Sep
26
2008
Harriette Wilson, the woman who blackmailed the king
Author: Frances Wilson
ISBN: 0571205240 DDC: 941.073092
See also: LibraryThing ; Other reviews
Harriette Wilson’s Memoirs omit both time and place; there are no addresses given, no locations described, no elections, diseases, or wars. “Dates make ladies nervous and stories dry,” she wrote.
It has taken me quite a while to finish this book. Usually that isn’t a very good sign, it means I’ve not really being all that interested in it, but usually I don’t read non-fiction. Whenever I do it always takes me longer to get through.
This is the story of Harriette Wilson who grew up to become a courtesan in Regency London. The woman whose Memoirs caused a scandal, and raised her quite a bit of cash, as those named began to buy her silence. But as well as that it is a story of how few options there were available to women at that time. It was a case of be married or be damned. Harriette seems to have chosen the damned option. It was her book that led to the, now famous, if incorrect line by Wellington, “publish and be damned”.
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941.073092,
biography,
blackmail,
Britain,
Britain - 1700s,
Britain - 1800s,
Britain - Georgian,
Britain - Regency,
British royalty - George III,
C18th,
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England - 1786-1846,
Frances Wilson,
Harriette Wilson,
history,
The courtesan's revenge,
The courtesan's revenge: Harriette Wilson,
the woman who blackmailed the king,
women,
women in society
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Jan
30
2006
Is milk really an iconic product? Is a “pint of milk” what represents Britain these days?
I mean, just when you think the whole world gone mad watching a whale is bad along comes a story about how we measure liquids. And how people will get all confused, and end up buying too much milk, drink it and die as there bodies simply can’t take those extra few milimeters. Or perhaps they’ll buy too much, and then have it in the fridge for longer, and it’ll sour and they’ll still drink it and die of milk-poisoning?
Or even worse, they won’t buy enough, and will die of milk deficiency.
It could happen, right?
If the legislation goes ahead, this will cause confusion amongst consumers, because as long as milk is sold in millilitres or litres, there will be no specific measurements required by law
So, people of Britain, aren’t you glad that your retailers think you lot are as bright as a shite?
Fiction Challenge: Find a piece of artwork you like, a painting or sculpture, something visual. Link to an image and write a story inspired by it. 500 words or less. Write it in one go, no going back and revising.
Tags:
Britain,
cultural identity
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Oct
12
2004
As some of you may have noticed from the all-consuming part of the sidebar on the left, I have been reading The Isles by Norman Davies. This is a history of the collection of European Islands which are often called the British Isles, or Britain and Ireland, or various different names.
Davies uses the term The Isles because names are not politically neutral, and although it may seem like a silly thing to argue about, but what terminology we use can often insult others. Besides he is dealing the history of this place pre-historic times, and back then nothing was British.
Because of this book I’ve begun thinking about identities, and what makes people so willing to identify with others simply because they share an accident of birth-place. Especially when this place can encompass many millions of people?
I can understand wanting a sense of belonging, of feeling kinship with those who grow up with. But on such a huge scale? Does a person living in the inner-city of London have all that much in common with someone living in the surrounding countryside, let alone further a field?
There has been an historical series on TV lately, on C4 or UTV about the island of Britain in the time of King Arthur called Britain A.D. in which the presenter re-evaluated a lot of what is presumed to have happened in Britain during and after the Romans were there.
He (I forget his name) pointed out something I have often thought, that the Dark Ages weren’t really all that Dark and horrific. Yes the Romans were in decline, and there are less written historical sources of us today, but not everywhere suffered terribly in Europe. This series showed a lot of archaeological evidence to back up the claims that British life continued on more or less as it had during the Romans, and that there was not such a huge collapse in standards of living.
The reason I’ve brought up this series is that I just watched the last episode. I taped it, was shown last week or the week before, and in this final episode the presenter kept referring to “our culture�?, “our sense of identity�? but always meaning English culture and the English sense of identity. Now I am not for one second saying he should have included Ireland in his series, but it was called Britain A.D., not England and a bit of Wales A.D. so what happened in Scotland and the rest of Britain?
Or is just that being English is still seen as the best of Britishness? I thought these statements were particularly out of place in an episode that went to great pains to say that part of what made Britain successful was its adoption of outside influences, its mixing and blending of different cultures, from the Roman to the Saxon, from the Danish to the modern Asian influences, yet every scene meant to portray modern Britain featured an English flag (St. George’s cross, if I remember correctly) and not the British flag.
Tags:
Britain,
cultural differences,
cultural identity,
history,
names are important,
Norman Davies,
The Isles
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May
12
2004
Yougov have this pdf listing the British public’s views on Iraq, and whether the US & Britain were right to to take military action against Iraq.
Its quite interesting to see the ups and downs in support/opposition. Makes you wonder if people really are that influenced by the media, or if its just the qay the questions were framed, and the different people asked. And of course there is always that Mark Twain saying about lies and statisics 
the chart version.
Current track: TSP by Muse
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Britain,
Iraq war,
people,
politics,
polls
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