It's Always More Complicated

More chelonian related news: Scientists discover 180,000 giant tortoises on one Seychelles island - we feel that giant tortoises are surely rather hard to miss, especially in such quantity.

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Matronage over patronage: the Prado and Rijksmuseum team up to research women rulers’ impact on art:

Mary of Hungary owned Titian’s Emperor Charles V at Mühlberg (1548) and commissioned his Four Furies (1548-49) for the great hall of her palace at Binche. “Imagine the impact: a widowed queen commissioning four enormous paintings of naked male bodies subjected to terrible punishments,” Garcia Pérez says. “These were more than decorative choices; they conveyed a warning about the consequences of defying imperial authority.”

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And further on women and rule, extract from Paula Akpan's When We Ruled: The Rise and Fall of Twelve African Queens and Warriors:

Njinga embodied transgression, especially of European norms. They commanded their own troops into battle; they wore what was understood by the Portuguese as masculine garb; they used a male-coded name, especially in military settings, and would answer to no other. Njinga had also declared themselves ‘Lady [of Ndongo]’ before their people and had sent letters to Governor de Souza from 1624 onwards as ‘Dona Anna, the senhora de Angola’. They presented a walking contradiction. What kind of dona or queen was this?

Steps towards identifying new Black voters in 18th-century Westminster and Hertfordshire:

This brief snapshot into the successful establishment of a family business, by people of Black heritage, is just a minor glimpse into the lives of Londoners in the eighteenth century. More work needs to be done to determine beyond doubt the family’s story. However, the findings suggest that there were many more people like them (and John London): successful business operators, who took the trouble to lodge their votes in eighteenth-century parliamentary elections.

Nearly 4m records of enslaved people in 20 former British colonies now searchable online:

“There are potentially millions of people who descended from the enslaved people in the archive,” Sewell-Smith said. “Oftentimes, one of the ways that people detach from enslavement is to make an insinuation that there’s nobody living connected to these people. That’s foundationally not true.”
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The release of the collection follows the publication last week of the Register of British Slave Traders, a three-year research project that revealed the enormous scale of Britain’s involvement in the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans. The register identified as many as 10,500 people who invested in the trafficking of enslaved Africans over nearly 250 years.

The generation raised on sugar rations – and what their health reveals 70 years later. Also a whole load of other public health interventions of the early years of the Welfare State, gone with the dodo, wonder if the codliver oil, etc also plays a part?

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This is actually an older post: ‘The Battle of Cable Street’ – 75 Years On' (it's now 90 years on):

The wider East End population, including many from the equally impoverished Irish community that Mosley tried to turn against the Jews, came out to stop the fascists too. A human wall blocked every entrance to the East End, especially at Gardiner’s Corner, Aldgate, and a series of barricades were built in Cable Street.
Seven thousand police, including the whole of London’s mounted police regiment, could not clear a pathway through for the fascists.

How a 1940s US experiment tried, and failed, to create a 'super dog' (I vaguely recall that there was at one time a Superdog in the Superman comics, but it turns out that the pooch was from Krypton to begin with):

The Rockefeller Foundation had hoped certain breeds would exhibit greater cognitive capacities. Accordingly, the dogs were subjected to a range of intelligence tests – such as maze tests where they had to locate food within a labyrinthine structure – and learning tests, where they were presented with the same problem repeatedly to see if their performance improved.
Instead, it emerged that while certain breeds performed better on some tests, none exhibited a greater aptitude across all of them. Ultimately, the researchers concluded that no breed could be said to be "more intelligent" than another.
Temperamentally, there seemed to be some differences between breeds.
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Overall, Scott and Fuller proposed that their results offered a rebuke to the eugenicists and their notions of super-dogs created through superior breeding.... The evidence from their study revealed why this was impossible. In a social animal, different traits are distributed across the population by design.

These all involve themes of disrespect and assuming main-characterness, hmmm? In ascending order of entitlement:

“This is a protected historical site not an outdoor gym”: Appeal after stones from protected Peak District monument next to Nine Ladies Stone Circle used as workout equipment​​​​​​​:

"Moving a boulder from its resting spot—and especially throwing it into dense vegetation like gorse or heather—causes direct, immediate, and long-term ecological damage.
“The space underneath an embedded rock creates a specialised microclimate – sheltered, dark, and humid.
"Rare insects, spiders, mosses, lichens, and amphibians (like newts and toads) rely on this precise moiusture balance to survive.
"Lifting a rock instantly destroys a microhabitat that took years or decades to form.
“Throwing rocks into gorse and heather acts like a heavy projectile. It breaks the woody, slow-growing structure of heather and gorse, crushing nesting birds (such as stonechats or meadow pipits), small mammals, and hibernating reptiles (like adders and lizards) that use dense scrub as cover from predators.
"Rocks act as natural anchors on hillsides and moors. Removing them exposes the fragile peat or soil underneath to rain and wind, leading to erosion and drying out peatlands that store massive amounts of carbon.”

