My latest blood donor magazine has some doozies:

* Claret-coloured blood suggests haemoglobin may be leaking from the red cells, a natural process of aging. (So you get less blue-blooded with age?)

* If you had a fatty meal the night before your blood might be pinkish – probably not good if you’re trying to impress the nurse!

* Some oral contraceptives turn your plasma bright green (no they don’t say which ones), while self-tanning pills can make it flourescent orange.

So does this mean you glow in the dark?

* Downward social mobility in China: a Ming dynasty mansion sees probably the last generation of its builders’ family. I think of travelling around Xian 10 years ago. The roads were all blocked with building materials for new houses. In the countryside at least, it is probably still another generation before the Chinese start treasuring and restoring such treasures.

* The media is still hounding Joanne Lees. She was the victim of a terrifying attack, showed great courage to escape and save herself, knowing her partner had been killed. And yet you still get ridiculous headlines like this, “jury still out”. NO IT ISN’T. A Northern Territory jury, who knows its own very well, has found that Bradley Murdoch killed her boyfriend and subjected her to the ordeal she described. A judge made it VERY clear he believed her. Yet on Monday coming out is a book questioning the verdict. Pure sensationalism – but then you learn it is from a Daily Mail journalist – so a good dose of misogyny mixed in too.

* Turkey is teetering on the brink of what could be an enormous step: Could it really become part of the EU? (What a wonderful thing that would be if that happened – a great blow to the “clash of civilisations” thesis.) But as the trial of Orhan Pamuk shows it still has a long way to go.

* American tactics in Iraq: “A 30-year-old Oxford graduate with no public relations experience has been handed a $100m contract by the Pentagon – to plant false stories in Iraqi papers.” So, that’s what you call encouraging democracy?

* Finally, the death of a brave man. This was the only story I found identifying a teacher killed in Afghanistan for daring to ignore Taliban threats to stop him educating girls. He is recorded by the single name Laghmani. You can only hope, perhaps against hope, that another teacher will step up to take his place.

The deadline for guaranteed consideration for the 5th Carnival of Feminists, which will be on Scribbling Woman is tomorrow night (the 17th). Nominate early, nominate often ….!

And if you could help to spread the word that would be most appreciated.

Nominations should be sent to jones at unbsj dot ca

“I loved his willy. I really loved his willy.” This is not the sort of audience reaction you expect to hear outside a staging of an ancient Greek play, but the new show at the Arcola Theatre is Aristophanes, and Lysistrata, and a Lysistrata far closer in intent to the original than the po-faced American translation (Douglass Parker’s) sitting on my shelf in which the introduction proclaims the play is about “Love Achieved”.

Of course it is not about love, but sex, and women exercising the power of their bodies to achieve the highest of goals, peace. So the four-foot-long flourescent tubes rising, and rising, and rising, from the groins of the magistrate, the Spartan amassador and Kinesias are entirely explicit in their meaning, and the actors, and the text, have no problems with that.

To an ancient Greek audience this was ludicrous fooling, but today it has a more serious meaning. The young women in the audience were cheering on Lysistrata (a powerful performance by Tanya Moodie) all of the way, as she dominated the play, and the men – this is girl power for the Naughties, and a far more admirable model than that offered by the Spice Girls in the 1990s. READ MORE

There’s a curious conundrum at the heart of Britain’s National Portrait Gallery. The institution collects people, as recorded by art. So as you walk around the rooms, are you looking at historic individuals, or at paintings?

These are certainly not “the best” paintings in British history; they can (by definition at least) be found next door in the National Gallery. (The strong presence of Sir Peter Lely here, and his total absence in the rooms overlooking Leicester Square demonstrate that.) Yet these are not (mostly) a photographic record, rather an image that is a blend of what the artist saw and (usually) what the sitter wanted him to see.

Yet somehow, these two sides of the galleries do come together. When I pick out my “favourite women of the NPG” I am looking at the paintings – these are the faces that through which I can find something of the woman behind them, and I like what I find. A little research reveals, however, that they were also great characters, with real achievements to their credit. Somehow you can identify, even from a flattering, fashionable portrait, those who were more than a vapid aristocrat or a lucky courtesan.

This listing is by date, which also conveniently makes a trail through the gallery, starting at the top floor and working down. It is entirely personal – by all means add your own favourites in the comments.

Mary Neville, Lady Dacre (1524-c.1576), painted by Hans Eworth, probably early in the reign of Elizabeth I, after she had succeeded in having the family title restored to her son, after her husband had been executed. Statuesque might be the polite adjective for Lady Dacre; she’s painted with one double chin, which probably meant she had several. Her lush auburn hair is tightly combed behind a lavishly pearled, black velvet head-dress. She looks stern and formidable, but satisfied, like a woman who has achieved her life’s work. A short biography. (Gallery 2) READ MORE

It seems being nasty about “elitists” has a long history. This is from a collection of historic jokes, found via History Carnival No 22, now up on Frog in a Well. As usual it is a wonderful collection, from how Harry Potter tapped into the medieval (which reminds me about how I got a story about astralabes and a sentence of medieval English into The Times)to a fascinating history of swimming in the early modern world.

Check it out!