Books

I am pursuing my interest in the gender war - not that I like that way of describing it because to me it isn't a war. I'm currently reading Gender and the Media by Rosalind Gill which I am finding fascinating even though it is really an academic text. It's about how the way different sections of the media portray gender so it's not just about women but about men and masculinity and about what is apparently called Queer Theory - i.e. lesbians, bisexuals and trans gender people as well as homosexuals. It covers newspapers and magazines as well as books - though not apparently the Internet.

I tried to read - and failed to finish - Dick Masterson's Men are Better than Women. It is basically a misogynistic rant and the author appears to think there is absolutely nothing a woman is good at or good for. I'm all for not having censorship but if he had written the same thing about any ethnic group it would have been an incitement to racial hatred but there is no law that covers hatred of women - or men for that matter. It made me wonder whether I would have felt the same if it had been a book written by women about men and I concluded I would have done. It is just completely distasteful. It is advertised as humour but even some men reviewing it on Amazon didn't think it was funny.

Audio book

As light relief I am listening to Jane Austen's Emma - read by Jenny Agutter - very relaxing and her voice is just perfect for this book. I had forgotten how bitchy some of the dialogue is. Mrs Elton especially is just so unpleasant in such a civilised way. I'm nearly up to the famous Box Hill incident. I really like audio books and listened to two of the discs before I got up this morning.

Boiler news

Boilerman could not get here yesterday because his son - who works with him - managed to wrench off half his thumbnail - ouch!! He arrived today and has tried to seal all the joints in the pipe from the oil tank into the boiler - without too much success. He has decided to replace the pipe from the oil tank to the boiler as being the only thing that's going to solve the problem as there must be somewhere along it's length that it is taking in air. He isn't going to dig up the old one though - just put in a new one - which makes sense. So he's coming back on Tuesday to do that. Well at least it isn't a new boiler and hopefully that should solve it - he is confident it will.

I'm feeling all right today - but then I'm one of these people who can deal with bad news it's not knowing what I'm dealing with that really freaks me out. It's also bright sunny weather - which helps. Think I need to invest in one of those light boxes.

Trip out today

I went into Boston today and had a pleasant mooch around. I've not really looked round the shops properly since I stopped working there in 2005 and the shopping area has expanded. There is even a Costa Coffee and a Greggs now not that these necessarily constitute an improvement. Everywhere was busy and as usual in Boots you needed a packed lunch and a good book before you joined the queue to pay. Why is the service so slow in Boots? I used to find this in Spalding and I thought it was just that store but Boston is just as bad.

The sun was out this morning - it's raining now - and I was standing at one end of the marketplace looking toward St Botolphs church - AKA Boston Stump - and marvelling at how dominant the church is. It sort of fades into the background if the weather is dull but comes into its own in sunny weather. One of the pubs close to the church is called The Stump and Candle which always amuses me. The Wetherspoons pub by the river is called The Moon Under Water - which may be particularly relevant if the river overflows its banks.

I've always thought Boston is a bit drab in appearance but when you look at it more closely there are so many Medieval and Tudor buildings it's amazing. Lots of lanes as well with their names in wrought iron in an arch at the beginning and end. Strange street names as well: - Strait Bargate (yes it really is spelled like that), Wide Bargate, Dolphin Lane, Pump Square, Pescod Square. I must go and remind myself of what Pevsner says about Boston buildings.

Central heating again and chocolate

Our boilerman arrived yesterday afternoon to fix the boiler - again. Which he did temporarily saying it was still taking in air and he would need to come back - when it is light to make sure it's nothing to do with the oil tank end of things. We were all three standing in the kitchen talking and half listening to the boiler to make sure it was all right. It went off - as it was up to temperature - came on again because the heating had cooled it down and then it went bang loudly three or four times. Leaving us all coughing because of the clouds of blue smoke.

So he's coming back again - in daylight - to try and find out what's going wrong with it. As he said - they shouldn't do that. Obviously he never normally sees boiler do that as he will only be called out once they've gone bang. I think I was the calmest one of the three of us - possibly because I have actually seen another oil fired boiler do something similar years ago. I called the fire brigade on that occasion because I was in the house on my own and the phone was in the same room as the boiler. So we're back to our electric back up system. Mind you we don't need the heating on at the moment because of the brilliant sunshine.

Chocolate

Yes folks as I've said before it really does make me bad tempered and irritable. I haven't had any for 3 or 4 days. I had a Cadbury's Twirl last night - feeling I deserved it - and today I am much more short tempered than normal. Yesterday I was fine - not even after the events related above was I irritable or bad tempered. Now I feel like snapping at anyone and everyone - grhh!! I really shall have to give it up - except for special occasions

Sweet Sorrow

David Roberts' Sweet Sorrow is the latest in his Verity Browne and Edward Corinth mysteries. I think it is probably one of the best as well. I wasn't impressed with Something Wicked; No More Dying - the last one - was good, but this is even better. Set in 1939 just before the outbreak of war, it includes cameo appearances by Leonard and Virginia Woolf and Dylan Thomas. Verity is waiting to be sent abroad as foreign correspondent for her paper and Edward is waiting to be told what the Foreign Office and MI5 want him to do - which may or may not include escorting the Duke of Windsor to a place of safety.

In the midst of all this Verity and Edward have just got married and bought a house in a small village in Sussex only to find that violent death has followed them. Byron Gates a philandering poet is murdered with a sword. Edward spends half the book saying he's not going to investigate the murder while actually following various leads. The dialogue is excellent and it seems as though the author has really got to know his main characters over the course of the series. The early niggles of married life where each person misunderstands the other and over reacts to them is brilliantly done. The background is really good as well - politics, the BBC and the 1930s literary scene. Good reading

Dying in the Wool

I started reading Frances Brody's Dying in the Wool last night and found I was still reading it an hour later even though I'd only intended to read the first chapter to see what it was like. It's set in the Leeds area in 1922. Kate Shackleton is a widow and she has developed something of a reputation for solving mysteries. When she is contacted by an old acquaintance - Tabitha - who would like Kate to trace her missing mill owner father and is willing to pay for her service Kate is intrigued. The book is written in the first person and has unexpected touches of humour. I was attracted by the cover which absolutely fits the story. It seems as though it is going to be the start of a series - which is always a good thing.

Women's history

I am currently reading Rosalind Miles's The Women's History of the World. It is really interesting and shows how much more freedom and opportunity women had in civilisations before the Christian era. When the Gods were Goddesses and women chose their own husbands - the plural is deliberate. It seems to have been when the world went over to monotheistic religions that things changed. Women then became chattels - subject throughout their lives to male control and decree. Segregated from society for one week in four and regarded as animals to be controlled rather than sentient human beings.

I was intrigued to read the origin of the term faggot when applied to homosexuals. Male homosexuals were burnt at the base of the fire which burned witches - i.e. used as faggots in the other sense of the word, to get the fire going. What a wonderful thing is prejudice. Especially when you consider that in ancient Greece homosexuality was the norm and women were only there for procreation and not pleasure. Though the Greeks were better in their treatment of women than later civilisations - boys and girls being regarded as equal and educated to the same standard.

Seems as though in the Middle Ages in Europe the safest role for women who wanted a long and peaceful life was to enter a nunnery. They lived a lot longer - were not subject to any rule apart from that of their order and could rise to the post of Abbess. The only alternative was marriage - and constant child bearing before an early death.