History

Launching You Make Bristol

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

This evening I took myself off to Bristol for the launch of a new section of the local history exhibits at the M-Shed museum. Called You Make Bristol, it is a series of features on local people who have done a lot for the city in various ways. Unusually the exhibition has been curated as a joint project between M-Shed and various community groups. Each group put forward their suggestions for people to honor, and then wrote the captions for those people selected.

While there are a few very famous people in the exhibition (Brunel and Plimpsol, in particular), most of the honorees are less well known and many are still living. From Out Stories Bristol we put forward the trans pioneer, Michael Dillon, and our dear friend, the long-time lesbian activist, Dale Wakefield. I was asked to write the caption for Dillon.

Amongst the other people honored were those who worked with various immigrant communities, those who worked for various disabled groups, people who had done a lot for youth charities, and so on. Paulette, my producer from Ujima, came along and spend most of the evening chatting with various people from the Afro-Caribbean community, some of whom we’ll doubtless have on the show soon.

Peter Main, the former Lord Mayor, did the civic duties opening the event. There was also a small skit put on by a youth group where the kids played the part of some of the honorees. I was not surprised to see them pick two famous sports people: rugby player Gareth Chilcott, and boxer Jane Crouch. The lad who took the part of Chilcott clearly had ambitions to play for England himself, right down to the Dylan Hartley haircut.

On Women’s Outlook on Wednesday I will be talking to Karen Garvey from M-Shed who curated the exhibition, and therefore had the job of coordinating all of that community involvement. We’ll be joined by Ricardo Sharry, a local youth worker who was one of the honorees; and by Ujima’s own Remi who directed the youth group skit (and got a part in it at the last minute when one kid had to drop out).

The Ashmolean Museum

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Something else I did yesterday was take a wander around the Ashmolean Museum, and very splendid it is too. Some of the artifacts on display are replicas (for example, the mask of Agamemnon, the original of which is quite rightly in Athens), and indeed there’s a whole hall full of plaster casts of famous statues. However, what they do have is well displayed, and there are lots of original pieces, including a very famous painting of John Dee. Tolkien apparently based his drawings of Smaug’s treasure on Anglo-Saxon artifacts he saw in the museum. But for me the prize discovery was the shrine of Taharqa, the Kushite Pharaoh of Egypt who features in my story in Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion

Taharqa ruled Egypt for 26 years and spent much of his time fighting the Assyrians, including apparently saving Hezekiah’s Hebrew kingdom from the army of Sennacherib. We hear very little about him, partly because he wasn’t as good a self-publicist as Ramasses II, and partly because he was black. His is apparently the only shrine of an Egyptian Pharaoh in the UK. Here are some photos.

Taharqua shrine 1

Taharqua shrine 2

Taharqua shrine 3

Toronto Has History (Temporarily)

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Kevin and I spent today doing tourist stuff in Toronto. This included visiting the Merril Collection and Bakka-Phoenix Books. However, we also dropped in on the Royal Ontario Museum. The original objective was to allow Kevin to see their magnificent dinosaur collection, which he duly did, but I was pleased to see that they also had a special exhibition of Mesopotamian artifacts, mostly on loan from the British Museum.

The exhibit is divided into three sections: one devoted to each of Sumer, Assyrian and Babylon. Towards the end of the Babylon section there is a display board talking about the Seven Wonders of the World and how the Hanging Gardens of Babylon have never been found. Next to it, entirely out of place, is a piece of an Assyrian mural from Nineveh. It is, of course, the depiction of Sennacherib in his hilltop garden. The museum curators have been careful not to say that this could be the fabled Gardens, but copies of Stephanie Dalley’s book are prominently on sale in the gift shop at the end of the exhibit.

So, people of Toronto, you have a unique opportunity to see this key piece of Mesopotamian history. If you have any interest in such things, don’t miss it. It is only there until January 5th.

Historical Gardening

~ Cheryl ~ 7 Comments

Last night Channel 4 screened an archaeology documentary claiming to have found the true location of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Although Greek sources say that the Gardens were in Babylon, and were built by Nebuchadnezzar, no trace of them has ever been found, either on the ground or in documents left by the very efficient Babylonian state bureaucracy.

