It's Always More Complicated

You know, I was looking at this week and thinking that I had more or less a clear space to start cracking on with the book review that's been hanging over me -

Ha ha.

For some while now I have been receiving emails from a credit card provider that they are Changing My Card and it will be arriving shortly, and it finally did on Monday, so I had to engage in all the rigmarole of remembering what sites I had entered it in as the paying method, and what I had subscribed to, etc, so that I could change all the details, and that was more faff than one might suppose.

And I fell into a bit of a rabbit-hole apropos of prep for Cold Comfort Farm reading group, which not only involved paging through various works on middlebrow women's fiction in my collection but also Having Ideas of My Own and writing them and honestly, might eventually turn into something on My Other Blog??

Also Other Projects have been stirring and I was alerted that I was supposed to have done something in connection with one of them, and, did that thing, and in the case of the other there were essays for the special journal issue I needed to read -

Then I thought that maybe I should make some effort to look at some correspondence relating to another project of mine which involves getting in touch with the relevant repository two weeks in advance (and maybe I could combine this with a trip to the BL to look at a certain newspaper on microfilm, as although it has been digitised it is part of a database that is paywalled, and although some acquaintances have access, not to that particular item, and I want Just One Article, fume), so that was a thing.

Plus I have been asked to Be A Reference for a younger scholar applying for a fellowship, so had to give some thought to that -

So the review is still backburnered.

It is torrid today in London, my dearios.

And I have booked myself to go to an in-person seminar at the Institution With Which I Have The Honour to Be Associated later this afternoon, o joy.

Somebody is presenting on a couple of fairly obscure early C20th progressives/sexologists whom I have also done a spot of work on, so feel a bit obliged to turn up.

Also, it is the time for applying for renewal of fellowship, so showing one's face about the place may be A Good Idea.

In other news I have actually managed to acquire an in-person GP appointment apropos of the knee issue for next week at a reasonable sort of time of day, after only a day and a bit of keeping going back to the practice site....

(Mix and shake that metaphor and pour it over ice and serve it up with a wee paper umbrella!)

Somebody today on Another Site was mourning the Old Days on LJ which made me think of:

All the various Old Days in my life on and offline which were by their nature transient -

- but that transient didn't mean that they didn't have lasting effects/influence.

(I will spare dr rdrz accounts of various short-lived initiatives I encountered among the archives and in the course of Mi Researchez which nonetheless echoed down the years.)

Also that even had things not fallen out the way things did with LJ (hiss, boo, etc) by now it would almost certainly not be the same experience as it was in the 00s - people would have come, people would have gone, our interests and energies would have changed....

So we would probably be nostalgically regetting the glory days before [whenever].

Involved in proving, for certain life admin purposes, that partner and I are real people who are who we say we are, involving downloading an app, which one then has to validate by entering one's ID and they will send a code by text 'may take a few minutes', they have a very capacious definition of 'few minutes', ahem. Then entering various details, scanning various documents to a satisfactory quality (don't ask, just don't ask, I have done screaming now, thanks), and taking a selfie.

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Do we even wish to detain ourselves over Michael Billington's ranking of the works of the Bard? I pretty much Dorothy Parkered, as much as one can with a newspaper, when I saw he had not only put Much Ado 20th out of 35, but considers B&B the subplot.

Light the barbecue in the marketplace, I have a heart to eat there!

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Though it is hardly anywhere near the same class for utter crassness of this - honestly, why are these people? A tourist has been charged after allegedly climbing a colossal marble statue in Florence to touch its genitals for a pre-wedding prank.

Anyway.

Partner and I are in need of a solicitor for a fairly routine and non-urgent matter, so, looked up who it was we went to last time we had a routine life admin thing requiring the services of a legal professional.

(This was actually a bit more time-consuming than I anticipated, have I mentioned that archivists are really Not All That at keeping on top of their own papers? The cobbler's children syndrome.)

But, I found the name of the practice and looked them up on The Internetz and they are there, as having gone out of business some few years ago, on Companies House website.

And they are by no means the first solicitors I have had dealings with, though I think the ones in Kentish Town saw me through the purchase of First Flat and present dwelling and possibly various other legal matters, but are now no longer operating more or less adjacent to the Tube station.

I suppose that these days one should not anticipate that you have Old Mr Thing the attorney-at law and Young Mr Thing his son who keeps up the practice and Even Younger Mr Thing who is being brought on in the family tradition -

- and that these things come and go like everything else and they are no longer quite the repository of folk memory like in mystery novels.

Way back when I was starting out as a Wee Babby Archivist, I remember that a big thing of the day, practically A Crisis, was solicitors' records. As I was never actually employed in a repository where I had any direct dealings with the problem, I'm not sure whether this was due to practices going defunct, or just somebody going down into the cellar and realising that they still had all the papers from Jarndyce v Jarndyce back to its origins along with tons of other stuff. But anyway, there were Massive Amounts of Very Misc Material (quite surprising what turned up) which looking back I suspect had all sorts of issues around ownership to complicate matters even further.

(If anyone has recs for N London solicitors would be glad to hear of them.)

