stillsostrange

I am not encouraged to read the actual book, but this is amazing BURN:

beneath the carapace of difficult writing and literary allusion, there’s the gratifying gooey centre of a blockbuster PG western, with limited nudity, violent scenes and oddly simple moral choices.

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I was thinking that surely there is a class factor involved here, i.e. parents who can actually afford to be this over-involved in their offspring? When Helicopter Parents Touch Down—At College. Okay, am of generation which is quite aghast at this - I bopped off to New York for a summer during my uni years when making a phone call would have been prohibitively expensive.

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Like I am always going on, 'exotic' ingredients have a long history in global circulation, c.f. lates from the Recipes Project: Globalising Early Modern Recipes

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This is amazing and fascinating: The most widely used writing system in pre-colonial Africa was the ʿAjamī script - so widespread.

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Lost grave of daughter of Black abolitionist Olaudah Equiano found by A-level student:

Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797), also known as Gustavus Vassa, escaped enslavement to become a celebrated author and campaigner in Georgian England. His memoir, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, was a bestseller.
His book tour brought him to Cambridgeshire, where he would marry and have two children with Susannah Cullen, an Englishwoman from Ely. They settled in Soham, supported by a local network including abolitionist friends, safe at a time when reactionary “church and king” mobs were targeting reformers.

Myths about people debunked:

‘Heroic actions are a natural tendency’: why bystander apathy is a myth Modern research shows the public work together selflessly in an emergency, motivated by a strong impulse to help

Debunking “When Prophecy Fails”

In 1954, Dorothy Martin predicted an apocalyptic flood and promised her followers rescue by flying saucers. When neither arrived, she recanted, her group dissolved, and efforts to proselytize ceased. But When Prophecy Fails (1956), the now-canonical account of the event, claimed the opposite: that the group doubled down on its beliefs and began recruiting—evidence, the authors argued, of a new psychological mechanism, cognitive dissonance. Drawing on newly unsealed archival material, this article demonstrates that the book's central claims are false, and that the authors knew they were false.

I.e. after all the faff and fuss and distraction

I GOT THE REVIEW DONE!!!

And then spent a fair amount of time fiddling around with it and niggling at it and trimming it and so on -

- but then I managed to upload it to the journal site, via a link from the Reviews Editor which may not have required me to either remember a password I created in the dim mists of past time or create a new one, but still involved the inordinate amount of annoying these journal sites are.

And lo and behold, this very morning after, it has been accepted, no corrections, no revisions, now in the editing process, copyright form forthcoming.

Phew.

One last book to review on the pile, should I put myself forward to review v interesting work just out from old mate? Have other stuff to be thinking of....

As previously mentioned, also managed to get the downstairs backroom communicating with the world again. Though getting the unwanted TP-Link returned looks a bit more arduous.

Plus, have had a haircut.

Dept of, Wow symbolism: Garden shed of vaccine pioneer Edward Jenner added to heritage at risk register:

It was there that he first trialled a vaccine for smallpox in the late 18th century. The hut, built from brick and rubble stone with a simple thatched roof, was christened “the Temple of Vaccinia” by Jenner.

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Dept of, maybe the murmuration is trying to tell us something: Starling Spectacular over the Avalon Marshes - is something foretold stirring???

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Dept of, no, really, I am trying to avoid going 'urgent phallic much' over this arboricultural saga....: How the giant sequoia came to England:

Lobb collected seed, shoots, and seedlings. In fewer than two years’ time these would give rise to thousands of saplings, snatched up by wealthy Victorians to adorn great British estates. The larger-than-life conifer, so symbolic of the vast American wilderness, suddenly became a status symbol in Britain.

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Dept of, now thinking about ancient books bound in selkie skin as basis for fantasy: Eight pages bound in furry seal skin may be Norway's oldest book. You know, the Danes really do not have a very good record:

But when Denmark ruled over Norway, old books and manuscripts were sent out of the country. The Danish king was the one who claimed important relics of the past.

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Dept of, are cockatoos actually parrots (apparently yes)? There’s a statue of a dead parrot in Greenwich.

Actually I daresay it was bots, even then, but it had a vaguely handspun amateur air about it-

Does anyone else remember (did anyone else receive) those scam messages alleging that they had VIDEO of the recipient pleasuring themself to PORN and if X amount was not sent to scamdealer's bitcoin wallet, they would send it to all of the recipient's contacts?

