I've left the slushy doom of London for Hampshire with Aunt Lily. She avoided the dangerous roads by saddling her prize pony, Emily Davison, and sending her to the station to meet me - such a clever pony. I can't ride, unfortunately, having had a series of equine dreams as an infant which my psychoanalyst attributed to penis envy - since then, horses have always struck me as inherently patriarchal, even when ridden side-saddle. Emily courageously led me on foot through the icy forests to Aunt Lil's, and we've been sharing bottle after bottle of mulled Martini Rossi since Sunday night.
A couple of Christmas treats for you then, a la Posie. Firstly, Laura Dekker, a 14 year old Dutch female has been found on a Caribbean island after running away from sexist bureaucrats who have been trying to stop her achieving the world record for the youngest individual to single-handedly sail around the world. The record is currently held by one Mike Perham, a 17 year old boy from Britain, and apparently the authorities intend to thwart Ms Dekker until she's old enough for it not to be a record, or until a younger boy comes along who's able to beat her. Well sod off, cried Ms Dekker, as she escaped from her captors and sassily sailed off to the Caribbean, proving herself to be both physically and mentally capable of the trip, as well as a feminist icon in the making. We've heard of the plight of Shakespeare's Sister - but what about Sir Francis Drake's? Or Columbus'? Let her sail - Elizabeth I would have and how cool was she?
Secondly, Rage Against the Machine are Christmas number one! I've never heard of them before, I think they're some kind of funk band, but isn't it great? Better than last year's Christian fundamentalist rip-off vom fest.
Finally, three cheers for Melody who is the first woman to walk the Channel Tunnel alone without informing the authorities. She's text to tell me that last night she became so bored of waiting in Folkstone that she parked her Merc in a privet hedge, slipped stealthily, like a fox, through the barriers, underneath a high speed train and into the Tunnel itself. She's just resurfaced in Calais and, having only stopped once for a quick pee beneath a signal, is resting in a refugee encampment and sharing her story with local would-be travellers. So not only has she beat the system, she's also helping to overhaul the Anglo-French fascist immigration policy. You go Melody! She's hoping to make it to Rouen by the evening clinging to the underside of a HGV.
So, hope you have a lovely time and all my festive kisses to you, wherever you may be, as long as you're not a Post-Feminist!
xx
Review of Luke Roberts, Living in History (Edinburgh, 2024)
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My review of Luke Roberts’s *Living in History: Poetry in Britain,
1945–1979*, is now up on the *Review of English Studies *website.
More information a...
2 days ago
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