After overtourism besieged Big Sur, the worst finally happened:

Residents of the area have long known that the threat of natural catastrophe is part of what it means to live in a remote and beautiful place. But for many, the events of this summer have renewed questions about the sustainability of mass tourism in the area, particularly in the age of Instagram.
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Such visitors weren’t shy about stopping in the middle of the road to take pictures at the spectacular, arched Bixby Bridge, even if it meant snarling traffic for miles in each direction. Local media was filled with stories of visitors trampling on plants, camping illegally and tossing their trash in all directions. In July, a selfie-ruining banner appeared on the Bixby Bridge that read: “Overtourism is killing Big Sur.” But it made little difference.

A new breed of adventurer is chasing internet fame by targeting uncontacted peoples. Critics say they are risking the wellbeing of these remote communities – and their own lives. (Perhaps we are not molto agitato about the latter.)

While some of these bozos are clearly posing risks to fragile communities, others appear to be more like poseurs:

One individual monitored by Survival (who they requested not be named, believing him to be a serious risk) publicised detailed plans to visit North Sentinel to his six-figure following, but no evidence of an earnest attempt in the two years since. Other influencers boast of travelling through “uncontacted territory”, when they are in fact on widely used routes or even touristic tribal experiences.

Dept, Mr Badger against the golfers (don't we think Toad must have had a golfing phase?): Why badgers are digging up Britain’s lovingly maintained golf courses.

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Dept, Price of Everything, Value of Nothing: One of UK’s best fossil collections sold overseas in ‘loss to the nation’. One is not entirely missing the irony of 'one of the most important collections of fossils ever made on the world-famous Jurassic Coast of Dorset' ending up in Abu Dhabi. Private collector's collection....

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Dept, sort of fossils? Tudor survivals in and around London: The Complete Tudor. Part 1: Central London, The Complete Tudor Part 2: Tudor Buildings Beyond Central London.

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Dept, slaying zombie law: Repeal of the 1824 Vagrancy Act – finally! - this was one of the laws which was used, although sex-work was itself not illegal, to harry women engaging in, or suspected of engaging in, street prostitution.

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Dept, no, it IS more complicated: Variations in sex characteristics (VSC): experiences of life in the UK for people with VSC and those who care for them.

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Dept, tempting to say 'how could they tell?': ‘Of unsound mind’? MPs, mental health and the 1886 Lunacy (Vacating of Seats) Act.

The transnational journey of Madras Curry reveals several intertwined histories, especially the complex interaction between colonialism and caste.:

Although curry appeared in English coffee houses as early as 1733, it became widespread only in the mid-19th century. The taste for “Oriental” food reflected a growing Western cosmopolitanism, initially confined to elite circles but later spreading more widely.
Historian Nupur Chaudhuri notes that memsahibs “were a major force in nurturing this newly acquired culinary taste.” But the culinary knowledge that sustained it came largely from lower-caste cooks, whose contribution has largely faded from view. Colonialism, however, helped global communities acquire a taste for what had once been dismissed as “pariah food”.

Pocket-sized Power: A feminist history of portrait miniatures: online exhibition.

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I daresay we've all heard about Lord Byron keeping a bear in his college rooms, but really, he was totally an amateur compared to Frank Buckland:

Tiglath Pileser was a young bear. A pet that Buckland kept in his college rooms on Fell’s Buildings along with a menagerie of other exotic animals, snakes, marmots, chameleons and the like. A scientist with a fascination for the weird, Frank also possessed two beer drinking monkeys called Jacko and Judy, a jackal with a blood curdling scream and an eagle that regularly crashed the cathedral’s morning matins.

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Grosvenor Square reopens as biodiverse city haven:

One of central London's oldest and most famous public spaces is set to reopen on Monday following an "extraordinary transformation" that's been a year in the making.
The new-look Grosvenor Square boasts more than 150,000 new plants chosen to withstand rising urban temperatures, alongside 40 new trees, two new wetland areas, a café kiosk and 300 extra seats.