This was all badly enough spelt and ungrammatical enough, before the whole This Never Happened factor, that it could be readily dismissed.

(Or do I lead an unnaturally clean life? Is this a version of 'Fly! All Is Discovered!' at which a significant % who receive the message will, indeed, Get Out Of Dodge Pronto.)

Anyway, it sounds positively sweet and pastoral, compared to this, which is presumably pulling on the same shame strings: Rise of the ‘porno-trolls’: how one porn platform made millions suing its viewers:

Thousands of lawsuits follow a similar formula: Strike 3 claims to use a proprietary software called VXN Scan to track IP addresses that have downloaded porn they own. The software cannot identify the user beyond a rough geographic location, so Strike 3 files suit against an anonymous John Doe, and subpoenas their internet service provider (ISP) to unmask the user. The ISP in turn alerts the subscriber – which is when most people find out they have been sued. These people are often keen to settle, being cheaper than litigation and the only way to ensure their anonymity.
....
Thousands of lawsuits follow a similar formula: Strike 3 claims to use a proprietary software called VXN Scan to track IP addresses that have downloaded porn they own. The software cannot identify the user beyond a rough geographic location, so Strike 3 files suit against an anonymous John Doe, and subpoenas their internet service provider (ISP) to unmask the user. The ISP in turn alerts the subscriber – which is when most people find out they have been sued. These people are often keen to settle, being cheaper than litigation and the only way to ensure their anonymity.

Thought I had some lovely free unspoilt time to get to grips with review I am writing.

There have been Problems with partner's internet connection in downstairs backroom, and after faffing around endeavouring to reset the TP-Link Powerlines, I came to the conclusion that they are ex-Powerlines and should be given a suitable funeral with relevant honours.

Have ordered new ones from Argos. Upside: next day delivery means they are coming today. Downside: but not until the very end of the pm delivery slot, i.e. the evening, Bah.

This is all generally distracting from concentrating the mind on the sleazier reaches of the Victorian booktrade.

Plus, I had a demand for my US tax details. Fortunately, many years ago, I was obliged to acquire an ITIN in connection with receiving a research grant, which makes the whole thing a lot simpler.

This all also rather distracts my mind from upcoming book group discussion of the next volume in Dance to the Music of Time. Though, in unexpected Powelliana encountered during the week, who was a massive fangirl? Eve Babitz was a massive fangirl! ('much less leaden than John Updike... a downright souffle compared to just about anyone').

This week's bread: brown wheatgerm; 8:1 strong brown/wheatgerm, made up with buttermilk from open pot left over from making rolls; quite tasty but a little dense and heavy.

Friday night supper: grocery order delivered early enough that I had time to make sardegnera with chorizo de navarra.

Saturday breakfast rolls: adaptable soft rolls recipe, 4:1 strong white/buckwheat flour, dried cranberries, Rayner's barley malt.

Today's lunch: seabream fillets rubbed with salt, pepper, ginger paste and lime juice and left in the fridge for a couple of hours, then panfried in butter; served with miniature potatoes roasted in beef dripping, white-braised baby courgettes and red bell pepper, and pak choi stirfried with garlic.

Have finally received my ID card for institution of which I am now a Fellow! (still no intelligence re email address...)

Have also volunteered myself to give a presentation, some several months hence, at one of the symposia for fellows to do that.

A project which has been pootling around inconclusively for years (I was looking back over emails about it recently and it had been running even longer than I thought) may be not exactly happening in its original form, but elements of it may be actually coming into some kind of fruition.

There is an exciting if rather terrifying possibility on the horizon.

In the saga - have I mentioned the saga? - of the review essay I sent to the reviews editor and heard nada about for weeks (and sent from two email addresses in case one got spam-trapped), the very day I had been wrestling with the journal's 'submit your article online' nightmare (and was not sure any of that was really applicable to review essays), I heard from reviews editor, who has Been Away, saying oops, just got this, will read.

Also got nudged for review which had got pushed down the priority list because the book turned up rather behindhand of expectations and then a whole load of other stuff overwhelmed me. Could legit say, now working on it.