The program suggests that the gardens were in fact elsewhere in the area covered by the historical Babylonian empire. Specifically they were at Nineveh, the ancient capital of Assyria, and they were built by Sennacherib, one of the greatest Assyrian kings. Evidence is provided in the form of an actual canal network built to supply water to the city, and a carving in the British Museum that appears to show an ornate garden. There is also a cuneiform inscription stating that Sennacherib built a large and ornate garden adjoining his palace.

As a Mesopotamian history geek, this is very exciting to me. But just as exciting is that once again we’ve got a highly publicized broadcast TV program fronted by a lady academic who appears well past the age at which women are usually chuckled off TV for not being pretty enough. So congratulations Stephanie Dalley on a great piece of historical detective work, and on overcoming British TV’s notorious age and gender biases.

Of course this is all to the greater glory of Ishtar, and one in the eye for the perfidious Babylonians. Huzzah!

UK readers should be able to watch the program here. Those of you in the rest of the world will probably find the video blocked, but there is a long article about the discovery in The Independent which contains a lot more scholarship than the TV producer felt comfortable with including. There is also a book, which I am definitely buying.

BristolCon Weekend

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Kevin and I spent much of Friday in Bath, showing Mary Robinette Kowal around the city. This naturally involved visits to the Georgian parts of the city, as opposed to the Roman bits that Kevin and I tend to frequent. This meant visits to the Assembly Rooms and to the Jane Austen Centre. We had Cream Tea, which was OK, though it is just as well that Emma Newman was otherwise engaged or she would have turned her fine Cornish nose up at it. However, we were not there for clotted cream and jam, we were there for research purposes. Special thanks are due to Martin from the Center’s staff who clearly knows his stuff when it comes to Regency clothing.

In the evening Kevin and I went out for dinner in Bristol. It was a (very belated) birthday present for Kevin, so I took him to somewhere rather special: Meluha, Bristol’s top Indian restaurant. Chef Stephen Gomes has won Best Chef in the English Curry Awards three times, most recently last year. I have had a better Indian meal before, but it was here, which is pretty stiff competition. Kevin, having never been to India, was well impressed.

We were up very early on Saturday morning as some hotel issues caused us to have to do most of the art show set-up then rather than Friday night. That made it a very long day. Thankfully the con seems to have gone OK. I won’t relax until I have seen a few online reports, because sometimes people who are unhappy aren’t willing to complain at the time, but I think we did OK.

My panels went OK, I think. I was particularly pleased with the comics one because KT Davies and Su Haddrell were awesome. Mark Buckingham was too, of course, but it is always a pleasure to be on panel with people I don’t know who turn out to be really good.

I’ll try to write more about the con later, but this week will again be very busy so it may take a while.

In the evening Kevin and I had dinner in Turtle Bay. I know it is a bit of a tourist-trap, but it does decent Caribbean food and I’m happy to eat there.

Bristol LitFest: Romans with Manda Scott & Ben Kane

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

I spent Saturday in Bristol attending various events, some of which were part of the Bristol Festival of Literature. First up was a talk at Bristol Museum on the subject of Romans, factual and fictional.

First up was Gail Boyle, a curator from the museum who was in charge of staging the special exhibition, Roman Empire: Power and People, that the museum currently has running. Having now been involved in created a museum exhibition myself, I found this more than usually interesting. As luck would have it, Farah Mendlesohn was attending an event at the Barbican in London that was also discussing historical fiction. Farah was tweeting in a somewhat annoyed fashion about people who were going on about “truth” in history. I was pleased to hear Gail make it clear that creating a museum exhibit is all about telling stories.

Ben Kane is a local writer and one of the top authors of Roman period historical novels in the country. He gave us a talk abut how he did a walk along Hadrian’s Wall in full legionary dress for charity, and what he learned about Roman military gear as a result. I told him about Sean McMullen trekking through the Australian desert in chain mail so that he wouldn’t feel so crazy when he does it again next year. I’m hoping to have Ben on Ujima at some point, so I’ll need to read one of his books, probably one of the Hannibal ones.

Manda Scott has also written about Roman Britain. In fact I have her Boudica books, I just haven’t had the time to read them. Now I have to, because she’s awesome. She has a passion for women warriors (which means I am going to introduce her to Kameron Hurley), she fights with re-enactors for research, and she’s a practicing shaman. Oh, and she also understands the logistics of mounting a seaborne invasion rather better than many academic historians. And she quoted Neil Gaiman and George Martin during her talk.

