Early Modern Notes

Holy crap, Mandelson’s back.

So, the obvious questions. Correct predictions will definitely win a prize of some kind. (Signed photos?)

1. What scandal will get him chucked out this time?

2. How long will it take?

3. Or will he survive until the Tories get in?

Derek Draper, a former adviser to Mandelson who has recently returned to work for the Labour party, said: “I think Peter will prove to be a pretty formidable secretary of state, a really brilliant contributor to the strategy of the government and the presentation of the government and people will look at Peter and think: ‘You know what, we misjudge Peter Mandelson sometimes,’ and actually the strengths of Peter and the good side of Peter will come through now.

Um, yeah, of course.

Two and a half years, I wrote a quick post pointing to a debate somewhere else on the web about the ‘long’ 18th century: How long is a century?

Now, from time to time this draws stroppy comments from (I presume) kids who have, apparently seriously, asked Google the same question. I usually keep them in the moderation folder for a while for some private entertainment. But let’s share.

this is no help I need to know if a centuary is 100 or 10 years long!!!!!!!!!!! Tell me the answer on this website!!!!!

THis suck’s I can’t find how long a century is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sencerly (I hate you) [name]

It really does piss ‘em off that I didn’t do their homework for them, doesn’t it?

And dance your dissertation!

By far the highest score, though, went to student category winner Brian Stewart, an anthropologist. Dressed only in a loincloth, he ritualistically pursued a graceful antelope (portrayed by Giulia Saltini-Semerari). This pure showmanship was bound to get the popular vote, but personally I’d have gone for Ruth Gruetzbach’s tango interpretation of a small galaxy (Gruetzbach) orbiting a big galaxy (Jesus Varela) until she is eventually subsumed by his supermassive gravity.

There will be another competition in 2009. There must be some twinkle-toed historians out there, surely?

I didn’t notice the other day that the BBC’s Fanny Hill mini-site has an 18th-century Quiz.

I only got 8 out of 10. Don’t tell my boss.

Woman tries to hide iguana in bra…

Go to the farmers’ market and buy good things. Eat a lot. Drink wine.

Watch Buffy season 2.

Listen to a lot of XTC albums.

Consider the urgent question of what to watch after I’ve eaten my curry goat: a) Buffy 3; b) Spaced series 1; c) Freaks & Geeks?

Who says blogging is a trivial, self-indulgent pastime?

There are some topics that just never grow stale. What makes the perfect cover version?

So, with a little help from YouTube, five personal favourites for the weekend…

Tainted Love

Comfortably Numb

Money, That’s What I Want

It’s My Party (and I’ll cry if I want to)

Walk On By

What about yours?

(Oh yeah, a holiday bonus: Total Eclipse of the Heart. This one’s all about the performance… and it makes me cry every time.)

* This is a damn fine way to cook spare ribs. You can of course substitute your own sweet/sour barbecue style sauce.

* I’ve been addicted to this Rwandan coffee for some time (possibly since it first arrived in the UK in 2003).

* Fave stroppy birds in bands of the moment: The Gossip and The Long Blondes. From Arkansas to Sheffield without a break: iTunes playlists rock.

* It’s spelt schadenfreude, folks. Hee hee hee.

Brett Lee, Pop Star

But: just how funny could you imagine a joke based on a confusion between the words ‘freesia’ and ‘Friesian’ can be? When it involves a tattoo? (On a scale of 1 to 10?)

If you’ve been watching Green Wing, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Otherwise, oh well, nevermind. But I am not kidding when I say: My. Face. Hurts.

(Yeah, proper blogging will resume shortly…)

It’s official, The Tories are cool now, ‘cos they’ve got Coldplay rocking for them.

[*snorts guffaws collapses in hysterical laughter*]

The new anthem is every bit as good as you’d expect, if you can stay awake for long enough to find out.

I refer you to Billy Bragg.

PS: I’ve just remembered what day of the year it is (I’m blaming insufficient caffeine this morning for slowness in waking up. And after all, we’re living in a world where Embrace have been hired to write the next England football anthem, which just makes my brain hurt…). I’m not sure that excuses the song. But then, what would excuse the existence of any Coldplay song?

A Finnish cartoon bear that shits prime numbers. (H-T: Frogs and Ravens)

I know this link is going to be flying around the entire universe, but I can’t resist: Microsoft redesigns iPod packaging

I fell about laughing anyway. (H-T: CT. WTF, indeed.)

A Making Light chat about the Demonic Dan Brown leads to a post by the linguist Geoff Pullum about Dan Brown’s opening sentences.

So I learned the proper term for that irritating thing undergrads often do in essays: “Historian Jane Brown says such-as-such”. (Even worse, they sometimes capitalise the word when it’s in the middle of a sentence.)* At least, I find it irritating. It nearly always seems completely irrelevant and besides, even if a specific essay might require the identification of writers by their disciplinary backgrounds, it just feels wrong to leave out the definite article.

The post points to an explanation both of why students do this and why it jars with me: as Pullum points out, it’s a common construction in newspaper articles. He comments that it feels odd in a novel, but I think it feels equally out of place in academic writing. It’s the wrong style.

Or am I just being peculiar?

….

*Although I find that generally undergrads capitalise words pretty liberally anyway: Early Modern or Eighteenth Century or Capitalism, etc etc. And History, of course. It doesn’t usually bother me that much, but it feels oddly dated.

I can’t believe the things that some people do… Hilarious.

(Thanks to scribblingwoman.)

Bonus silly photo: Kitsch Goose Nativity. (Hat-tip: Horizon.)

‘Beer goggles’ effect explained.

(Plus: Wasn’t once around more than enough? Their careers must really be in trouble.)

Um, yes, I am supposed to be working on those book manuscript revisions, since you ask. How did you guess? (Only two paragraphs of the introduction left to rewrite now! … And then the conclusion. At the current pace of progress, I’ll be done by about, oh, December 2007 probably.)

PS: these spam comments just get more and more surreal…
“cavernous fineness obliterate Weinstein reproaching reader ah”

(Yep, still contemplating those paragraphs.)

And another spam-related thought: I keep wondering just how “p***s enlargement patches” are supposed to work, and whether they bear any resemblance to “embroidery patches”. (But I think answers to this mystery are unlikely to make it past Spam Karma.)

1. Who is Jim Cantore and why are people searching the internet for him nude?

2. And how did they land up here when (according to the search engine) I’ve never even mentioned him before?

Do you remember the Knitted homes of crime tea cosies?

Then you just have to see these ‘cuddly’ toys.

(Thanks to BitchPhD.)

Thanks to Tony for reminding me about this one, which I came across a while back. I might even have linked it before, but who cares.

Badger Badger Badger!

It makes no sense whatsoever. It’s completely stupid. It just cracks me up.