And more on biodiversity: Cambridge & Oxford join forces to unlock over a million biological records:

The University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford have announced a major new partnership to digitise over 1.1 million natural history specimens, creating a step-change in how researchers and conservationists access vital biodiversity data.
The project is part of DiSSCo UK (Distributed System of Scientific Collections UK) – a £155 million national programme to digitise and connect the UK's natural science collections.
Together, the universities steward over 12 million specimens – the largest natural science collection in the UK outside London and Edinburgh. Over the next two years, they will establish the Central England DiSSCo UK hub, a strategic network supporting 23 museums and herbaria to prepare their collections for a digital future. The project aims to contribute 1,195,419 specimen records to the national dataset using cutting-edge technologies, including high-throughput imaging and AI.

This is rather lovely: ‘Literally growing the future’: volunteers help save Scottish rainforest by collecting 11m seeds:

A small band of volunteers has helped to grow nearly 8m native trees in Scotland, crucial to efforts to restore lost parts of the Atlantic rainforest, after collecting 11m seeds by hand.
About 100 volunteers, including retired teachers and doctors, office workers and young families, have spent tens of thousands of hours venturing into often remote woods in the western Highlands and islands to search out seed-bearing trees.

Less heartening: One person a week in England dies with undiagnosed TB, study finds:

Tuberculosis rates in England are at a 10-year high, with 9.4 cases per 100,000 people in 2024. The rate is only just below the World Health Organization’s “low incidence country” threshold of 10 cases per 100,000 – a level expected to be breached when 2025 figures are published.
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Tuberculosis is the biggest infectious disease killer globally, with 1.23 million people dying from the disease and an estimated 10.7 million falling ill in 2024.
It is preventable, and treatable using special antibiotics, and recent advances have dramatically reduced the time patients need to be on medication, even if they have drug-resistant forms of the disease.

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This is a rather weird sheep-related story - I did not realised feeling ran so high among scientists of ovine matters: Farmer's push to return lost CSIRO archives reveals 200 years of merino history:

Dr Carter was a leading wool scientist at the CSIRO in the 1940s and 1950s who left for the UK after a dispute with colleagues.
"He was really hunted out of Australia by competitive scientists who had other ideas about breeding sheep," Mr Small said. "It was a very nasty event."
His collection of Australian merino specimens went with him, and remained overseas until he died in 2005.

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What news reports from 1600s tell us about life in Mughal India:

The Mughal news reports survive in at least four known collections - in London, Bikaner, Sitamau and Kolkata - though historians suspect others may be in private hands.
One cache was preserved in bundles in the cool, dry basement of Jaipur Fort. In the early 19th century, James Tod, an East India Company official and antiquarian, borrowed a large number of these reports and failed to return them when he left for Britain in 1823.* He later donated the collection to the library of the Royal Asiatic Society.
The richest cache, in Kolkata's National Library, consists of 21 volumes devoted to the reign of Aurangzeb, who ruled the Mughal empire from 1658 to 1707 and was its last great expansionist emperor. The volumes were once part of the personal library* of pioneering Indian historian Sir Jadunath Sarkar, Aurangzeb's most influential biographer.
At first glance, much of the material appears crushingly mundane: appointments, disputes, military movements, gifts, illnesses and endless administrative minutiae.
Yet taken together, the reports amount to something rare - a near-continuous record of an empire watching itself, says Faruqui.

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Very much part of that period 'fresh air and sunlight' movement: “When we get down to swimming, we get down to democracy”: The story of the outdoor pool. The one depicted here is less ravishingly modernist than some.

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The Birkenhead Case – Wright Robinson and Conscientious Objectors: They were claiming exemption from fighting because they wanted to be treated as conscientious objectors, on moral grounds: i.e. not religious issues, which were the only ones tribunals would accept at the time.

Moar and moar on performative reading, sigh: Booksmaxxing: how reading became sexy (haven't we been here before?)