Aside from meeting two great authors, what struck me most about this event was that Ben and Manda would fit right in at one of our conventions. Indeed, while I will be at BristolCon, they are heading to Harrogate for one of their conventions. Now I’m trying to work out how to get them to Worldcon in London next year. I wonder if there are any historians involved in putting that on… 😉

Today on Ujima: Historical Novels, Equality Act, Women of Color

~ Cheryl

It was another busy day for me in the Ujima studio. Paulette is still on vacation and I had to host 1.5 hours of the show. Many thanks to my colleagues who ran the other half hour to give me a break.

From the bookish point of view, the most interesting session is the first half hour in which I talk to Lucienne Boyce about two panels on historical fiction that she has organized for the Bristol Festival of Literature. These feature Romans and maritime history (including pirates!). You can learn more about them here. We also talked more generally about historical fiction, and I managed to get in mentions for Nalo Hopkinson, Mary Robinette Kowal and David Anthony Durham.

That was followed by a session on the UK’s Equality Act, which managed to be quite topical as an attempt by a Christian couple to claim that they have a right to discriminate against gay people was all over the news today. The last 10 minutes or so of that was given over to discussion of how badly the Act works for trans people. I was not in the least surprised the the current government is busily conspiring with business leaders to remove all of the provisions in the Act that are useful in court, so as to make it seem like the legislation is still in place, but render it toothless.

The whole of that first hour is available on Listen Again here.

I took a break for the third half hour, at least in part because I needed to talk to my final two guests because I didn’t have much idea of what we were going to say. Thankfully Lynn and Sandra proved really good interviewees, having lots of interesting material and a very positive attitude. Basically they were talking about an event later this month that will showcase the craft, entertainment and business talents of women of color in Bristol, and provide training and inspiration for young girls. It sounds awesome. I’m going, and I’m hoping to meet some people who will be good guests on future shows. Also I managed to sneak in a name check for the awesome Laverne Cox and her idea of being a Possibility Model.

The second half of the show is available on Listen Again here.

Where Has She Been?

~ Cheryl

Yes, it has all been very quiet here for a while. What have I been up to? Well, a couple of my fabulous Finnish friends have been visiting the UK, and I took time out to show them around Bath, Bristol and London. Here are a few observations that resulted from that.

Jim Burns and Gary Erskine are very fine fellows and it was a pleasure to catch up with them at the Bath Comic and Sci-Fi Weekender. Thanks also to Andy Bigwood for his generosity. He’ll know what I mean.

The Bristol Museum and Art Gallery is bigger and more extensive than I thought it would be. Most of it is free too. Well worth a visit. Some of the stuff in there is now a little embarrassing, such as the tiger personally shot and donated by King George V, but they have done a good job of putting most of their older material into context. I was particularly interested to discover Rolinda Sharples who is the best of the local artists on display.

We had dinner at Harvey’s Cellars and very splendid it was too. The goat curry, ribs and creole prawns were particularly good, and I loved what they did with Bristol Cream — adding a touch of orange does wonders for it.

And finally, I am still very fond of the Old Operating Theatre, where we launched the Thackery T. Lambshead Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases. As London museums go, it is affordable and delightfully eccentric. Hopefully being right next door to The Shard will get it a lot more visitors.

The Beau Street Hoard

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Like any modern city, Bath is under continual re-development. And as with any 2,000 year old city, any excavations taking place in the city center gets watched by archaeologists. Last year digging for the foundations of the new Gainsborough Hotel uncovered what appeared to be a collection of Roman coins. Examination by the British Museum revealed that there were 17,577 separate coins, which had originally been buried in a number of leather bags. The coins dated from 32 BCE to 274 CE, and have been valued at £12,000.

Normally archaeological finds become the property of the local museum authorities, which in this case would have been the Roman Baths. However, because this find contained a substantial amount of precious metal (many of the coins are silver) it falls under separate legislation to do with treasure. The owner of the site where the treasure was found is required to sell the hoard to the nation, but is entitled to half the value in return. This means that the museum needs to raise £60,000 to acquire the coins.

