Author Archives: Natalie Bennett

I’ve surrendered to IM

October 22, 2006 – 11:16 am

I have been resisting signing up to Google Talk and other IM for fear of them consuming even more of my hopelessly overcommitted time, but I’ve finally surrendered, and probably predicatably am now wondering why I was so stubborn for so long.

For communicating with a techie helping you through a new procedure, for example, it is invaluable – so quick and easy – without the inevitable waits of email.

But I suspect my use of IM will always tend towards the prosaic, and consequently not very entertaining, unlike Petite Anglais. She had her “status” as man shopping, and she sets out the conversation, which I fear some men might find disheartening. (You’ve been warned.)

I noticed the other day that Google saves all of these talks, as though they were email. The biographers of the future might have a lot of fun…

Meanwhile, you’ll find me at my Gmail address… but please forgive any faux pas; I’m still working my way through the social protocols of the new world.

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Boys’ games

October 21, 2006 – 7:23 pm

Over on My London Your London I’ve a new reviewer, welcome Robert!, who had something of a baptism of fire at the Baron’s Court Theatre with what sounds like a pretty radical, but pretty good, show. Not for the delicate of sensibility, however.

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Old Mother Red Cap and Mother Shipton

October 21, 2006 – 7:08 pm

These are two of the lost “famous female” pubs of London – a loss chronicled today by Marina Warner in the Guardian.

…when the old hags drop from view, so does an idea of human vagaries and fates, of idiosyncratic and oddball people, with strange histories and surprising fortunes – good and bad. Pub names and signs are some of the oldest surviving traces of exchanges and folklore in a particular place. More and more names and phrases in the public arena are tied to adverts and commodities – global creep of meanings for everybody and no one. They’ve gone because no pub owner wants to admit that there’s any link between disreputable winos and what they are selling. Perhaps they’ve disappeared, too, because we’ve become sensitive to the sight of derelicts with their tins of Strongbow and plastic bagged bottles and don’t want to be reminded. Perhaps the old hag is just too rude for the times.

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Small enviro round-up

October 21, 2006 – 9:59 am

Perversely good news: the scheme to provide grants for renewable energy for homes in the UK has run out of money. Perhaps in part due to a Green Party drive to get a high take-up rate. But it looks like the government is going to be forced into providing more money.

There is meanwhile a quite decent sounding EU drive to cut energy use by 20 per cent by forcing producers to make power-using items more efficient. Sadly, however, it seems, it has hit a hitch. I can’t find a news story on it, but the word I have is that it is meeting strong resistance and will be delayed. Anyone know more?

“In the good news but…” category, milk that tests positive for antibiotics (and detergents!) is going to be banned from the food chain. But … shouldn’t it always have been?

Finally in America … cars could be banned from Rodeo Drive, “the four-block mecca of luxury shopping in Beverly Hills”.

Meanwhile in California, a Bioneers conference in California – perhaps a bit on the alternative side for my taste, but some interesting ideas.

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Existential angst, but amusing angst

October 19, 2006 – 11:45 am

Over on My London Your London, Jon has a review of Notes from Underground, by Eric Bogosian performed, very nicely, by Will Adamsdale. Sounds like a good show.

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Carnival of Feminists No 25

October 19, 2006 – 2:12 am

Welcome to the anniversary edition! Yep, the carnival is one year old, but, I think, well beyond its wobbly baby steps. Twenty-four bloggers have hosted the carnival; there’ve been (at a very rough count) about 1,000 posts linked and commented on, and, from some of the figures that have been reported to me, probably approaching 100,000 page impressions. That must translate into thousands of readers. You’ve all contributed to the success of the carnival. Thank you!

(Should you be catching up, you can find a complete listing of carnivals down the right of the home page.)

I thought it not unreasonable to bring it back “home” for the anniversary edition. I’d welcome comments, suggestions for the future, and of course, always, new volunteers to host. (Ragnell on Ragnell’s Written World has just collected some thoughts about the experience of hosting.)

You don’t have to be a “big” blogger; you don’t have to be any particular “type” of feminist – I aim only for as broad a mix in philosophy, geography and speciality as possible. Then, while I have some suggestions as to how to proceed, and will always be available to answer questions and help out, the carnival will be yours for that edition, to do with it as you will.

So enough of the navel-gazing; to the carnival proper…

I’m going to privilege this time one sort of post that I’d really like to see more of in the carnival – celebrations of women’s contributions throughout history (including recent history). So often, it seems, women who were prominent in their own times are lost to societal memory within a generation or two. Yet they can be an inspiration, a source of ideas, hope.

WOMEN OF HISTORY

First, a celebration of lots of women: on Feminish, parts one and two explore The March of the Women, 5/6 October 1789. Was the French Revolution a Women’s Revolution?

More personally, on Walking the Berkshires, Tim Abbott reflects on his “Aunt, Het”, Esther Gracie Ogden, suffragette. Her Christmas poem for 1914 read in part: “When the vote is won and the talk is done the jokes she will not resent, / For you can bet we’ll all vote for Het, when she runs for President!”

And Sappho on The Sappho Manifesto, celebrates her Revolutionary of the Week, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Jennings, who played a big part in getting public transport in New York racially desegregated.
read more »

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