The Amorous Ghost by Enid Bagnold Number 3 of 27 Great British Short Stories Premise: A rich Brit gets a series of visitations, causing domestic havoc Review: 1926 story - brilliant, menacing, creepy af Outa ten: 10 Keywords: ghost stories Quotes: nil Words: nil Look up: nil Afterlives of the story/connections to other stuff: Podcasted... Continue Reading →
“Miss Bracegirdle does her Duty” by Stacy Aumnier #GBSS02/27
Miss Bracegirdle does her Duty by Stacy Aumnier. Number 2 of 27 Great British Short Stories Premise: A sheltered and prim (both braced and girdled) Englishwoman is in France. Things go terribly wrong… Review: Liked this - sweet, arch, wise. Ultimately the character is Unchanged by her experience (I think). Outa ten: 8 Keywords: comedy,... Continue Reading →
My (current) top ten Shakespeare plays
Yesterday I humblebragged that I was “done with Shakespeare” - in the sense that I had now read all the plays that - in April - I’d listed as either low or zero knowledge. This led to someone asking for a top ten they should read, and with much/further ado here it is. My rough... Continue Reading →
“Evidence in Camera” by Margery Allingham #GBSS01/27
“Evidence in Camera” by Margery Allingham, number 1 of 27 Great British Short Stories Premise: First person account by a journalist covering a serial killer who is bumping off middle-aged redheaded women in English sea-side towns Review: Very nicely done, with gibes about how media (print) and cops work. Possibly a little sub-Freudian, but so... Continue Reading →
I am done with Shakespeare (for now)
A couple of days ago the child that would grow up to be Queen Elizabeth the first was born. Or rather, I read the final scenes of Henry VIII, a play Bill Shakespeare co-wrote at the very end of his career, and QE1 was spat out by Anne Bullen... This was the (anti?)climax of me... Continue Reading →
“Good deeds” (not by me) and remembering/remembrance
As most (both?) of you who follow this site probably know, I do a climate histories site called "All Our Yesterdays." It's one of those "on this day x years ago x happened." I have learned a lot doing it - both about the histories of climate (you'd hope, eh?) but also some rudimentary data... Continue Reading →
Of WASPs and WESPs: power, perception and our baked-in doom
tl;dr - our societal systems of perception, especially of what is "normal" or "reliable" are dominated by white supremacism and patriarchy. This will not end well. Short one, because I should be feeding moorhens and doing a dozen good projects but I'm not. WASP stands for "White Anglo Saxon Protestant" - the "normal" for US... Continue Reading →
Of Sophisticated Hopium Ignoring Trajectories; an exhausted rant on Solnit, Morton, the Kleins etc
tl;dr - there is a market for "brightside-ing" that relies on ignoring the relevant trajectories and instead cherry-picking largely irrelevant factoids. Even otherwise worth-reading writers peddle it some of the time. Examples are given, "what is to be done" addressed. I'm not going to recap the scale and scope of the shit we are in.... Continue Reading →
Doubling down or climbing down? What next for Starmer/Cooper vs public opinion on the proscription of Palestine Action
On July 3 the legislation to proscribe the direct action group Palestine Action passed the Lords. An article was published that had the following warning in its last paragraph. "The police could face ridicule if they enforce the law, and the charge of selectiveness if they don’t. “Are we saying they should arrest thousands of... Continue Reading →
We are taught deference, but (because?) They. Really. Are. Not. That. Bright.
I went to posh schools (a minor prep school in Hampshire and then the second 'best' school in Adelaide). At university I was on the fringe of the political set, who went on to State and Federal politics. Beyond that, I spent (i.e. wasted) a solid decade and a half interacting with the Manchester Labour... Continue Reading →
marchudson.net 