fourth floor feminism | sociable speculation

We have all seen that clever little email from the Washington Post's Style Invitational competition where you can only change one letter of the word to get a new meaning haven't we? If you are after a chuckle then, I recommend you follow me to the latest Style Invitational ...

Part I It was 8 o’clock and I had to go to bed. I was perusing the bookshelf in my Grandmother’s holiday house in Grace Town for a new book. The Carpetbaggers ? Nah, looks like it has too much of that ‘adult material’ that is really too boring for a nine-year-old. Bloodlines ? Ick, that had so much ‘adult material’ it put me off trashy novels for quite a while thanks. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy ? It was a thin paperback, just the title and author on a discreet rainbow squared background. Considering how it changed my life, it really should have had DON'T PANIC! on it as well. I settled down in bed and started reading. I finished about 2am, which was definitely my very first extremely late night due to a book, and when I got up the next morning I read it all over again, trying to work out if I had dreamt the entire thing. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is my first concrete book memory, my first taste of the humour of a generation of English writers and I have n...

The weekend past I was a steward at the very luvvie Oxford Literary Festival, and that Harry Potter's Aunt Petunia was mean to me! After so much literary wonderfulness, I am reluctant to indulge in luvviness myself, so I will not natter on about the commentators and authors I listened to (John Humphries and Terry Pratchett amongst numerous others) or spotted in the crowd (Colin Dexter), but I am going to share the two best incidences of the two days. First amusing moment was Fiona Shaw and Saffron Burrows turning up for the session on Writer's Block that Fiona was hosting. Fiona is a national acting icon in Britain, and Harry Potter's nasty aunt is by far her least important role, which must be why she point-blank refused to give me an autograph. To think I broke my golden rule of not asking for autographs that I have kept for almost 15 years too. She should have been more conscious of the honour; the last autograph I got was from Ricky Grace! Both women were unnatur...

Internet-geek time everyone. I have a website. You are reading it at the moment. I only have in the format of a blog because blogger is the easiest platform for me to publish on the net and no-one liked the ezBoard forum anyway. Thus, I do not consider myself a real blogger, I just publish my writing on the net. But what I *AM* is a complete sucker for people mentioning me on the net. Monica mentioned me quite a few times on her blog Th'inkwell but that was because I lived with her. Matt links to me on his blog Creativity on Demand but that is because I used to live with him. I love those two links, but they are ones I didn't earn. What I did earn were these three little gems of Claire’s minor presence on the net. BIG MENTION NUMBER ONE – Miss C’s blog. I found Catriya’s blog when a flash of boredom drove me to press the next blog button. I landed on a post about her plans for an ex-boyfriend and didn’t look back. I don’t think I have ever read a better commentator on my ge...

WARNING: Plot Spoilers I am currently devouring Robin Hobb's most excellent Liveships trilogy, enjoying once again an author that is fearless in her writing. Hobb, along with the equally ruthless George R R Martin , has my eternal regard because she is not a sentimental author, allowing the most hideous hardships to overtake her heroes over and over again until you feel fate-ravaged yourself and wish desperately she would stop creating such cruel realities and indulge in some old school positive tweaking of the plotlines. Reading until 2am on a school night because I just met these guys and they are going through a rough patch, I remembered a heartfelt book review I knocked up at the start of the year. A week before I left Perth for London and needing cheap entertainment due to budgetary restraints, I got my greedy hands on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and lay in bed for nine hours straight getting back into life at Hogwarts. At 3am that morning I let the book sl...

Friends, Family, Visitors Today we stand at the start of an uncertain eight months for our State. Having failed in our negotiations with Great Britain for residency the State is conceding defeat and returning to Australia. While deeply regretting our passionate love for Britain could not move mountains, nor, indeed, the Visa and Immigration Department, the State is proud that our feelings are truly ambivalent, as we must leave the land of Intellectual Paradise for the land of Physical Paradise. During our final four months of residence in Great Britain, the State will be engaged in various activities that naturally occur with disengagement. Many new friends are to be left behind and time must be spent cementing relationships, a state of alertness for last minute opportunities for the State to remain in Great Britain must be maintained and plans drawn up for the Return to Paradise. These activities are, in their very nature, apt to make the State completely self-absorbed and potential...

Shakespeare's Globe 2005 THEATRE SEASON THE SEASON OF THE WORLD AND UNDERWORLD The 2005 summer theatre season at Shakespeare’s Globe has been announced as The Season of The World and Underworld. Three plays by Shakespeare - The Tempest, The Winter’s Tale and Pericles – will be joined by an adaptation of The Storm by Plautus. This Graeco-Roman comedy has been adapted by Peter Oswald whose previous work for the Globe, The Golden Ass, was a huge hit in 2002. In addition to these productions, two company projects will explore voice and the use of masks on the Globe stage. The Season of The World and Underworld, which begins on 6 May, will examine the influence of classical Greece on Shakespeare’s works. The season will finish on 2 October with The Tempest. It will be Mark Rylance’s final performance as artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe. The Natural History Museum CURRENT EXHIBITIONS Wildlife Photographer of the Year Tickets £5, £3 concessions, £12 family The power, beauty and ex...