Ladies, ladies, ladies! (And also WSJ.) (8/5/09)

Dudes. Doctor Who and He Knew He Was Right are totally interfering with my ability to blog. And with my life in general. Because they are both TOTALLY RAD and obsessive-making.

But the Internet never stops, and neither do I! On we go:

1. Anglotastic scoops the Wall Street Journal! That's right. On Sunday, I told y'all that the Tea-Drinkers are tightening their immigration laws to keep me out. Well, yesterday, the Wall Street Journal told you the same thing.
   
   I am awesome.
   
   
   Just say no to the Journal.


2. Harriet Harman, deputy Prime Minister during Gordon Brown's vacay, is standing up for women's rights and demanding tougher rape laws. This is both awesome and hilarious. (Can you imagine an American political stand-in actually taking charge during their week holding the reins?) Of course, The Daily Mail has a bit of a different take on this, and feels that the "already stretched Health Service" shouldn't have to conduct studies on how to reduce the risk of violence to women, and anyway, some unnamed statistics show that men are actually the chief victims of violence, so down with feminism! I don't know much about British politics, but I'm pretty sure that violence against women is a human rights issues. Not a women's rights issue. 'Kay thanks bye.


Harriet Harman takes the reins.


3. In the understatement of the year, Sienna Miller acknowledges that having an affair with a father of four (and showing up topless in pics with said father) means that she "probably [doesn't] seem very nice." She also denies being a "sh*****." Can anyone tell me what word has been bleeped out there? Chances are good that I would like to add it to my vocabulary.



Sienna Miller is not a "sh*****." Except that she kind of is.


4. Billie Piper plays the fabulous Rose in Doctor Who. She was also a '90s pop star. Pure, high-fructose-corn-syrup-sweet '90s music. Dig it. And now we reminisce with "Day and Night."

Billie Piper is poptastic.

Oh, hell yes. Dance party like it's 1999!

Stuff I bought yesterday! (8/4/09)

1. A half-pound hamburger. I met one of my girls for dinner, and we ate at The Coffee Shop, which has fab hamburgers and crispily awesome herb fries. And I ate the whole thing. Result = I was stuffed like haggis. (Which is apparently "bloody delicious.")


2. He Knew He Was Right, Anthony Trollope
   I just loathe the New York Public Library system. There's no central lending collection! No browsing! No big, beautiful courtyard for lunching whilst studying! *pines for Boston* Anywho, I've been dying to read HKHWR; as I mentioned before, Trollope is awesome. So I caved and bought it, and I've only read the first two sentences, but I'm already hooked. Such is the wonder of Trollope. And now, a mere 800 pages to go…such is the loquaciousness that is Trollope. Oh, you Victorians and your epic novels.


3. The July issue of British GQ. Megan Fox is on the cover, which was a deterrent, but the articles about polo, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Manchester were too intriguing to resist, so there you go.


4. On the opposite end of the magazine spectrum, I snagged the August/September issue of Bust, the cover of which advertises a fall preview of "the best in girl-friendly movies, music, fashion, books, and television." Also, they're holding a summer craftacular at York Hall in Bethnal Green, London, on August 22! If you're in the UK and you like amazing handmade goods, you should go. I dropped a lot of cash at the Brooklyn event last spring and scored some gorgeous jewelry and clothes, plus a compass to prevent me from getting lost in Central Park. (Really!)

Today, there will be no shopping. But there WILL be Doctor Who. Oh, yes!

The Cat's on the Bus and the Dark is Rising. (8/1/09)

Okay, y'all, Saturday cuteness: Darling Devon kitty takes regular advantage of public transportation. Even more darling bus drivers take care of kitty en route. You must watch this video; it's adorable. (Hat-tip to V!)

Casper takes the bus. Awwww!

Less cute: Did you know that the Times of London has a dating site? Does that seem odd to you? I don't believe the New York Times does this. NYT does, however, print things like this at the bottom of movie reviews: “Funny People” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Penis, penis, penis!

Um. Weird. Anyway...

In political news, I was unaware of the existence of Irish Travellers (whom we Yanks might refer to as Gypsies), and I am flabbergasted. Proper Gypsies (of the Roma tribe) are still in the UK as well. I suspect there is less fortune-telling and more dealing with limited means than our fairy tales might have us believe, but still. No one hangs on to tradition like the British.

On a closely related topic, I was also unaware of the alleged curse of the Wandering Jew—but maybe the exceptional Susan Cooper WAS aware of said Wanderer, and maybe he appeared in the The Dark Is Rising as the Walker.