The plan is to do this via the Heritage Lottery Fund, but simply buying the coins is not the sort of project that the HLF would fund. There has to be some community involvement as well. And that is how I, and my friend Robert Howes, as representatives of Out Stories Bristol, ended up at the Baths today being given a tour and a look at some of the coins. OSB, and many other community groups, are being polled on what we would like to see done with the coins when they go on display. The HLF grant, when it happens, will cover both the purchase of the coins and the community projects associated with the display.

I should note that one of the things that the Baths are asking for money for is improving accessibility. Their site is cramped and on multiple levels, and they badly need improved wheelchair access. For those of you who have visited recently, part of the money will go to installing an elevator that goes down past the Temple Pediment into the Aquae Sulis Gallery.

From OSB’s point of view, of course, what we’d like the Baths to do is highlight the existence of QUILTBAG people in Roman Britain. Robert brought up the subject of Emperor Hadrian’s boyfriend, Antinous. From my point of view I was delighted that the Baths manager, Stephen Clews, knew who Emperor Elagabalus was and why I wanted him mentioned.

I did have some other ideas as to what they might propose to the HLF, but that’s much more blue sky stuff so I won’t say any more about it yet.

Å pancirfest

~ Cheryl

Yesterday evening we drove about 70km to the nearby city of Varaždin to visit Å pancirfest. The name means “walking festival”, which basically means that it is spread all over town. Let me explain.

The city of Varaždin was almost completely destroyed by fire in 1776. When they rebuilt, the people of Varaždin elected to go for wide streets and large squares (I’d say “plazas”, but that would indicate a preference for the Austrian term, “plaz”, rather than the local word, “trg”, which might not go down well.) Mostly Å pancirfest is like a Christmas Market, and many of the stalls use the same little wooden cabins, but it is spread out all over town with lots of different themed areas. Also there are concerts (Skunk Anansie are headlining), stand-up comedy, outdoor movies, street performers and so on. One of the few remaining mediaeval streets gets turned into an actual artists’ alley.

Mostly we just wandered around looking at stuff, though Mihaela plans to take Iggy back there later in the week because there are some amazing kids’ activity stalls. What amazed me most about the whole thing is that we didn’t arrive until after 8:00pm and the place was still hopping. Those stalls that were closed were ones that were taking the whole of Monday off after a busy weekend.

The majority of the stalls were of a craft nature: jewelry, herbal remedies, fine foods, local spirits and so on. I did, however, detect a familiar scent in the air, and sure enough it was a Lush stall.

Our local guide, Žarko, guided us to a food tent near the castle. Croatians are very fond of their meat. When you order a hamburger here it comes six inches across, and the only standard additions appear to be onion and the delicious local relish, Ajvar, both of which are served on the side. For preference I would have Ćevapi rather than a simple burger, but they weren’t on offer. We did have some splendid cakes, though.

Varaždin is famous for its baroque architecture, and the interior of the castle is apparently very splendid. Žarko tells me that the beds inside are very short because of a local myth that if you slept lying down you might die, so people slept sitting up.

All too soon it was time to head back to Zagreb. We left well after 10:00pm and the festival was still busy.

Battles in Fantasy

~ Cheryl

Stained glass window from Worcester CathedralI’ve just been catching up with the new Michael Wood history series, which focuses on Alfred the Great and his successors. This week’s episode features one of the most successful war leaders of Saxon England: Alfred’s daughter, Aethelflaed, Lady of Mercia. There have been queens in England since, of course, but none of them have actually been military leaders the way that Aethelflaed was. I suppose if anyone wrote a fantasy novel based on her life a whole bunch of people would complain about how “unrealistic” it was.

The stained glass window is from Worcester Cathedral.

Alfred, of course, is a local hero in these here parts. Somerset was his base during the guerrilla war he fought against the Danes. The defeated Viking leader, Guthrum, was baptised in the small Somerset village of Aller, which is where Kim Newman grew up.

All of which reminds me that I meant to link to this post by Manda Scott on the excellent History Girls blog. In it she talks about how to write battle scenes (in her case in historical novels, but the same applies to fantasy). It is good stuff. If you are writing about battles, it helps to be able to say, “When I fought as part of an Anglo-Saxon battle group…” That’s what I call doing research.

