opusculus

This week's bread: Elizabeth's David's Light Rye Loaf, which turned out nicely even though I discovered that the fresh yeast had finally given up and I had to fall back on Allinson's Easy Bake Yeast (which is not, horrors, the same as their former Active Dry Yeast).

Friday night supper: grocery order came early enough that I was able to put in hand the makings of a sardegnera with pepperoni.

Saturday breakfast rolls: brown toasted pinenut, with Marriage's Golden Wholegrain Bread Flour, turned out quite well.

Today's lunch: game casserole - mixture of pheasant, venison, duck and partridge with onion, garlic, bay leaf, juniper berries, coriander seeds and red wine; served with kasha, warm green bean and fennel salad, and baby pak choi stirfried with star anise

So I think I've pretty much got my presentation sorted for next week at around the right length and with a slightly superogatory Powerpoint, but everybody seems to do these these days, sigh.

And I have got off a review of an article which was not as bad as I thought it was going to be, not bad at all.

And I have read the thesis I was asked to read and am trying to think of some questions which are not, which novelist would you pick to depict the seething tensions within [local organisation therein discussed], because I was going, hmmm, is this Barbara Pym purlieu or not?

And although there have been some hiccups along the road a further volume in the Interminable Saga should be appearing in the not too distant future though there are some niggling things still happening.

And I may have mentioned Doing A Podcast some months ago and the same people have come back to ask me to contribute to another one in their series, for which I realise I ought to do a certain amount of prep.

Book review still hanging over me.

Various matters of life admin.

This is so much what I've been thinking about a different period that I'm writing about - that it's there, even though people are saying It's Ded, it's just not doing the flashy newsworthy visible stuff or the results are the things are are not, or no longer, happening: The one thing everyone gets wrong about feminism.

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I am a great admirer of Professor Athene Donald's blog, and I like this recent post: Unintended Consequences - in particular perhaps this apercu:

Business gurus tend to talk about ‘being authentic’ as the right way to lead. But if you are a testy, over-bearing soul being authentic may be very destructive for those around you.

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This is another story about mobility in the world: Looted from a royal palace: The medieval jug now on display in London:

A large bronze medieval jug bearing the English royal coat of arms would be a rare find if dug up in England, but somehow it had ended up in West Africa, in modern-day Ghana, thanks to early trading routes between nations.
Dating from between 1340 and 1405, the jug is the largest surviving bronze ewer from medieval England. Decorated with an English inscription, royal heraldry and coat of arms, it was originally a luxury object — but its meaning changed dramatically as it moved across continents.

I've had to do with either this artefact or another very similar in my working days, I did not know about the biological contamination (we didn't know for quite some time about the radioactive notebooks, either): a parchment scroll designed to guard against the dangers of childbirth:

Until now, this scroll’s worn surface and suggestive staining constituted the main evidence for its use in childbirth. However, new research by Sarah Fiddyment, presented in the exhibition, reveals that human proteins found on the scroll’s surface indicate the presence of cervico-vaginal fluid. This is an important breakthrough in the burgeoning field of biocodicology, which seeks out the invisible traces left behind by users of manuscripts, as they held, rubbed or kissed a parchment.

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You know, I would have sworn that back in my working days I came across something appertaining to this historic event: How smallpox claimed its final victim, but I'm unable to trace it.

Naturally, from various angles of my interests, I am going to click on a link like this, no? Pornucopia: The World’s Largest Collection of Smut, and You Can’t See It.

And while I have a certain historianly interest in the contents of the collection (though I was having a conversation with somebody a little while ago and we reckoned we would love to take a gander at Antony Comstock's Private Cupboard, because a leading smuthound must have accumulated a really outstanding filth collection, hmmmm?)

- I was going to myself with my archivist hat on, OMG, this is so many problems - there must be HUGE conservation issues, I just hope none of those porno movies are on nitrate film, but I do not think the smart money would be betting on it, and a lot of those relics are on degrading media even if they're not going to spontaneously combust. Some of them I wonder if there are actually means of playing them still.

(Tangentially I mention my wince when hearing thrilled younger scholar recount how they had listened to a 78 rpm recording in a sound archive, and I was, really???)

Then it sounds as though they are Not Keeping Up With Basic Processing ('embarrassed about the unorganized conditions', heh) which sounds as though ambitious collecting agenda has totally outrun capacity of institution to keep on top of it (should I add 'fnar fnar, nudge wink' at this point???).

Plus on the access thing and being not entirely welcoming to visitors, while - perhaps - historically collections like The Private Case (in the BL), L'Enfer (Bibliotheque Nationale), etc, were only made available to selected readers for fear of contaminating the public, in more recent days this is because this material is particularly vulnerable to to being mutilated - pages torn out or defaced, etc - which is why if you want to consult Cup. classification material in the BL you have to do so under the eye of the Librarian's Desk.

