Book View Cafe Grand Opening Celebration

To celebrate the launch of our new online bookstore, we’re giving away books, and offering a limited-time discount on BVC anthologies.

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Life after lust – the appeal of sexless marriage.

Myself, I am inclining to the first, but I will cut this article quite a lot of slack for leaving in verbatim extensive quotes of nuanced thoughts from Dr Petra Boynton (a regular recipient of the IAMC award) and hoping that her good sense will penetrate many minds concerning the topic of people and sex.

I do think that there is a certain Point Thahr Misst by Ms D'Souza, in that people in their later years may be having good sex but it isn't necessarily 'chandelier-swinging' and there may be less of it in frequency but better quality when it happens. Indeed, I see that I remarked previously that one's 20s aren't necessarily such a great baseline for Best SEXX EVAH.

Providing, of course, that you are not the kind of person who seems to find familiarity anaphrodisiac:

"The whole reason why it is so exciting in the first throes is because you can both objectify each other – that's really the whole fun of it, each of you both being able to treat each other as a piece of meat."
....
"Shared history is lovely and cosy, but ultimately it is not terribly sexy."

Or as Anthony Robbins, the motivational expert put it, in a slightly different way: "It is in the realm of uncertainty that your passion is found."

I am over here, cheerleading for the Deep Deep Peace of the Double Bed as, actually, rather better fun than hurlyburlying on a chaise longue.

Also, I am inclined to think that this is wrong, but mileage may well vary on this and, you know, as my darling Stella Browne observed, she had 'never met the normal woman' and I agree:
'[M]any women find themselves suddenly becoming obsessed by sex during the perimenopause; it's like Custer's Last Stand.
Actually, some women find themselves becoming apathetic about sex around the time of the menopause, but as I actually created an identity so that I could contribute to the 'Private Lives' problem of the week in order to say, this isn't permanent. It comes back.

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On account of, well, long week and jetlag, things which are probably not going to get worked up into full posts.

***

This government thing about sending every school in the land a copy of the Authorised Version (King James Bible)? WTF? Point what is there?

***

One of the essays in Whedonistas, by a UKian person, says that Sunnydale High reminds her of her own schooldays. Again I make like a goldfish and say WTF, to me it is as the strange rites of exotic others, even without the supernatural element, but perhaps a highly academically focussed all girls grammar school in the 1960s is not the place to start comparisons from.

***

Also with the WTF, came across today via a colleague a report that hard drives containing hospital records were being sold on eBay, though at least it turned out that this was not the relevant authority's mode of recycling (analogous to the incidents of files being dumped in open skips) but that someone on the staff had made off with them.

On another paw, however, relating to archival preservation, Dame Lynne Brindley of the British Library points out the ever-present dangers threatening digitally-created records.

***

Talking of colleagues, I am so grateful that my immediate workmates are pretty much on the same page as me (and it is not the page with the full version of God Save the Queen on it, know what I mean?) about the upcoming long weekend. Cynicism abounding.

***

This is both WTF and rather delightful: The best No 1 records: Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich – Legend of Xanadu 1968: It's a magnificent moment of mariachi melodrama and a reminder that pop can be silly and life-affirming in equal measure. It is definitely one of my somewhat secret favourites.

Awww. I could almost get up and boogie.

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Enjoy a holiday with a difference by staying in a building restored by the Landmark Trust. Choose from over 190 historic places throughout Britain and in France and Italy, accommodating from one to 16 people. You will discover follies, castles, towers, banqueting houses, cottages and many other historic buildings, in which you can stay.*

*Providing you book well in advance and have an arm and a leg to spare...

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Finding a word for something is satisfying, but I'm not sure how far it gets me.

While I was away I had a small and trivial incident of a thing that I find generates a disproportionate emotional response of rage, resentment and humiliation.

This occurs if I go into a restaurant (bar, shop, etc) and they appear either not to notice me at all or have forgotten all about me after directing me to a seat. I will cut them some slack if it's busy and there's a rush on, and it's not that I want to jump the queue and be dealt with first, or anything like that -

But if it's not busy and there are people pottering about, and I'm just sitting there like a lemon or an invisible person, I find this very agitating*.

I retrieved today from the recesses of memory the term 'restimulation' from my long-ago days in the world of co-counselling - the concept that things that happen in the present can re-ignite bad old feelings from the past associated with similar circumstances.

