(no subject)

It's Monday morning and I've done work. This is, I think, a problem. Monday. Work. Both together. I have more work planned, too. It's going to be a long day but a good one. Also, some of my housework will be done. This is a sad state of affairs and only due to the fact that tomorrow afternoon is all about messages and cardiologist. what I don't do today interferes with the rest of the week, and my rest of the week is quite busy enough already, thank you. I'll be back to the 2+ books a day by that stage, you see.

Despite this, there will be a question post. In about five minutes, there will be a question post. One set of questions has already been asked and answered, hopefully usefully (thank you, Mary!) and all others will be answered on the post.

Open season for questions

I would rather you asked your questions in LJ and not Facebook (my LJ account has been set so that you can, even if you don't normally use LJ). It's easier for me, and it's more interesting for everyone else.

The usual rules apply. You can ask anything - it can be about one of my areas of expertise, about my fiction, about my private life, about my forthcoming travels and my taste in alcohol. If an answer will take more than a few minutes, I won't reply (but I do have professional rates if you need history-for-writing or whatever) but if I can, I will send you to resources or institutions that may contain what you need. If your question is relates to matters historical, I know more about the Middle Ages (especially of England and France) than other periods, but I also know a bit about other periods and even some other places.

Your question doesn't have to be serious. I don't have to take your question seriously. If you ask about my shoe size or the length of a piece of string you risk being boring, because those jokes have already been made.

Is there anything else you need to know? Oh, yes. I'll answer questions up to and including Sunday this week (Canberra time). And, as usual, you don't have to know me, love me, or read my blog to ask questions*.





*In fact, you don't even have to ask questions in English, although my answers will probably be more useful if you ask in a language of which I have a reasonable knowledge. French and Spanish and their ancestors and cousins are your best bet. If anyone sends me a really good question in Old French (Poitevin is my first preference, although Champenois is also desirable) then I'll either send them something cool in the post or buy them a coffee at Leeds. I'm not quite as enthusiastic about Middle English or Latin today, for some reason, so there are no bribes available for those languages.

(no subject)

I'm re-reading The Female Man, because I really thought I ought to. I was right. I totally, totally had to. What I missed when I was a confused teenager was the humour. What I miss as a much more ancient person (with half a life behind me and with some profound social changes having happened) is the in-your-face quality. It's almost an entirely different book to the one I read when I was so very much younger. The words are familiar, and the plot and the characters, but whole categories of meaning have shifted.

What came between then and now? Being a feminist. Not arguing the ideas or wondering about what one can do, but actually trying to change the world. I want to be worried that this means I find Russ ineffably amusing (and intentionally so), but I suspect it's simply that I see the world now more the way she wrote it, then. The world is, indeed, a strange and amusing place, for all sorts of reasons that were not apparent to me when I was a teenager.

Canberra friends - the book is now available for loan (like most of my library). I'd love to have someone to talk with about it, face to face, this time round.