is still in academic life and overwhelmed with the responsibilities of that at present.

‘Women want to experience pleasure’: how the female gaze caught the attention of film, TV and fiction

I will slightly concede that maybe women have not had quite the opportunities in film and TV that they have had for centuries in written fiction, though even so I suspect with a little thought we could come up with instances where female gaze was significant in creating popularity even if it hadn't been part of the purpose in making.

But as ever, the instances about fiction are limited in their genre range (OMG there is a long history of ROMANCE) and appear never to have read anything that was not on the radar approximately five minutes ago.

E.g.

[T]he genre has altered the way female worlds are received. “I wasn’t the only one who thought that if you were female in the fantasy world it wasn’t going to end well: if you fall in love it’s going to be used against you, if you have any sort of power you’re going to die or become the mad queen,” she says. “You never really saw female characters represented in any way where you felt safe, thinking they’re going to be here in the end and not have to give up their sense of identity to do so. People, almost, have been waiting for these books to come.”

Okay, will concede that I am currently reading The Books of Earthsea and I occasionally look up from Ursula Le Guin's commentaries and thinking a very strong case can be made that she had never, at least when she was writing those works, encountered anything by Naomi Mitchison. Which would blow out of the water certain of her contentions about female protagonising....

But leaving my much-neglected and overlooked precious aside, I scan my shelves for the works I was scooping up during the 70s-80s-90s, ahem.

And no mention of fanfic.... dearie me. Did not do the research?

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On another topic, there was an interview with Will Self in The Observer which is paywalled, so not linking. But in it he moans that after his divorce and ex-wife claiming mental abuse, ALL their friends cut him off, even his oldest besties: which makes me rather wonder whether a) they had actually observed things going on or b) they were fed up with him whingeing on about it.

This week's bread: brown oatmeal loaf: strong brown flour, medium oatmeal, turned out a little dense and crust a little cracking, the yeast that was rather delayed in transit coming to the end of its useful life.

Saturday breakfast rolls: (fresh yeast acquired) brown grated apple, light spelt flour, molasses.

Today's lunch: chestnut mushrooms quartered in olive oil, when checking recipe in Claudia Roden's New Book of Middle Eastern Food spotted the adjacent recipe for sweet and sour okra - saute for 5 minutes in olive oil, add sugar, salt, pepper and lemon juice (as I had half a lime going spare I also added that) and a little water and simmer for 20 or so minutes, I also added half of a red bell pepper than was going spare (possibly rather younger okra would have been nicer but this turned out quite well); aubergine cuts into rounds, placed on oiled foil on grill and grilled (turning a few times) until tender (the recipe was a little optimistic as to how long this might take) and then splashed with teriyaki sauce mixed with ginger paste; served with couscous with raisins.