And I'm not at all sure it's culture-neutral, hmmmm?

Okay, I had parents who had books in the house and read to me and once I could read took me to the local library to get tickets for the children's department.

No children's museums that I recall but visiting the rather dull local one attached to the public library, and visits to local sites of historical interest.

My primary school was not, I think, particularly distinguished - suspect that the year there were a whole four of us passed the 11+ was Memorable - but there were some good teachers.

I don't know how one calibrates into all this my mother knowing the teacher of Infants 1 and asking her about whether I could go to school once I had turned 5 (having an autumn birthday) and her saying, oh, send her along, on account of my mother thinking I was entirely ready.

And then the Head saying I should do the 11+ technically a year early - (which was not a given, people did get kept back)

Going to a fairly academically-intense girls' grammar school, where I did get the odd spot of class-hassle, I realise in retrospect (including from horrid Mrs B of the really weird ideas about sex), where I was marked out as university material and my parents exhorted to keep me on the sixth form -

Which they were entirely happy to do.

So yes, I was I suppose supported on my academic journey. But some of that was external factors, like the existence of that extinct phoenix, full student grants.

This is being one of those weeks when I'm not sure if Mercury is in retrograde or in the opposite of retrograde, if there is an opposite.

In that some things are going unwontedly smoothly and unexpectedly well, and other things not, and plans being thwarted, etc.

E.g., further to the expeditious renewal of my library membership, I was going to boogy on down to the relevant institution to pick up my card and do a spot of light research (I think I may have copies of the books I need to look at but they are not in any of the places where I would anticipate them to be). However, it is chucking down rain in buckets, I think I will leave this until a drier day. Dangers untold and hardships unnumbered is one thing, sitting around with wet shoes in an airconditioned reading room is another.

However, in connection with the research, I remembered that Elderly Antiquarian Bookdealer/Bibliographer had mentioned to me a Person who has come up as Of Interest, and I thought I would see whether they are still around, and apparently they are at the latest report though nearly 90. And not only that, last year, why was I not told, there was published a limited edition from a small press of various of their uncollected writings, including an essay on the very person. This is something I would have bought anyway had I known it existed.

And lo and behold, I ponied up for this hardback, limited edition etc: and got a massively discounted price in their winter sale calloo callay.

On the prehensile tail, I managed to break a soup bowl at lunchtime. Fortunately not containing any soup.

Just one of those weeks that felt like a strain - lower back flareups and insomnia and long-scheduled commitments that could not be deferred -

Though I did get a few small bits of life admin accomplished, like finally making an appointment for the first session of dental inlay work and chasing up whether journal reviews editor actually got my review.

But at the moment having the blahs.

Text today from my general practice to book Covid + flu jabs - actually in a months time, but I now have a slot booked.

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Having been moaning on over at bluesky about scholars these days not acknowledging existing (older) historiography, Dept of Preening Gratification was coming across footnote cite to 30 year-old co-authored work as 'A key starting point' for certain 'productive considerations' within the field.

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On the other prickly paw, I am still failing to get up to a proper swing at the essay review - keep niggling and picking at the bit I've already done.

Partly due to Interruptions happening.

Also partly due to not sleeping terribly well this week for some reason.

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Discovered today that I had somehow acquired an ebook of recent work on subject I have had far too much to do with and had totally forgotten about it. Looking up an area of Mi Pertikler Xpertize, o dear, a number of niggling Errours.

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Attended a webinar the other day where someone claimed that a certain class of records did not survive in respect of the lower orders on account They Could Not Write, and I was more, no, it's an issue of preservation, what about those postcards that I spoke about on a TV programme once - but that is such an annoying story, what DID happen to the cards after the filming? - apart from the flaunting of Being Meedja Personality, so decided not to raise my virtual hand.

Health stuff:

Had a telephone appointment with a GP about results of my routine health check the other week, concern over somewhat high cholesterol level - the good news is, I'm not diabetic, but I should endeavour to get that cholesterol down. I already consume a fairly healthy diet (maybe I need to cut down on the margeritas, though), so it's probably down to upping the exercise, within the constraints of the arthritis. Apparently one can book directly to the local NHS physio place, which might be an idea though who knows how long the wait is. Various links supplied to Exercises for the Old and In Pain.

Dentist yesterday: managed to get so much work done on where the crown used to be that they cancelled the additional appointment today and I only need to go back in 2 weeks. Yay.

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On walk today, observe that the waterlilies on the eco-pond (still seething with INVASIVE PREDATORY GOLDFISH) are endeavouring one last reprise of their Monet tribute act.

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Have finally (if temporarily) got back access to former workplace email. Going through to see who I need to inform that it will be an ex-email address very shortly.

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That annoying thing when somebody has given my name to somebody else as a person who is an expert on something on which I am not actually an expert: it is something which is adjacent to things I have worked on, I reviewed a book or books on it quite some considerable time ago, and I have not been keeping up with the historiography, except in the sense of having a feeling that there has possibly been some important recent work. I am so not the person to ask to be on your podcast about it. Grrr.