I suspect also in play is a probably legit fear of persons presenting themselves as SRS Scholars who once they are in will go BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES on the place ('wary about divulging warehouse locations', totally figures).

Over here, being niche.

What I read

Finished Death in the Palace - was not sure at first about the introduction of the actual Marx Brothers into the cast, but felt this had meta-textual resonance as there was something very Marxiste about the whole making-a-movie shenanigans (especially when it's this dreadful costume epic) + murder mystery going on.

Then went straight on to Cat Sebastian, Star Shipped, which was fine but perhaps didn't quite reach the high bar set by After Hours at Dooryard Books among her recent history/contemporary set works.

Returned to TonyInterrupter, which had perhaps lost some momentum from the hiatus, but nonetheless, I may try more Nicola Barker at some time.

Georgette Heyer, Regency Buck (1935) came up as a Kobo deal, and I realised it had not featured in the Heyer re-read binge a few years ago. Gosh, it shows a certain early style, what? with the massive amount of Mi Research, I Show U It, re prize-fights, phaeton-racing to Brighton, the interiors of the Royal Pavilion, the members of the House of Hanover (how right Mme C- was in advising to keep well away, no?). Also, this cannot be, can it, the first outing of the Apparently Dangerous Alpha Male vs the Civil and Sympathetic Beta Male who turns out to be a conniving sleaze? (not unique to Heyer.)

Also finished the book for review.

On the go

Also picked up as a Kobo deal, Fern Riddell, Victoria's Secret: The Private Passion of a Queen (2025). I have considered the author, as a historian of Victorian sexuality, sound on the vibrator question, if perhaps a bit too much in the 'Victorians were cool sexy beasts really' camp (It's All More Complicated), but I was interested to see where this would go. It's very good on the way things are with the Royal Archives, for which 'gatekeeping' seems too loose a term. But I'm still not entirely persuaded. It's a bit repetitive. Okay, it's quite good on the tensions within the actual Royal family (though can it really be that Kaiser Bill-to-be had Oedipus issues?). But still have a way to go.

Up next

Maybe the latest Literary Review. Otherwise, dunno.

So really, there isn't a lot of point in going diving into the rabbit-hole that's just opened up.

I.e. I am revising my old piece of work for the Fellows' presentations session, and I thought, why not just see if name of author of obscure feminist work cited appears in British Newspaper Archive, which at time I was writing was less in habit of habitually consulting on odd points (did not, I think, have a subscription, for one thing). As otherwise I had no info on her at all.

And, blow me down, she may only have written one book but seems to have committed the odd journalistic opinion piece, and furthermore, is listed as being one of the founders of an organisation set up by Old Suffragettes (or possibly -ists).

Which I find someone has Has Writ A Book About, as one of those women's orgs that have been condescended to by posterity as about the little dears getting together to chat, bless the ladies, and turns out to have been rather more activist in its sphere than one reckoned.

Library to which I have access has copy, but will not let me have online access to ebook for some reason, sigh.

And really, I do have other things to do (thesis to read, book to review, have been solicited to do a podcast, must try and put together a powerpoint for my talk) than dash off down to LSE to look at the archives of the org, right?

Because given the limitations on what it's for, at the moment - however the work in question will develop - it will be a sentence at best, because of time constraints.

Frustration.

I am given to understand that there is a campaign afoot to get a Blue Plaque for Dame Rebecca, as, quite shamefully, there is not one already.

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Dorset Archives Trust seeks donations for archive catalogue: we feel they might foreground rather more than they do that this is for the papers of Sylvia Townsend Warner???

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The Woman Who Invented the Penny Bank - I do not think I had heard of Priscilla Wakefield before.

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Ladies of the Lights: Female Lighthouse Keepers in the UK and the US (Of course I knew about Grace Darling, even before Jessica Mitford wrote about her.)

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Sadder stories of women: Hidden lives of female prisoners past and present:

The lives of female prisoners in the 19th Century and those experiencing the criminal justice system today are not dissimilar, a charity worker has said.
An exhibition at Newcastle Cathedral is documenting the untold stories from female prisoners at the former Newcastle Prison, which stood in the city's Carliol Square between 1828-1925.

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Hmmmm. While I would certainly agree that female desire is not taken seriously enough: A very paternalistic attitude’: why is female desire still not taken seriously?, I am massively, massively, massively cynical about the potential of the 'pink pill' or female viagra as I had several posts here some years back about the very unprepossessing results produced*. In particular I adduce this link to the ever sensible Dr Petra Boynton's thoughts. Is this just being bigged up by pharma entrepreneurs???
*And, of course, the notion that you can fix women's libidos with a magic bullet pill.