England, why England?

[nineveh_uk]

Mike Selvey in the Guardian writes with the voice of a desperate man:

Watching England was a painful experience yesterday. Extracting your own pancreas with a knife and fork could not be more so. The promise of an opening stand of 68 ended unfortunately when Andrew Strauss trod on his stumps - as if England have not discovered enough ways to get out in recent times - and was followed by a decline and fall of the middle and lower orders of such magnitude it might have been recorded by Gibbon.

What the hell are the management playing at? The top order have forgotten how to bat, and the captain isn't worth his place, but do we worry? Oh no, because you see, Collingwood has got lots of character.

Who cares? Today is my last day at work for a week and a half. Alas, the jubilation is slightly marred by this afternoon's need to (a) work out something complicated on the website and (b) buy a strapless bra.

Comments

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I hope you have a good break - are you going away anywhere?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Wedding in York, parents in Leeds, and then the Dorothy L Sayers Society annual convention next weekend. I hope the weather is nice for a bit of walking in the Dales. "Real" holiday will be in Switzerland in September - I can't wait.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

If England were what England seems
And not the England of our dreams,
But only putty, brass and paint,
'Ow quick we'd drop 'er -


A DLS con? How exciting! Where? Are you giving a paper?
Will you send back dispatches from the front?

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Guildford, I believe
http://www.sayers.org.uk/news.html#forthcoming

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Yep, glamorous Guildford this year (it moves around the country). I am not giving a paper (tempted as I am to offer Wimsey fanfic as a subject, I'd probably find the evil Estate getting heavy as a result), and will probably not give dispatches, being the sort of person who is slightly embarrassed to admit she would attend such an event in the first place.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Hmm, given that DLS wrote Sherlock Holmes fanfic, I don't think the Estate has any right to disapprove. And your take on Wimsey fanfic would be both hilarious and enlightening, so I am disappointed. However, you are probably right that it's better to keep below the parapet.

Perhaps if anybody says anything really interesting you could sort of mention it casually in passing without making a big fuss about exactly where you heard it?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I would certainly agree there is no moral right. Unfortunately the Estate is owned by a rather distant relation who doesn't give a stuff about the work, and is renowned for being rather uncooperative, and the only hope is that she dies before she gets round to destroying all the uncatalogued stuff remaining in a garden shed somewhere. It's a pity, because I think that a good number of people would find the subject interesting even if they are not currently fanficcers or aware of fanfic. The person who was the first to suggest to my ears that Impey Biggs was _obviously_ going around picking up young constables was certainly not an LJ user.

I am going to take along my Brazilian Wimsey review, though, and see if anyone is aware of it.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Not me, though I'm aware of it. The mind boggles a bit, but then at his best King always has been interested in character. Still, killing Harriet in the Blitz is harsh, and if Peter were ever going to start drinking too much due to depression (as opposed to drinking a lot quite routinely in a C20 aristocratic way) I think he'd have already done it. Good strategem for legitimacy, though - I may try it.

What's the current fandom ruling on whether it is "technically" slash if the characters are gay in canon?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

There really isn't world enough and time (although I could have lived without the mental image).

Perhaps it is only the Lord Peter mailing list who are so adamant that Sir Impey is not gay. To such people I tend to argue that in that case women don't like him because he breeds the canaries for poison gas experiments, and they can see the madness in his eyes.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Isn't he described as looking like a Greek god, or having curls like Greek god or something? I've always thought that was rather a giveaway.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Something like that - I think I always took it as marmoreal and cold, but I see what you mean.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

My impression, from dabbling on the shores of metafandom, is that current popular usage defines slash as any two people of the same sex getting it off with each other, regardless of canonicity. Though I'm not convinced that Sylvia and Eilunedd are canon lesbians, just because they pass the Wotsit test about talking about something other than a man.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I have mixed feelings about the Wotsit test, largely because The Marriage of Figaro would fail it.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Most of the classics of drama/opera would fail it. Shakespeare gets an Honourable Mention because of As You Like It, where Celia and Rosalind discuss Running Away as well as falling in love. Other than that, we pretty much have to wait for Ibsen and Chekhov.

[snorkackcatcher]

I remember a comment from Matthew Engel, back when he was the Guardian cricket correspondent, on the forthcoming selection of a touring party: "Let us hope that justice will be seen to be done. Usually, it has to be seen to be believed." I find this attitude aids greatly in deconstructing the current state of English cricket. At any rime.