Toronto Wrap

~ Cheryl ~ 5 Comments

Royal Ontario Museum
Image from Wikimedia Commons, see here for usage rights

While I am absolutely delighted to have been able to get into Canada, and plan to go back again soon, I have also been forcibly reminded that I do not cope well with eastbound jet lag. Next time I go, I need to allow a day or two to just rest after I get back. Hopefully that way I won’t lose so much time to exhaustion. Anyway, I am now in catch-up mode, and the first job is to tell you a little more about Toronto.

First up I should mention that I visited Chapters, which claims to be the biggest bookstore in the world. It is a long time since I was in Powells so I can’t really comment on how that claim stacks up, but I do know that the place is huge, and the SF&F section excellent. I’d love to see bookstores like that in the UK, but I guess that space is much cheaper in Canada.

Much of Sunday, however, was spent in the Royal Ontario Museum, which I rather like. Partly that’s because it took the challenge of extending a beautiful old building with a modern wing in a way that must give Prince Charles nightmares (see photo above), but it has good content too. I was pleased to see a large gallery devoted to First Nations people (and now know what a parka should be like). And they have a great dinosaur collection. Going around it, I kept experiencing flashbacks to books I read as kid because, poor old Brontosaurus apart, they seemed to have all of the well known creatures represented, including a T.Rex, Allosaurus, Stegosaurus, Triceratops and an impressive array of hadrosaur species. It cost CA$16 to get in, but I spent several hours there and could have stayed much longer.

Ã…con Underway

~ Cheryl

Yesterday was mainly a travel day, and I slept most of the way from Turku to Mariemamn, thereby saving myself from buying duty-free booze on the ferry. We did, however, have a small amount of programming in the evening. Tricia Sullivan and I, with expert help from Markku Soikkeli, did a panel on “Body and Mind” in which we talked a lot about false dualisms, the complexity of biological organisms, the lack of scientific basis for ideas of “uploading” minds to silicon, and the political minefields that result from “nature v personal choice” arguments. Judging from the feedback I have got, it went down very well. Kisu is threatening to have a philosophy panel on Thursday evening every year.

I had a bad case of time zone fail this morning and almost missed the bus to the chocolate tasting. Thankfully I did make it, and Mercedes was wonderful as ever. I refer you to last year’s con report for a more detailed description of what these excursions are like.

We’d hardly got back when I had another panel. This one was about “Classic Conventions”. I now owe several beers to Crystal Huff as I co-opted her onto the panel to talk about ReaderCon and other US events. Thanks also to my colleagues, Carolina Gomez Lagerlöf and Tommy Persson. Hopefully we entertained.

I skipped Tricia’s GoH interview because I very much wanted to get to the Maritime Museum and they close at 16:00. Mariehamn has a glorious maritime history, having once been home to the biggest fleet of windjammers in the world. The Pommern is still here and I had a good look around her. I have so much respect for the crews of such ships, and especially for Wilhelmina Widborn who served as a cook and steward on the Pommern for many years. According to the museum, she rounded Cape Horn eight times, and survived being torpedoed, during her career.

Also in the museum is one of only two genuine Jolly Roger flags in existence. This one was captured from Barbary pirates around 200 years ago and brought home to Mariehamn by the crew. I’ll have a photo of it up eventually.

And now, dinner beckons. There is a fine restaurant called Nordic Blues, which makes sushi with local fish. I went there last year with Cat Valente’s husband, Dmitry. The plan is to go back today.

For further Ã…con reportage, check out Tero’s blog.

Jack Wolf On ShoutOut

~ Cheryl

I have been catching up with all sorts of things since I got back from Exeter. Included in that is the Shout Out Bristol LGBT radio show. Part of that is ego boo, of course. I get mentioned a couple of times in the Feb. 21st show. But those are very short mentions and should not put you off listening.

And I do hope you listen, because the show includes a long interview with my new friend, Jack Wolf. Jack talks about his debut novel, The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones. His influences include Neil Gaiman and Van Gogh. The book has had a rave review in The Guardian, and is eligible for next year’s Crawford. It sounds very interesting.

Jack also talks about the subject matter of the LGBT History Month talk he did last Saturday, which is based on a PhD he’s doing on gender-variant people in history (mainly the 17th Century).

You can find the episode here. You’ll need to scroll down a bit to get to the February 21st show. Jack’s interview begins around 33 minutes into the show. Or, with any luck, this is a direct link to the mp3.

