An interesting piece on Baudrillard and the “spinning” of George Bush. (It reminds me of the media treatment of Joh Bjelke-Petersen, an Australian provincial politician who, it was subsequently recognised, was greatly boosted by the media, which cleaned up his quotes and edited his interview to make him look a great deal more coherent than he was. And it was either too cowardly or too involved to expose the corruption of his government.)
He was in many respects a precusor to Pauline Hanson. Interesting that we tend to think of populists as being charismatic performers, from the Greek demagogues onwards, yet something about the modern world (the modern media?) seems to be removing even this requirement.

Last night I was reading London Gazettes of the 1670s during a quiet patch at work, when I came across this:

“Lost on Saturday last, in New Kings-Street near St. James’s, a little black Spaniel, rough hair, white neck. Whoever shall bring the said Dog, or give notice where he is to be found, to the Angel in the same street, shall have 20 s. reward.”

(From No 1040, Nov 8, 1675)

As is still the case with many modern local papers, the classifieds make the most interesting reading; it’s a salutory lesson for journalists to realise they are why many readers buy newspapers.

This was brought home to me in Australia many years ago when I kept getting complaints about how terrible the spelling in my paper was. I couldn’t work this out, since although we had the odd howler, they were pretty rare. Then I looked at the classifieds, and all of the “quite” ponies. I never did manage to get them to get it right

… and there is nothing new about complaints about a “drinking culture”.
This from The English Alehouse: A Social History 1200-1830, P. Clark, Longman, London, 1983:

By the 1630s there was estimated to be one alehouse for every 89-104 inhabitants in England (and that doesn’t count taverns and inns!) By the 1690s the figure was about 1 to 87. (p. 44)

In London: “In 1618 the city fathers complained that the multitude of alehouses and victualing houses within this city increasing daily are grown so dangerous and enormous as it is high time to suppress the number of them”. (p.49)

Within the city proper 924 alehouses were licenced in 1657, 1 for every 16 houses, with a higher density in the poorer wards such as Farringdon without (where it was 1 in 6), but illicit premises were particularly numerous in the city.
Dekker remarked in 1638 that in some streets there was “not a shop to be seen between a red lattice”, this pattern, painted on the wall, (or a chequerboard), was used by smaller premises that had not hanging sign of their own).(p. 68)

Female visits were possible within the limits social convention. Thus women might go with their husbands, particularly when they were on a journey or there was a family or neighbourhood celebration. A group of married women might go together after a christening or a churching. “An unattached woman who went to alehouses on her own was usually regarded as promiscuous and might well be accosted or assaulted.” (p. 131)

… to whom I never did really take.

It seems that all those men sitting around in coffee and chocolate shops in the 17th century were more often joined by women than he acknowledged.

An excellent article in the journal The Seventeenth Century suggests that working-class women, at least, often went into coffee shops, while middle-class women might well have done this, in addition to using them to transact business just as the men did.

The more “genteel” chocolate houses were where higher class women were more likely to be found, although the line was a thin one: the article notes that Mary Somerset, Duchess of Beaufort, went to the Temple Coffee House for a botanical club meeting(p.261).

Of course women could be there for other reasons: “There being scarce a Coffee-House but affords a Tawdry Woman, a wanton Daughter, or a Buzome Maide, to accommodate Customers …” (quoted from ‘Well-willer’ The Men’s Answer to the Women’s Petition Against Coffee, 1674, p. 2.)

(H. Berry, “‘Nice and Curious Questions’: Coffee Houses and the Representation of women in John Dunton’s Athenian Mercury“, Vol XII, No 2, Autumn 1997, pp. 257-276.)

Various minority communitites have reclaimed pejorative words about themselves and chosen to use them with pride; I think women should do the same with “virago”.

The OED gives two definitions

2. a. A man-like, vigorous, and heroic woman; a female warrior; an amazon. Now rare.

Citing the example:

1885 19th Cent. May 472 She [Vittoria Colonna] was a virago, a name which, however misapprehended now, bore a different and worthy signification in her day.

or the far more common use:

3. A bold, impudent (or [obsolete sense] wicked) woman; a termagant, a scold.
c1386 Chaucer Man of Law’s T. 359 O Sowdanesse, roote of Iniquitee, Virago,
thou Semyrame the secounde [etc.].
1680 C. Nesse Ch. Hist. 178 God sets this black brand upon this virago Jezabel.
1865 Trollope Belton Est. xxvii. 329, I believe Lady Aylmer to be an
overbearing virago, whom it is good to put down.

I came to this from a curious but interesting piece of semi-feminist history writing, Uncrowned Queens: Women Who Influenced Manners and Moulded the Society They Lived In, by Amy Latour, first published in English in 1970 (in French in 1967). Its main characters include Isabella D’Este (who she calls in flattering terms a virago), Madame de Rambouillet and Madame de Scudery; Madame Geoffrin and Madame du Deffand; “Mrs Montagu and the Blue Stockings”; Rahel Varnhagen, Princess Cristina di Belgiojocso; Juliette Adam ; and Gertrude Stein.

I’m ashamed to confess that there was several in that list previously unknown to me; a reminder about how limited the Anglo-Saxon academic approach can be.

(Thanks to Simon from copyediting-L for the OED info). It is, by the way, a great community if you are interested in words.

P.S. It has just been pointed out to me (thanks Hal from CEL-ery) that there is already Virago Press, so the campaign has been started already: we just need to carry it forward.

“Among the earliest duels upon record” was in AD878. Ingelerius, count of Gastinois, was found dead one morning by his countess in bed. Gontran, his relative, accused her of murdering him, having been unfaithful, and challenged her to produce a champion to prove his innocence.

Unfortunately for the countess, however, Gontran was a renown warrior, so no one dared to come to her aid, until her godson, Ingelgerius, count of Anjoy, who was only 16, stepped forward.

Everyone thought he had no hope, including the king, who sought to dissuade him from the enterprise, but he persisted in his resolution “to the great sorrow of all the court, who said it was a cruel thing to permit so brave and beautiful a child to rush to such butchery and death,” however …

“Gontran rode so fiercely at his antagonist, and hit him on the shield with such impetuosity, that he lost his own balance and rolled to the ground. The young count, as Gontran fell, passed his lance through his body, and then dismounting, cut off his head, which, Brantome says, ‘he presented to the king, who received it most graciously, and was very joyful’.”

I haven’t checked it out, but a great story, and a reminder of the mentality of the age.

from Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, C. Mackay, Wordsworth Reference 1995, (first published 1852) p. 656.