But although I can recall other similar incidents, I'm not sure any of them are the deep down precipitating Thing at the root of this all.

Which of course may well be something entirely different, that nonetheless gets evoked by these situations.

*(It's not quite the same thing as wanting to make a contribution to a discussion where the moderator seems to be deliberately overlooking my signals.)

(Not sure how coherent any of this is as I have been going around in a wooze all day with jetlag.)

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I realise I never posted any of the ( photos I took in Madison last year )
These are a few of them.

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Didn't sleep much if at all on the flight over (I don't think this was simply because of the piercingly chilly draught).

Made it home in relatively reasonable time - huge but fastmoving taxi queue in an entirely new place at Paddington Station.

Unpacked and transferred Stuff from my travel handbag to my quotidien handbag.

Did two loads of washing.

Made bread (the part-loaf in the breadbin was doing its Alexander Fleming tribute).

Mumbled at someone ringing up about the gas servicing deal.

Am about to have an aromatherapy bath and go to bed.

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Mind the Map: Inspiring art, design and cartography at the London Transport Museum:

A new exhibition about the inspiration, history and creativity behind London transport maps opens on Friday 18 May 2012. Mind the Map: inspiring art, design and cartography will draw on the Museum’s outstanding map collection to explore the themes of journeys, identity and publicity. The exhibition will be the largest of its kind and will include previously unseen historic material and exciting new artworks.

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Seriously, this kind of viewpoint exasperates me, and even more so when it's a woman saying it:

I question the existence of a "male-dominated corporate elite", yet should it be real, I don't believe top-down EU quotas are the best way to counter it....
[A] generation of women may well end up on boards as window-dressing rather than on the basis of merit.

Oh, come on - all the men on all boards have something to bring to the table apart from being a bloke? Give me leave to doubt. Wails and moans over tokenism tend not to factor in the tokenism that previously operated in favour of Dead White Males. There is No Damned Merit about it.

Plus, I think history shows that when you actually put women in certain positions (e.g. as queen regnant, HAI, EIR), or offer them specific opportunities, as in wartime, given the chance and expected to get on with it, they do pretty well.

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My panels all went fairly well though I thought (and other people tend to confirm) that the 'What We Never Want To See Again' on Sunday afternoon was a bit low energy though some interesting ideas. Also, I was never expecting a massive turnout for a reading on Monday morning, but I think the audience just outnumbered the panel (and one of my fellow readers was quite complimentary about the pieces I read).

Also, went to a number of interesting panels on assorted topics, including sex education.

As always, the delight of being among some of My Favourite People In This And All Other Universes, and the frustration of never quite having enough time to hang out with all of them for as long as I should like.

Dept of Vain Adornment of the Body: jesse_the_k presented me with a lovely necklace incorporating an Icelandic coin featuring a codfish - How Cool Is That? I also succumbed to a necklace of moonstones, deco glass beads, two small amber beads, and deco silver chain, by Laurie Toby Edison. There may eventually be photos. I had my eye on one of elisem's necklaces but couldn't quite make up my mind, and it had gone by lunchtime today, so it was clearly someone else's piece.

Sleeping has been a bit iffy but I have been coping - also, making use of the fitness centre and hot whirlpool.

Have done my online checkin and printed the boarding pass, gradually preparing for The Long Voyage Home. And, of course, booked up for next year.

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Don't write celebrity TV historians off just yet – as long as they don't stray from their expertise.

History continues to have a broad popular appeal, and long may it continue to do so. Good publishers and television producers know that history works best when written or presented by a historian who really knows the subject, such as Thomas Asbridge on the Crusades or David Reynolds on postwar international summits. It's when historians leave the territory of their expertise, get things wrong, appear on Question Time, host chatshows or write newspaper columns, that they become real celebrities; and, as some of them have found out, you become a celebrity at your peril.

On admitting error: Allan Massie does it RITE.

[W]hen we lesser mortals screw up, we should admit it, say sorry, and eat a portion of humble pie.

The other day, writing here about Professor Orlando Figes and his Russian publishers’ decision to abandon plans to bring out a Russian translation of his book “The Whisperers”, I hazarded the suggestion that they might have been leaned on by the Kremlin. I had no evidence for this. It was merely a hunch or suspicion that non-publication of a work of oral history culled from the memories of relatives of Stalin’s victims might not please President Putin.