By Popular Demand

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Our little LGBT History Month exhibition in the M-Shed has proved so popular that it is being extended for a further two weeks to March 17th. I am very happy about this.

By the way, we now have a nice set of photos of the launch event on the Out Stories Bristol website. So if you are looking for more images of my awesome dress (John Rocha, for anyone interested), or pictures showing how ugly I look in profile, go here. Many thanks to Matt Seow who did an awesome job.

Gay Cartoon History

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

Last night I attended a talk by my colleague, Robert Howes, at Bristol City Library. It was titled “From Scandal to Domesticity: Cartoon Images of Homosexuality”. Basically the idea was to trace the changing public attitudes towards LGBT people through cartoons. Robert was very entertaining, but his focus was mainly on single-panel political cartoons. He doesn’t know a lot about comic strips, or books. He did manage to find Spandex though.

Anyway, this has given me an idea for next year’s LGBT History Month: “To the Batbed, Robin! — A History of LGBT Superheroes”. Thankfully I have a whole year to work on it. I have my talk at Microcon to worry about first.

Talking of which, I’ll probably be quiet for the next few days as I’ll be traveling or at the convention.

The Minister and I #girlslikeus

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

This morning I was up early and off into Bristol to the M-Shed for an important meeting. As you may recall, the LGBT History exhibition that I have been involved in organizing was mentioned in Parliament by local MP, Stephen Williams, during the marriage equality bill second reading. That bill is being shepherded through Parliament by the Rt. Hon. Maria Miller, MP, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. Today she was in Bristol, and having heard Mr. Williams wax lyrical about our exhibition, she asked to see it for herself. I was there, partially because I’m self-employed and can take a day out at the drop of a hat, and partially because (largely by accident), I’m one of the co-chairs of the charity staging the exhibition, Out Stories Bristol.

Being involved in a Ministerial visit is a strange experience. The thing it reminded me of most was when Paramount parachuted Patrick Stewart into the San José Worldcon. In that case I was able to leave Kevin to deal with the drama and run away to hide (I went for dinner with Sean McMullen), but this time I was right in the firing line. Thankfully I had my colleague, Charlie Beaton, with me. He’s the secretary of OSB. (My fellow co-chair, Andy Foyle, who is the person who deserves all of the glory, was unavoidably elsewhere today.) There was much waiting around at the exhibition. No one knows exactly how long anything will take, and while the Minister was in town everyone wanted a piece of her. When she eventually turned up, we got about 10 minutes with her. I gather that was quite a long time. Normally at such events the people responsible for the thing the Minister is coming to see get elbowed out of the way by local politicians. But no one seemed keen to take credit for an exhibition about LGBT lives, so there we were.

I’m pretty cold-blooded about public speaking these days. (I’ve interviewed Neil Gaiman in front of 1,000 people — an audience of 40 like I had on Saturday is a piece of cake after that.) This, however, was another matter entirely. I would only have a chance to say a few sentences to Ms. Miller. I had to use those as best I could to represent the LGBT cause, and in particular the cause of trans people. What if I screwed up and she went away thinking that trans people were awful? That’s responsibility.

I think I did OK. I have, of course, been kicking myself for the rest of the day. It is easy to think of things you could have said after the event. But you do need to let the conversation develop naturally. It doesn’t do to seem pushy, and babbling nervously can seem awfully pushy.

There were a number of thing we talked about. One of the most important was emphasizing how many people came together to help produce the exhibition (we have a volunteer list of over 90 people). From a political point of view, however, the very clear message was how far we have come in a very short time. Wandering to the center of the exhibit, Ms. Miller’s eyes lit on a large police record book dating from 1960. Two of the crimes recorded in there were incidents of buggery. A copy of the 1967 act abolishing buggery as a crime sat in the display case next to it. Now here was the Minister in charge of a bill allowing gay people to get married. It was pure history.

Inevitably there’s a case of how far we’ve got, and how far we still have to go. I couldn’t resist a mention of a certain notorious newspaper column, and got what I’m pretty sure was a look of sympathy in response.

I can’t remember much of what was said, and of course any successful politician has the skill of making people feel listened to and valued. Nevertheless, I came away with the impression that Ms. Miller genuinely supportive of what we were doing. She did specifically say that she’d been moved to tears by one of the speeches on the marriage equality bill. From our point of view, I hope she went away knowing how much that bill (and other legal recognition such as the Gender Recognition Act) means to us.

