Philobiblon

Whow what a carnival: the Carnival of Feminists No 61 is up on Diary of a Freak Magnet, and not only is there a huge, and spectacularly good, collection of posts, there’s also some create cartoons to go with it.

I particularly liked the humour section, but there’s plenty for anyone there – so do go over and check it out!

Let’s start with the big stuff – we can officially declare that civilisation has come to an end. Camden Kiwi explains.

And old categories of sexuality are inadequate says Penny Red.

Then, shock horror, Jim on The Daily (Maybe) finds The Sun employing some heavy Photoshopping.

Since it’s summer, some time for holiday reading: Molly on Gaian Economics came late to Cider with Rosie and finds it worth the wait. While Investigations of a Dog is staying resolutely at work, considering the gender of war horses.

Still in books: On the F-word, Abby explores a range of fictional characters who are
both fat and content. I think “the hefty fairy” sounds lovely – good for five-year-olds of all body shapes.

And summer’s time for travel: Huw on My Thoughts Exactly charts a day in Granada.

Going pictorial, Rashbre’s whale-watching in Canada and Ruth on Meanwhile Here in France is watching the lavender harvest. And Unmitigated England is reflecting back on summers (and winters past), and a lost road.

But Susanne on Suz Blog is staying home with a summer project – tracing her family tree. She explains how. And, Diamond Geezer reports, a great many people are getting started on the London Olympic stadium.

And despite the sunshine, Douglas on Scribo Ergo Sum has been taking in The Dark Knight.

Okay – there ends the entertainment, now sit down down and pay attention….

Matt on The Wardman Wire is campaigning for blogger Dave Walker. (This is the introduction to the case – from an eight-post series; well worth following through.

On the Karadzic case, Charles Crawford collects a range of views and others his thoughts on international justice.

And I seem to recall there was a byelection last week – Craig Murray offers thoughts on the process of the count at Glasgow East, while Cicero reflects on what it means for the future of the Union.

And finally on the political side, a bicycle got stolen. And a lot of fuss was made, just because it belonged to David Cameron…

Turning to a spot of blogland navel-gazing, Paul Linford reminds us that it is guide to political blogging time again; and Kate on Cruella-blog hosts the 25th Carnival of Socialism.

If you missed last week’s while on holiday, it was on Liberal England. Next week the carnival moves on to The Wardman Wire.
You can find out more about the carnival here.

Have been struggling to find a way to convert a 24K BMP (bitmap) scan file to a JPEG, or at least anything of reasonable size (none of the free online converters seemed to be able to handle it), and eventually found Irfan, which looks like a very handy programme that may also solve some of my other conversion problems. And it is freeware!

After the bees, the next animals to suffer from a mysterious mass die-back are oysters in France. And the population of puffins in Northumberland is tumbling fast.

And while some species – like the cattle egret which has just started breeding in England might benefit, you wonder what other species will suffer in consequence…

I’m currently reading Andrew Marr’s A History of Modern Britain, a lively account covering political and cultural events from 1945 onwards, and it introduced me to Joan Littlewood, responsible for the Theatre Workshop, which was, Marr says, “by far the most dogged and courageous attempt to make theatre matter”. She was “a Cockney-born outside who fled RADA for a career in provincial poverty… touring through Kendal, Widan, Blackpool and Newcastle, they would be the very first act to exploit the Edinburgh Internal Festival as a “fringe” performance … their first major play … was Uranium 235 an impassioned and funny account of the road to the nuclear bomb, with a strongly anti-nuclear message at a time when … the pro-Bomb Labour government was widely supported.” (p. 94)

Yet, as Marr said, the “Angry Young Men” are much better remembers. Female, left, forgotten…. ever thus.

Saw this 1m-plus high thistle in a paddock in a farm just outside Moulins-Engilbert in Burgundy. Although of course they didn’t cooperate when I took the camera out, there were about a dozen bees swarming around it obviously having a lovely time, even though the flowers were well past their prime.

A lot is lost when we tidy things up too much….

… but when I finally escaped the office tonight about 8.30, got to the corner of Grays Inn Road, and found that Critical Mass was wending its way past – well what could I do?

A very pleasant hour – the degree of friendly cooperation that lets some 300 cyclists (estimates of earlier numbers ran from 700 to 800) wind their way through the streets of London is a pleasure to behold.

This was the “ciggy and have a dance break” in Smithfield market:

Only carrying the camera-phone, so no gee-whiz photography, but some interesting locals…

Spent last night eating Spanish tapas (with a smattering of Indonesian dishes) in a small Burgundy village, the meal accompanied by a traditional Parisien chanteuse with accordianist, at a table where the language was mostly Dutch – although with some English in deference to my total lack of that language. We had a brief interlude of (blessedly quite good) karoake German, and the table definitely having the most fun in this Dutch-run chamber d’hote were four local women having a night out “sans maris”.

There’s a lot to be said for Europe…

Not perhaps very practical – two humans each holding a bear by the tail and urging them on to fight, but certainly you can hardly miss the symbolism.

From St. Andoche, Saulieu, Burgundy. (Lots more carvings on that link.)

Also boasts this rather severe St Bridgette de Suede with a book (and what I thought was a “don’t you dare ask me to wash the dishes” expression….)

And an early 16th-century Madonna said to have been donated by Madame de Sévigné

I was talking to a French estate agent yesterday and she reckoned that there’s the greatest risk of ticks in the vicinity of oak trees. Is this true, and if so why?

When you open Google maps in France, you start with a map of France. When you do it in the UK, you get a map of the US. Huh?

According to the U.N. Population Fund, 190 million women become pregnant each year. Around 50 million choose abortion, but unsafe procedures kill about 680,000 of them each year.
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