I’ve studied both with “standard age” undergraduate and post-graduate students and with “mature-age” ones, and know which group as a whole I prefer to work with. One of the wonderful things about our current age is the push towards life-long learning.

Perhaps the most dedicated student I’ve ever known was a woman of 60-odd. She’d left school at 11 (!) because her mother needed help with the younger kids, but she read all of her own kids’ university textbooks with more enthusiasm than they did and, when they’d all finished, she was finally persuaded to try herself. She was lacking in confidence, but absolutely dedicated and very quick to grasp new concepts.

So I enjoyed the story in today’s Guardian about the 96-year-old master’s student. (It’s his second masters – he thinks a PhD is a bit much to take on.)

Also in today’s Guardian, a piece by George Monbiot on why you shouldn’t eat Brazilian beef – it is eating the Amazon.

And in the Independent, the man who made himself famous, in the Andy Warhol sense, with an advert on eBay.

Completing the round-up, in The Times Libby Purves writes about the wonderful founder of the Kids Company.

Since I’m in Wales, might as well go back to a couple more centuries, to 1655, and the case of a “Gower ghost”, which I learnt about at an IHR seminar.

Except ghost is not quite the right word, since the haunting was by the spirit of a living man, Henry Bowen, husband of the target of the apparition, Catherine, so it should be called, I learnt, a spectre.

He had been a colonel in Cromwell’s New Model Army, but was becoming increasingly extreme in his religion, heading towards antinomianism, and, it seems, having effectively left Catherine and moved to County Cork in Ireland, while she lived in a very isolated house at Llanrhidian, in what seems to have been a largely female household. (The place is pronounced nothing like it looks – my phonetic attempt was “Flanellen” – but I’m probably very bad at hearing Welsh.)

An account of the haunting was not printed until 1691, in the last of the 135 (!) books of Richard Baxter, a text designed to prove the “certainty of the world of spirits”.

The paper was mostly concerned with the complicated religious politics and politics politics around the case, but I of course found the gender aspects fascinating. Sadly no account by Catherine survives – only two independent clerical male accounts.

They indicate that over several nights the spectre of Henry did all of the usual “ghostly” things, but going even further “manhandled” the women present – leaving bruises (but did not get into full stream when male ministers were present) and tried to get Catherine into bed with it. (A Freudian might make something of this.)

I’m rather tempted, however, to see it as a neat way to finally rid yourself of an unwanted husband. (I asked and was told they never lived together again.)

I could find nothing of the story on the net; an account was apparently written by the novelist Elizabeth Bowen in 1942 (Bowen’s Court), but this, based on family tradition, was dismissed as of little value.

In the British Library this afternoon, reading A History of Fox-hunting in the Wynnstay County: From this Beginning of this Century to the End of the Season of 1884-5, “printed for private circulation only“:

The Sporting magazine of 1800 lists all of the packs of foxhounds in England. “Beside these there were other packs that hunted the fox, though unknown beyond their own district, probably trencher-fed, good hunting hounds, though possibly not very fast, nevertheless showing a great deal of sport to Squires and Yeomen in their drab breeches and very brown top boots, which were duly taken down from their accustomed hook on the ‘house place’ ceiling when they were wanted to be worn in the chase.” (p15, original itals)

Explaining “trencher-fed proved easy: “hounds which are kept privately, then brought together on hunt days to form a pack”.

I assume the “very” brown boots refers to farmyard muck? And the breeches didn’t have the attentions of a gentleman’s “man” and a squad of laundrymaids to get them white?

As a contrast there is at the front of the book an elegant picture of Louisa Alexandria, Lady Williams Wynn, in a very tight riding outfit (although of course a skirt for riding sidesaddle), whip in hand, with her arm thrown casually around a favourite dog, which is sitting on what looks like a hall table. She is, I think, if I’ve got all of the geneology right, the wife of Miss Frances Williams Wynn’s brother’s son.

I get the feeling Miss Frances was not, however, the huntin’ and fishin’ sort – perhaps that’s why she didn’t get married. More research will hopefully shed more light on this.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports on the Chinese space programme, which has just delivered two astronauts safely back to earth:

The newspaper Beijing News said Nie and Fei would undergo 40 minutes of medical check-ups after landing. “After several days of flying in space, the astronauts may look wan and sallow, so medical staff will put make-up on them to make them look ruddy,” the newspaper said.

On a serious note, statistics in a piece on an American soup kitchen from the Guardian:

According to the US census bureau, poverty has been on the rise for the past four years, despite a robust economy. The number of people living in poverty increased last year to 12.7% of the population, some 37m people, the highest percentage in the developed world. Since Mr Bush took office an additional 5.4m have slipped below the poverty line. In 1970, the rate was 11.1%. Almost 8% of white people are classified as below the poverty line and almost 25% of African Americans.

The Guardian has also found that British American Tobacco has a secret factory in North Korea. Not that it really makes the involvement of Ken Clarke, former health secretary and Tory leadership candidate, any worse than it was already.

I’m now in the middle of an HTML frenzy, revamping my personal website and setting up a couple more. If you have Firefox, or Netscape, or an unusual browser set-up and have a spare minute, could you go to the page and see if it looks OK?

So far I’ve only done the first page, but intend to revamp the entire website to match eventually.

Anyone contemplating the same thing, I can recommend this template, from Steve’s templates (free); I’ve found using it pleasantly intuitive.

If you’re having a lazy Sunday night, or reading this as you’re trying to get into gear on Monday morning, DON’T FORGET.

I need your nomination (of your own or others’ posts) for the inaugural Carnival of Feminists, which will go up here in the early hours of Wednesday morning (British time). That means the deadline is Tuesday night!

There’s more about the carnival here.

I’m defining “feminist” broadly – posts need not be explicitly political, but there should be some sense in a post addressing women’s place in the world. Posts should also be more than a collection of links, and include substantial original content.

Drop a note in the comments here, or email me at natalieben (at) gmail (dot) com.

Thanks!