And hey, when I took the plunge and decided to transition all those years ago it was still the case that trans people were treated as social pariahs. Had you told me then that one day I’d be shaking hands with and chatting to a Secretary of State I would have laughed at you. Trans people have come a long way.

Harlots, Housewives and Heroines

~ Cheryl ~ 9 Comments

This post will, I hope, come as no surprise to UK-based readers, especially the female ones. If they haven’t been watching Lucy Worsley’s series, Harlots, Housewives and Heroines: A 17th Century History for Girls, then they have been missing out. Some of you will be able to catch it on the iPlayer, and if all else fails there’s some information here.

Worsley says in her introduction to each episode that the Restoration — when Charles II returns from exile to put an end to Puritanism — is the start of the modern world as far as the UK is concerned. I tend to agree. During this time, Charles’ Queen, Catherine of Braganza (a Portuguese princess) introduced tea drinking to England. The era also saw the invention of the coffee house and the shopping mall, and a change in the law that allowed women to act in the theatre. The pamphlet became the forerunner of newspapers (and was every bit as dishonest and muck-raking as the worst tabloid). The King had to develop skills in spin doctoring. Alongside the significant expansion of scientific endeavor, and of the British empire (part of Catherine’s dowry was the city of Mumbai), there was a significant change in women’s place in society. After all, under Puritanism things could not have been much worse.

The era saw the rise of many prominent women in all walks of life. Nell Gwyn is by far the most famous, but Worsley introduces us to many others. They include the much traveled Celia Fiennes, the woman soldier, Christian Davies, and the prolific playwright, author and poet, Aphra Behn. Above all there is the early feminist Margaret Cavendish. She was one of the few women allowed to attend a meeting of the Royal Society in its early years. And her novel, The Blazing World, is not only an early example of science fiction, it is decidedly feminist in outlook.

I thoroughly enjoyed all three programs in the series. Worsley was perfectly happy to dress up in period costume to illustrate a point, and did not shy away from the bawdier aspects of 17th Century life. Yes, it is history as entertainment, but it is good history too (at least as far as I know — I await correction from my historian readers). And, of course, it is her-story. Thank you, Ms. Worsley.

Mission Accomplished, Almost

~ Cheryl

Well, yesterday seemed to go quite well. We had around 40 people in the audience, and judging from the comments I got afterwards, both at the venue and on Twitter, people appear to have enjoyed my talk. The downside is that, despite having taken my voice recorder with me, I totally forgot to record it. Fail. I think I am getting old. I need a minder. Well, I need Kevin anyway. Sorry folks.

Still, as I said, people enjoyed it. Also I got to meet someone interesting. In the audience for the talk was Somerset writer, Jack Wolf. Jack’s debut novel, The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones, has been published by Chatto and Windus in the UK and will be coming out from Penguin in the US later in the year. It has also been sold to France and Spain. The folks at Mr. B’s Emporium of Reading Delights have been enthusing to me about it.

The descriptions of the book suggest that it might not be for the squeamish (like me), but it does have faeries in it, and it is a fantasy debut so I’ve marked it down for Crawford reading.

Next Saturday Jack will be giving a talk at the M-Shed. The synopsis is as follows:

Jack Wolf explores characters and writers who were (probably or possibly) transgender and discuss his research into real life 18th/19thC women who chose to live as men. He will also discuss the challenge of writing a trans character in a historical novel whose experiences are as real as possible yet still make sense to modern readers.

I’d love to be there, but of course I have to be at Microcon. However, Jack has recorded an interview for ShoutOut which will be broadcast on Thursday. I look forward to hearing that (on podcast because I’m going to this).

Yesterday’s Radio

~ Cheryl

My appearances on local radio yesterday are now available as podcasts. The Ujima Radio show was all about China, in honor of the Chinese New Year. In this segment, around 23 minutes in, you can hear me enthusing about Ken Liu and Guy Gavriel Kay.

Somewhat to my surprise, I also featured in yesterday’s Shout Out Bristol. The entire show is given over to the hot topics of marriage equality and LGBT History Month. Around 45 minutes in there is a selection of sound clips from the two launch events. You get part of my speech opening the exhibition immediately after the Lord Mayor.