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Five things for the 14th
Jul. 14th, 2012 07:14 pmToday is / would have been Woody Guthrie's 100th birthday. Sing something appropriate.
C'est aussi, bien entendu, la fête nationale. Joyeuse fête aux lecteurs francophones.
It's Durham Big Meeting day, too. We went down to the racecourse to see the banners and hear the bands - and the speeches. Much anticipation about Ed Milliband's speech, after all the years when the leader of the Labour Party distanced himself from the Gala; it was pretty anodyne, promising good things when he is Prime Minister but without undertaking to be more active in opposition. Good speeches from Tom Watson and Mark Serwotka, and we managed to distract H. from saving the NHS for long enough to have a drink with her and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
frumpo.
I'd prefer to draw a veil over the apricot and oatmeal bread; it was an improvisation too far, and I clearly need to go back to following recipes for a bit. For reference, though: the one thing I was worried about - using dried apricots which had been soaked for quite a long time - was the one thing that worked fine.
I have asked before whether Charlotte Bronte actually invented the use of Shirley as a girl's name (names being one of the topics about which it is fruitless to interrogate the internet, which will deluge you in unreliable information). Here's the relevant passage (from her novel Shirley, of course): "Shirley Keeldar (she had no Christian name but Shirley: her parents, who had wished to have a son, finding that, after eight years of marriage, Providence had granted them only a daughter, bestowed on her the same masculine family cognomen they would have bestowed on a boy, if with a boy they had been blessed)..." I was reminded of this by a passage in Elsie J. Oxenham's Robins in the Abbey (about which, very much more in due course). Maidlin tells Joy that their friend Cicely ('the President') has had a baby daughter, and named her Shirley: "'Shirley is quite a usual name for girls now,' Maidlin observed. 'But in this case Cicely means it to stand for you and Joan.'" Joy responds in surprise that Shirley was indeed her maiden name and that of her cousin Joan. This suggests that by 'now' (1947) the given name is seen as only coincidentally the same as the surname.
C'est aussi, bien entendu, la fête nationale. Joyeuse fête aux lecteurs francophones.
It's Durham Big Meeting day, too. We went down to the racecourse to see the banners and hear the bands - and the speeches. Much anticipation about Ed Milliband's speech, after all the years when the leader of the Labour Party distanced himself from the Gala; it was pretty anodyne, promising good things when he is Prime Minister but without undertaking to be more active in opposition. Good speeches from Tom Watson and Mark Serwotka, and we managed to distract H. from saving the NHS for long enough to have a drink with her and
frumpo.I'd prefer to draw a veil over the apricot and oatmeal bread; it was an improvisation too far, and I clearly need to go back to following recipes for a bit. For reference, though: the one thing I was worried about - using dried apricots which had been soaked for quite a long time - was the one thing that worked fine.
I have asked before whether Charlotte Bronte actually invented the use of Shirley as a girl's name (names being one of the topics about which it is fruitless to interrogate the internet, which will deluge you in unreliable information). Here's the relevant passage (from her novel Shirley, of course): "Shirley Keeldar (she had no Christian name but Shirley: her parents, who had wished to have a son, finding that, after eight years of marriage, Providence had granted them only a daughter, bestowed on her the same masculine family cognomen they would have bestowed on a boy, if with a boy they had been blessed)..." I was reminded of this by a passage in Elsie J. Oxenham's Robins in the Abbey (about which, very much more in due course). Maidlin tells Joy that their friend Cicely ('the President') has had a baby daughter, and named her Shirley: "'Shirley is quite a usual name for girls now,' Maidlin observed. 'But in this case Cicely means it to stand for you and Joan.'" Joy responds in surprise that Shirley was indeed her maiden name and that of her cousin Joan. This suggests that by 'now' (1947) the given name is seen as only coincidentally the same as the surname.