It seems that I was wrong. The decision not to publish was taken, purely for professional reasons, by the publishing house Corpus, in association with co-sponsors the Dynastia Foundation, which had provided a grant for the translation of the book into Russian.

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Must-have for the coming weekend:
Lydia Leith Diamond Jubilee Sick Bags - Bling It Up!

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Paging Nicola Marlow?
First woman to command Royal Navy frigate takes helm.

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Oh, gallant was the first love, and glittering and fine;
The second love was water, in a clear white cup;
The third love was his, and the fourth was mine;
And after that, I always get them all mixed up.

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hano is a Hero of the Revolution who identified the netbook problem and suggested a fix which has, indeed, worked, so I do not have that frustration to deal with.

Having a good time, a bit laidback, a little tired - two of my panels down (the anti-hero discussion, perhaps a bit all over the place but quite lively, the changing reading tastes over time, rather good I thought, lots of thoughts to think about).

Having the usual rather frustrating thing of not wanting to book up every available free slot before I even get here, but then not being able to schedule get-togethers. However, I have some meetups fixed, and yesterday managed to have an enjoyable lunch with lcohen and dinner with oracne - for the record, yak sizzling platter at a Taste of Tibet, having had goat curry at the other Tibetan place on Thursday eve - along with various rencontres around the Concourse more generally, in the Dealers' Room, the bar, at the parties, etc -

Even if at the latter I, and many of my approx contemps were expressing a certain exhaustion by the late-ish hour.

Sleeping reasonably well if with a certain amount of waking earlier than I would prefer, though this morning I did get back to sleep, but not for as long as I might have liked, as I had to get up with a 10 am panel in mind.

Among other good stuff, I record here the whirlpool.

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Simon's Cat in 'Tongue Tied':


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Orlando Figes translation scrapped in Russia amid claims of inaccuracies.

Varvara Gornostaeva, head of the Corpus publishing house, told the Guardian problems came to light after her firm sent the Russian translation of Figes' book for a pre-publication check to Memorial, the human rights organisation that conducted the interviews with families of gulag victims.

"When they started to do a fact-check, there were a huge number of inaccuracies and factual errors," said Gornostaeva. "These were factual errors, and if we didn't fix them, it could bring about serious displeasure … some of the people themselves are still alive."

She said that to "fix the text" would have taken up to a year, and would have resulted in a different book.

Figes has conceded that he made a number of errors, but said he had offered to amend anything deemed necessary for publication to take place in Russia.

He denied that many of the alleged factual inaccuracies and misrepresentations were mistakes. Some, he said, were the result of loose translation into Russian; others were a matter of opinion, which "should be subject to normal scholarly discussion on the basis of a published text (rather than pre-publication censorship)".

We also note the 'someone else dunnit' excuse, for which Prof F has a certain amount of form: 'the error, which he regretted, was the result of an annotated file that was substituted for the master copy by an assistant'.

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Yesterday was actually a v nice restful day with walks, a wonderful chair massage, a session in the fitness centre and a wallow in the whirlpool, pleasing encounters as people started to turn up, a good reception/reading at A Room of One's Own.

But my netbook is just getting weirder and weirder and more recalcitrant - it was hanging badly yesterday evening which was why no post on the day then, this morning although it tells me it's connected and the strength of signal is excellent, can I get on to the internet? can I hell. Firefox isn't even opening up, and though I can get IE Explorer to open, it just sits there claiming it's connecting while nothing happens.

I thought this might all be to do with the annoying thing AdAware has done which is instead of just download latest update of free version, has downloaded trial version of AdAwarePro, which I think is a bit of a memory hog. I closed it down via Task Manager but this doesn't seem to have resolved the problem.

AAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH.

I got the netbook in 2009, so it's not that old....

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Queen Victoria's journals online:

These diaries cover the period from Queen Victoria's childhood days to her Accession to the Throne, marriage to Prince Albert, and later, her Golden and Diamond Jubilees.

Thirteen volumes in Victoria's own hand survive, and the majority of the remaining volumes were transcribed after Queen Victoria's death by her youngest daughter, Princess Beatrice, on her mother's instructions.

It seems fitting that the subject of the first major public release of material from the Royal Archives is Queen Victoria, who was the first Monarch to celebrate a Diamond Jubilee.

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