That bloke

Not so much re-inventing the wheel, as having to point out something that is already known and has been for a long time (it was not really news when my primary-school teacher was making the point): Children’s reading should prioritise pleasure over learning, says laureate. Sigh.

***

Also on perhaps a similar theme that the obvious straight road is not actually the way there: science is not simply a sequence of tasks that can be optimized:

It advances through a process analogous to Darwinian evolution: variation across many independent efforts; selection through critique, replication, and competition; and retention of robust results. This distributed structure is what allows science to correct itself and to generate novelty. Independence is not incidental; it is the mechanism that produces both reliability and discovery.
....
The scientific system thrives on inefficiency: redundant efforts, failed attempts, and divergent paths. These are not costs to be eliminated but sources of discovery. By contrast, optimization pressures drive convergence—faster iteration within a constrained search space. The result may be more output but less exploration of the unexpected.

I stumbled across a remarkable collection of photographs:

There are several images in the collection of relevance to queer history, not least in those that record varieties of touch between men that would later become discouraged. In one, we see four young men sitting together on a bench in a garden: two of them hold hands. In another, a man takes another man on his lap, posing as lovers in a pose that mimics the popular visual culture of the day.
But the collection is arguably of most interest to LGBTQ+ history, specifically trans history, for the kinds of gender play it records. Several images in the collection illustrate traditions of gender crossing in British culture. Some show pantomime dames and another perhaps shows the role of a boy character taken up by a woman.

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An extraordinary story of people who appear to be the 'good guys' (Liberal representing the anti-slavery interest in Lyme Regis) absolutely knee-deep in electoral corruption. Bonus appearance of Mary Anning!

What is most striking about Pinney’s career as an MP is not just the willingness of a fairly advanced Liberal to engage in wholesale electoral corruption, but his own attitude to slavery given his family background. As early as 1832 he had called on the hustings for its complete abolition and in 1838 he willingly voted for the Whig government’s apprenticeship reforms.

This is fascinating: The Plotland Houses of Britain: How a 20th century working-class housing movement was stifled, but I'd like to see some consideration of how the post-WWII prefab housing developments and attitudes thereto would fit onto what's described here.

(Also resonates with account in Houlbrook's Songs of Seven Dials about what well-intentioned progressive town-planners wanted to do to those traditional parts of inner London, but in the event, didn't.)

To clarify: what we did yesterday was the secular and bureaucratic equivalent of calling the banns.

This has to be done some while before the actual ceremony (although one has to present evidence that this is booked): presumably to allow time for the sibling of the mad previous partner one is keeping confined in the attic to travel from the Caribbean and burst in to interrupt it.

But many thanks for the congratulations!

Or that's what it feels like, over the last just over a week.

There was going to the solicitors to sign our wills.

There was going over to coughingbear and hano's for a get-together (very nice to see people!)

There was deciding that maybe a knee support would be advantageous for the knee which has been being bit wonky of late so I ordered one Click and Collect from the local Argos. And it does seem to ameliorate the situation somewhat though I think I probably need to set about making a GP appointment about it, since it has not gone away in a few days as I hoped it would.

In other health matters have been being mildly hassled by my dental practice about booking a hygienist appointment, which, when I got round to, found they could not actually fit me in for for the next 4 weeks.

There was going to Book Launch for work by a long-term acquaintance in academic field, at rather elite venue in The City, a bit of a faff to get to, though part of that might have been getting off the bus at the wrong stop, though building works occluding street names did not help. Very few people I knew apart from Author, who was besieged by people wanting her to sign copies of The Book, but had nice chat with an editor who knew somewhat of My Earlier Work.

Yesterday I flopped at home apart from attending an online seminar (actually a substitution offered for the one I'd booked for last week which was cancelled, felt it would be civil to attend).

Today we boogeyed on down to the Register Office to Register Our Intention of Civil Partnership, at which they interrogate one not only about previous marriages etc but endeavour to ascertain whether one is Under Duress.