Books and Beasts

[susie_flo]

Oh fiends, how does one get to be rich and leisurely? I don't mean Paris Hilton stylie - just passably well off with time on my hands would do nicely.  I have insufficient time to do things and fear I'm not v. good at multitasking (I may actually be a man in disguise).

Never mind, I shall go ahead and recommend my current audiobook. I'm sure some of you would enjoy it...

It's the compilation of 30 short episodes from a Radio 4 series called A History of Private Life, which pieces together lots of little snippets from letters, notebooks, folk songs and archives to present the everyday home lives of people in Britain over the last four centuries.   Focused mainly on domestic matters, it gives a lot of insights into women's lives - the sort of thing that is generally missing from historical accounts.  Some of the episodes take a peek at what women were up to at home while men were out "making decisions" ...and how they found their own spheres of influence by commanding households or engaging in the burdensome social ritual of 18th century tea parties.   Of course, there are hardly any records for what impoverished women were up to. (Female + lower class is a double disadvantage when it comes to recorded history).  It also talks a lot about patriarchy and married life (the episode I listened to on the way home this evening made me boiling mad) but it's not all negative, some of it is quite sweet and funny.

The first episode is all about the bed.  Apparently Samuel Pepys was happily married (ahem) and, in the 17th century, the bed was the single most valuable piece of property in any household.  Later on there is an episode on the invention of the cooking pan, with evidence of men wooing ladies based on the quality of his pans. Apparently they were prized posessions and one of the few things that women could claim sole ownership of.  (This is more significant when you bear in mind that, before the 20th century, the vast majority of people rented their homes, so furniture and domestic goods made up the entirety of a couple's property).

Anyway you might like it.  I find it all rather interesting.


Meanwhile my current pile of unread paperbacks includes a couple of oldies (I capture the Castle and Cold Comfort Farm)  both of which keep popping up on people's lists of all-time favourite books... so I assume they must be worth a read, no?

I also have a couple of newies (The News Where You Are by Catheine O'Flynn abd and The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim by Jonathan Coe). Catherine O'Flynn's first novel, What Was Lost, made me snort my drink with laughter while leaving a simultaneous pang of sadness. I hope her new one is as good.


On a less idle note, my weekend was v. outdoorsy and not at all domestic...   on Saturday we nosed at a world music festival on Richmond riverside, where we saw Punjabi dancers pulling energetic moves. Then on Sunday we visited Whipsnade animal park with Natalie and Helena.

I'd definitely recommend Whipsnade as a day out.  I say this as someone who is a little bit ambivalent about zoos*, having seen some really terrible ones where the animals were cooped up and sad (I think Chicago zoo was the worst).   But this one spans 600-acres and feels more like a safari park. The animals have a lot of room to roam around and some of them have free access to the entire park, including wallabies and Chinese Water deer (the cutest, dinkiest little deer ever).  The big fangy felines can only be seen from behind fences or wire netting, which did at least allow the 5-week-old Cheetah cubs (!!!) to gambol around with their mum in peace, without being cuddled to death by me and a pile of squeeing tourists.  The weather was beautiful and when we sat down in a grassy area to eat some lunch we were treated to the splendid sight of a line of elephants walking past, trunk to tail. I'll post some pics once I've found the time to sort through them.


On other matters, I'm beginning to get slightly twitchy about the fact that our hol is in 2 weeks and we've booked hotels all over the place in France and Italy but haven't booked any of the connecting train journeys.   I'm not even sure whether or not this is necessary to do in advance...  (e.g. does a train from Avignon to Nice need advance booking?   Or Genoa to Bergamo?) Hmmm. Internet info on this is patchy or unclear, must look harder (and maybe bother mia_oia for tips.)

Well I expect that's more than enough rambling. I must get on with sorting out my disappointingly average pasta-based dinner.  (Seriously, I am soooo sick of my local mini-supermarkets.  The Tesco Metro has at least 50% chicken-based food, and the M&S is even worse.  It might as well be called "House of Chicken".  What is wrong with people?  Is that all they eat?  Chicken, with some chicken on the side?  Tsk.)



* (I've never got around to reading The Life of Pi, but G tells me it presents an alternative view to the 'anti-zoo' stance, with a tiger that considers life at a zoo to be equivalent to a 5 star hotel with private medical care.)

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Not too sure if they are still around but you used to br able to get a Euro rail card which gave you access to most of Europe rail system negating the need to book individual journeys plus if you are doing a lot of travelling may save you some money

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Thanks... we looked into that and they do still exist, but it would have worked out more expensive as we're only doing 2 weeks. We've just used the Rail Europe site to book most of the journeys (feel much better now!)

[whiteshadow.livejournal.com]

Hey ... glad you got it sorted .... not too sure why it came up anonymous!

D

[kissmeforlonger.livejournal.com]

Samuel Pepys was a notorious shagabout. He may have had a nice bed, but he gave his poor wife no end of trouble.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Well it was largely about him being comforted by time spent with his wife in bed. But then that was only his side of the story...

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

I've just listened to a new episode which talks about the everyday sexual exploitation of maids... with Pepys being a prime culprit.

[kissmeforlonger.livejournal.com]

He worked for the Navy and had a habit of getting rid of inconvenient husbands by granting them postings on ships, thus freeing their wives for extramarital naughtiness.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

What a sleaze. I've gone right off him now.

[lazy-hoor.livejournal.com]

I didn't like I Capture the Castle but I believe I'm in the minority.

That R4 series sounds fascinating!

[kissmeforlonger.livejournal.com]

I didn't really take to it either. Cold Comfort Farm is a work of genius though.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Is it horribly twee? (I shall give it a chance anyway)

[kissmeforlonger.livejournal.com]

No - it's a parody and very dry in a 30s kind of way.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Oh dear... I will give it a chance and if it's pants I can quickly follow with cold comfort farm.

[ms-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I absolutely love I capture the Castle and Cold Comfort Farm, both beautifully evocatively written and they make me yearn to live in a time like that - providing I was upper class and had money of course.

I've almost finished Mary Wesley's Not That Sort of Girl and it too is enchanting and part of it's enchantment is the way she deals with grim things like being killed, infidelity, dying.... Kriss said something like I had the taste of a Daily Mail reader seeing as my last two books have been that one and Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust. I am also reading a book about the Black Death though, I mean it's got black in it and death - what's not to like? ;-)

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I capture the Castle gets a vote from someone. I've never read a Mary Wesley, though my mum used to like her.