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I haven't actually read the whole of this yet, but on reading and the sexxy, it goes the full academic: Romantasy and the quest for cliteracy. Abstract:

Romantasy – a hybrid genre of romance and fantasy – is well known for its explicit ‘spicy’ content. Like romance fiction, female desire and pleasure are central to the narrative. Drawing on textual analysis from three popular romantasy series, this article examines the genre’s potential to foster cultural cliteracy: or the recognition and understanding of the clitoris as a central site of sexual pleasure. It explores how depictions of clitoral stimulation, female sexual response and orgasm function as a form of public pedagogy on female sexual embodiment. Through detailed sensory description, romantasy offers rich narratives of female pleasure that contrast the often disembodied and risk-focused approaches that pervade school-based sexuality education. While the genre is not without its limitations, it is argued that romantasy provides readers imaginative, safe spaces to engage with the embodied, erotic and emotional dimensions of sex, gender and relationships. In doing so, it offers valuable counternarratives to patriarchal and phallocentric discourses that continue to constrain how female sexuality is understood and expressed.

People have been going WO WO SYMBOLICKAL METAPHOR about this: ‘Most famous tree in the world’: Sherwood Forest’s 1,000-year-old Major oak dies. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has a different take (bless 'em):

Although this marks the end of the Major Oak as a living tree, it does not mark the end of its story. The iconic oak tree remains a powerful presence in the landscape and an enduring part of our cultural heritage. The tree and soil beneath it will continue to be a vital refuge for wildlife and the knowledge we have gained by looking after the Major Oak will help preserve other ancient oaks across the country. Its legacy will live on through its saplings and the legends associated with it, with plans being drawn up with our partners, and the tree will continue to be a vital refuge for wildlife.

Honestly, this secret org sounds like a cross between the school playground and Versailles of the Sun King with who rates and why. I guess the 'got sand kicked in his face' is an aged trope (it was in ads for some body-building thing) but we feel some such back-stories must be in play.

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'Here they come building their big fancy Stonehenges, two wooden posts was good enough for us....': Archaeologists believe they have discovered an earlier, much simpler version of Stonehenge about 3 miles (5km) away from the prehistoric monument.

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A different kind of heritage: Glassy Junction, Southall: the definitive history of ‘London’s first Indian pub’

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Today in London history [last Tuesday]: RSPCA founded in West End coffeehouse, 1824.

Honestly, have we become entirely blase about walruses frolicking in British territorial waters? Because this was the first I had heard about Magnus, who has been making quite the tour of Scotland for the past month before wafting off to Noroway o'er the faem: Magnus the wandering walrus leaves Scotland for Norway.

Goo-goo-ja-{YAWN}.

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However, much more excitement over Choughs reappear at Tintagel Castle in Cornwall after decades of absence:

Choughs are considered Cornwall’s “national bird” and feature in its coat of arms but vanished as a resident from the far south-west of the UK in the early 1970s, largely because of the decline of their grazed clifftop habitat.
Their disappearance was keenly felt across Cornwall but particularly, perhaps, in and around Tintagel because of the bird’s connections to the legend of King Arthur.

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Cockrow Bridge in Surrey will open in the coming weeks to provide wildlife, including lizards and insects, with the ability to move between fragmented habitats:

The bridge itself is a floating patch of nature reserve; its contents were excavated and transplanted from the heathland on either side. Heather, the tough wiry shrub that defines heathland, is already springing up in purples and yellows above the A3’s roar, supporting the area’s insects and reptiles.
“They can feed here, get cover, they can bask, they can breed,” says Herd. Ground-nesting birds, such as nightjars, woodlarks and Dartford warblers, will also benefit from the newly connected landscape.

But alas, Camden Highline, London’s answer to New York park, is scrapped. Though it's not entirely clear whether the completed stretch will remain?

One stretch of the Highline has been completed as part of the Coal Drops Yard development, involving a bridge across the Regent’s canal from the Camley Street nature reserve that transforms into a landscaped walkway popular with office workers and tourists.

Charity secures 1000 acres for Wales’ largest rewilding project:

The charity’s approach will include introducing hardy cattle and Welsh mountain ponies to the land, with ancient breeds of pigs to follow. Their grazing and roaming will support habitat restoration.
Peatland rewetting and natural water retention across the site over the next five to ten years means the project will contribute to increased biodiversity, cleaner water, healthier soils, improved carbon storage and reduced flood risk for downstream farmland.
It is hoped these actions will create conditions to boost various species, with the potential for red squirrels, pine martens, polecats, curlews and hen harriers to return.
The charity also aims for much of the work to be carried out by local tradespeople. Community participation will also help uncover and share stories of those who lived and worked across the site’s 55 historic stone landmarks, from Bronze Age cairns to traditional upland buildings.

