This and that from here and there.

[lady_schrapnell]

First, a 'Why Do You Blog?' survey, discovered via Scholar's Blog. I'd imagine the chances of winning any of the participator's prizes are slim indeed (as are those for blogging the survey), but it was short and fun anyway, and why not?

More on bloggery: best blogs in various categories can be voted for now at the 2007 Bloggies site. I saw this because my favourite crafty blog (Crazy Aunt Purl) has been shortlisted, and there weren't too many I recognised, aside from Go Fug Yourself and Boing Boing, and Flickr as best webapplication. (Oh, a few more, sure, but those were the biggies.) I'd imagine there's a life-time's worth of distraction just on that one page, once you've voted (or not).

Keep an eye on Blog from the Windowsill, as Wendy's going to start a proper list of Girls after Mary (The Secret Garden Mary, that is), though it'll have a proper name too, no doubt! And maybe Mary will turn out not to have been the earliest and it'll be Girls after Mary's Own Slightly-Small Heart - I'll be interested to see.

Then, there was my nicest piece of spam, found when I was checking the about-to-be-deleted batch: 'Happy 2007!' was the subject, and the wish came from -- menopause. I'm so touched! (But not touched enough to open the accompanying attachment.)

Oddly, after my rather lengthy post about (un)arranged marriage, I heard a bit of relevant news on BBC radio 4 the other night. Didn't quite catch all of it, with the static, drift, boiling pans and running water (I was in the kitchen, just to clarify all that), but it seemed to be a survey of schools to see if they were aware of the guidelines concerning forced marriages of school-aged children. (Many weren't even aware of the problem, let alone the guidelines for spotting and reporting possible cases.) Quick Google has come up with something that seems likely, though it says the Forced Marriage Unit has been relaunched and is now to be run jointly with the Home Office. Oh dear.

Currently reading R.M. Ballantyne's The Coral Island (for MA module), which I'd never encountered at all before. It's a hoot, with the three most surreally cheerful young heroes ever. Mind, if you think about some of the schools boys would have been attending at the time, I guess waking up on an uninhabited South Sea Island with two other jolly good fellows for company might look pretty damn good, even despite the lack of supplies or tools with which to take care of yourselves...

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I keep feeling that Mary isn't the first, but my memori is in images, so exasperating. It's part of a sense that Burnett (as i discovered more forgotten Victorian children's or more properly YA lit) was not all that original, she was riffing off things from mid-century in many of her stories. But these have been books encountered over decades, often not mine and so titles forgotten (oh, but I can tell you what the room looked like that I was reading it in, when I thought about it!) but an aggregate impression. I wonder if a good modern scholar has done a study on her, and her sources...the last bio I saw was the tale end of the hagiographies. Quite icky, esp considering that she was a rampant snob.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Even so, I used to wonder if the one she wrote called the Lost Prince or the Hidden Prince was the first piece of slash.

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Heh. Though -- mind going completely -- boys. Earlier. Boys in school. (Tom Brown?) Well, guess you could call the lads in The Coral Island a three-way pairing. ?? Well, you know what I mean! I hope...

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

School stories are a different breed of cat, I find. Though "The Hill" is outright slashy, and so is Benson's David books. But Burnett's story is so very female-emo about the boys and their obsession with one another, it's quite different from the usual run of school stories and school story friendships. (McHale and Benson aside.)

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Ah, with you now about the female-emo! Interesting...

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Interesting - thanks! I'll keep an eye open - our online resources are a bit frustrating, but I'll be plundering C's library (the university one, I mean) soon, so will see what I can find. There are a couple of good-sounding histories of children's lit listed for the module and I'm sure there'll be more when we get the course material itself.

[scholars-blog.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the linkage...

Never yet read The Coral Island - can't imagine I'm very likely to either, at least not any time soon, what with all the different things I'm trying to cram into my already over-crowded schedule ! (Sleep, what's that ?!)

Michele

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's fun in its way, and will be glad to have read it in light of this course. C. said Lord of the Flies (which I loathe) is name-checking it, in a 'This is how it would really have gone' sort of way, which is interesting.

But definitely not a must-read!

[scholars-blog.livejournal.com]

I've never read Lord of the Flies either (I'm appallingly ignorant, you know !)

Michele

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

I'd happily have joined you in that 'ignorance' (if not having read Lord of the Flies were to have anything to do with ignorance, which it doesn't) if given the choice! We had to read it in school. Yuck.

[scholars-blog.livejournal.com]

That's one heck of a convoluted sentence there ! :-D However, I understood what you were saying...

[pariyal.livejournal.com]

Wendy's going to start a proper list of Girls after Mary

I read that as "a proper list of Girls called Mary"; which would probably be a fun thing to do!

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

:) Or indeed a 'list of proper girls called Mary'!