Category: Uncategorized
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It’s Christmas!
I’m taking a break from the madness to say merry Christmas. I have a house full of family, five children playing games together on my living room floor; lots of food on the table and a kitchen full of cooking smells. Christmas, it seems, starts here.
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Apocalypse now?
I’m sorry, I’ve got to say this: It’s twaddle. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on pre-conquest Latin American culture and the impact of the Spaniards, particularly on the Aztecs, but they believed that the world had ‘ages’ and no Mayan said the world as a whole would end tonight. Apart from which, whose ‘midnight’ are…
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Christmas Break
I decided at lunchtime today that I’m stopping now for Christmas. I’ve still got all the presents to wrap and a lot of sorting out to do before my Christmas visitors arrive, so having got my last self-imposed deadline out of the way yesterday, I am going to give myself some time off. I may…
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This week
Most of this week I have spent analysing the extant sixteenth century ballads. I have a big spreadsheet with the names of the ballads in one column and all sorts of topics and features listed across the top. I have comments in some of the boxes, and others are just ticked off. It’s a slow…
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This is an interesting blog post, and confirms something I had long suspected. There is another angle that the author hasn’t considered – the need for academics in some fields to travel for long periods to conduct primary research is hardly conducive to a ‘normal’ family life. I already have my children. In fact, if…
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A little gem
This morning’s nugget of advice from the sixteenth century: “If I in thee Suche faultes ones see, As no man ells doth knowe; To thee alone, And other none, These faults I ought to showe.” Haywood – A Ballad against Slander and Detraction
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Update
This could be a very long post! Things have been very stressful lately, not only because of the PhD work but a number of other domestic issues have been getting in the way of things. I hope that now they’ve all been sorted out and that I’ve heard the last of them… Anyway, recently I’ve…
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Temporary delays
“Be fast and firme to freinde, as thou wouldest him to be; Be shamefast ther wher shamfull dedes be offered vnto the. In place thy maners shewe, in right and comly wyse; From the let peace and quietnesse, and wars from others, ryse” Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I hope that normal service…
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London here I come!
I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the last couple of weeks planning my trip to London. I’ve made arrangements to go to the British Library, the Society of Antiquaries and the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, and although I’m a bit nervous (I’ve never done anything like this before), I’m also very excited. This…
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