Not sure if this can at all be mapped onto Cranford (based on Knutsford): Knutsford's Booths Hall granted special building status:

The house was built in 1745 for Peter Legh after he married heiress, Anne Wade.
The building was extended in 1845 by his grandson, Peter and remodelled in 1858 into an Italianate style by Edward Habershon for John Legh, a nephew of Mr Legh.
In 1917, the Legh family auctioned the hall and estate.
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Historic England says it was listed for ‘demonstrating fine craftsmanship in the brickwork and stone detailing’ of each phase.
Special features include the unusual and well-preserved first floor conservatory with a curved glass roof.
The good survival of interior features and decoration from all three building phases using high quality materials and a high degree of craftsmanship.

Another kind of heritage: Green’s Dictionary of Slang: Five hundred years of the vulgar tongue, including the invaluable Timelines of Slang.

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Smutwalk: Mapping Nineteenth-Century Obscenity - though actually, not all of the physical places are still there. Still. I think one might manage a tribute to Pornographers of Ye Olde Tymes stroll.

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Queer love and friendship: 1920s Fitzroy Square:

In 1927, Bobby and his queer working-class friends gathered in his Fitzroy Square flat. Though surveillance documents, we can learn about these vibrant gatherings, the people involved and the passionate, intimate letters that survive. These records offer a rare insight into queer lives of the time.

How Not To Do Heritage, we feel (guy has quite rightly been getting crapped on on social media): History professor finds huge Iron Age hoard: 'The collection will be auctioned at Noonans in Mayfair on 4 March as part of a coins and historical medals, external sale.'. Observe the guy's creepy smirk in the photo.

So yesterday I had further converse with another person apropos giving a talk as part of a series of events in connection with an exhibition of archives at a local record office some months hence and they sound keen, and it is something I can do, and have a fair amount of material including visual stuff already. Plus, besides expenses, there will also be a modest honorarium - they actually asked what do I usually get paid - errrr.

So there's that.

And the long review essay is finally in production and while I had some rather confusing emails about this yesterday I think this is down to Academic Journals Having Really Confusing Systems, it is indeed going ahead, and I was obliged to compose a short biographical note, both to reflect current institutional state and also be pertinent to topics addressed in review (my last bio note leaned rather heavily on my relationship with Sid).

And I am beginning to get to grips with article for review, though slightly fearing I may be Interrogating From the Wrong Perspective (journal is Not My Disciplinary Field, though article certainly overlaps it).

Have had the very cheering news that a conference I thought I would never get to again because it would involve transatlantic travel, is coming to London next year, yay yay yay, I am already pondering a paper.

In other personal news, have booked dental checkup and hygienist appointment for next week.

And in other news, the National Trust has reached its target to buy the land around the Cerne Giant:

The money will be used to improve access to the 55-metre (180ft) figure and to link up a patchwork of habitats, improving conditions for species such as the rare Duke of Burgundy butterfly.
It will also enable further archaeological work to help solve the enduring mystery of whom the giant depicts, and when and why it was created.

Firstly:

So, farewell then, PSC, whose advice to the sexually-bothered (rather than the lovelorn) has so oft provided fodder to oursinial musings. Guardian G2 today includes 23 of the best Sexual Healing columns

Not sure if they are The Greatest Hits rather than molto tipico of the kind of thing she addressed: in particular we note (as she stresses in the interview about the lessons learnt over 10 years of agony-aunting):

The female orgasm is still a mystery to some people
I’m still getting questions that show me people continue to think that the only “correct” type of female orgasm is one that’s purely vaginal and doesn’t involve the clitoris. For people to still think that, or to have that as the ideal, is extraordinary, but there it is. They just haven’t had the education to understand otherwise.

We also note the recurrent MenZ B Terribly Poor Stuff theme, what with the one who appears to regard his wife's bisexuality as a USP meaning *3SOMES* and two or three where one feels she did not interrogate sufficiently whether the male querent was actually gratifying his female partner before offering reassurance/solution e.g. 'My stunning wife makes no effort with our sex life' where we should like to know precisely what effort he is putting in, ahem.

However, there are also some of the wilder shores there.

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Secondly, and could we have a big AWWWW for this: David Attenborough seeks out London’s hidden wildlife:

Filming the wildlife of London requires an intrepid, agile presenter, willing to lie on damp grass after dark to encounter hedgehogs, scale heights to hold a peregrine falcon chick, and stake out a Tottenham allotment to get within touching distance of wary wild foxes.
Step forward Sir David Attenborough, who spent his 100th summer seeking out the hidden nature of his home city for an unusually personal and intimate BBC documentary.