If you haven't read The Dark is Rising series, you really, really should. Cooper wrote it in the '60s and '70s, and certain things about it may ring familiar: Will, the unassuming English boy who comes into his magical own on the dawn of his eleventh birthday. Merriman, the powerful magician who must sacrifice the one for the many. The ultimate battle of good versus evil, waged on a grand scale. But the similarities end there. Cooper's relatively somber five books possess a L'Engle-esque cast of characters, different books following different groups of people who are tied together in one way or another. There is a holiday in a heavily superstitious town; there is a long visit to a cheerful family in the painfully gorgeous Welsh countryside; even Arthurian legend is looped into the fold of Cooper's tales. (Though no one ever says, "Merlin's pants!" Which is a shame, really.)

I read these when I was eleven, just like Will, and I used to wander down a path through the woods behind my house, pretending it was the Old Ones' Way and that I was Seeking the six signs. Because I wasn't a dork at all.

If you are a sucker for ultimate battles between good and evil (and I know you are, you Lord of the Rings–loving, Star Wars–watching, Harry Potter–devouring nuts), read these books. They're short-ish; you can knock them out in a few weeks. And book four, The Grey King, won a Newbery medal. So you KNOW it's fab. But for the love of all that is holy, avoid the offensively reworked film version, 2007's The Seeker. (I'm not providing a link for that. Sully your own computer, if you must, but I won't do it.)

Great Maytham Hall is OMG awesome (7/28/09)

OH. MY. GAWD.

You guys, sit down. If you're already sitting (which, come to think of it, I assume you are, because blog-reading while standing up would be weird), you might consider lying down, 'cause this is BIG:

The Secret Garden is REAL.

Yes. That Secret Garden. The titular character of Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden. Burnett LIVED in the adjoining manor, and she FOUND the garden, and she planted ROSES there, and on the first Wednesday of the month, April through October, you can go SEE it! Holey sock puppetz! That's spectacular!

The real Secret Garden. Fo' sho.

I found out about this amazingness from a Julie Buxbaum article over at Red Room, and I have been trippin' ever since, because I'm going, obviously. Burnett lived at Great Maytham Hall, which has been converted into condos for seniors and is now part of the fab National Garden Scheme, in which private gardens in the UK are open to the public on specific dates. And I just need to say, one more time: The Secret Garden is REAL!

So. Cool.


While we're waggin' our chins about Burnett, I just want to say that I'm still diggin' A Little Princess, which I have been reading and rereading since 1989. My parents gave me a totally awesome hardcover edition that year with beautiful watercolor illustrations by Graham Rust, and I blame it (and my matching copy of The Secret Garden) for my embarrassing obsession with British English, because the book wasn't Americanized at all, which is to say that gray is "grey," color is "colour," and single quotes (inverted commas, if you will) are used.

Like any other bookish little girl, I was entranced by the copious descriptions of finery—Sara was always up to her ears in beribboned silks and satins, and fine little kidskin gloves, with fur muffs and lace petticoats, and, my favorite, rose-coloured frocks. But above all, I always, always envied Sara Crewe her incredible emotional control and her storytelling ability. (Yeah...I was a seven-year-old who admired emotional control above all things...'cause I don't have any.)

Anywho, fast-forward to the era of audiobooks: I recently listened to an oh-so-fab, oh-so-free version of A Little Princess over at LibriVox, which is a non-profit online org whose members record public domain books. Karen Savage's delivery is excellent, and she does a sobbing Lottie, bitchy Miss Minchin, and overwrought Indian Gentleman with great finesse. Check it out here.

Rose-coloured frocks sold separately.

Confessions of an Anglophile... (7/26/09)

Y'all. This is my confession: Confessions of a Shopaholic is actually kind of a rad book.


I know, right? I assumed it was going to be painfully superficial and packed to the brim with nonsensical discussions of designer brands, but not so! It's actually extremely well-written and engaging, protagonist Becky is utterly likable, and the story includes a filthy rich, delightfully odd Scotsman; a Hottie McHott City bloke; and quite a few awkwardly realistic letters from various banks and credit card companies that inspired me to institute a more firm-handed bill-paying schedule. (Just because I'm a space cadet doesn't mean I should pay late fees, y'all.)

But the best bit is that it's a really honest look at a young woman's (almost always hideously slash hilariously embarrassing) battle with her emotional crutch, which, for Becky, is shopping.

For Dawn French and me, on the other hand, it's Terry's Chocolate Orange:



No word yet on whether the rest of the series is any good, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed, and I will def let you know. Also no word on whether the stupid Americanized movie—which conflates Confessions with Shopaholic Takes Manhattan—is worthwhile. But I DO know that my local Irish grocer is stocked up on Terry's Chocolate Orange, so that's something!

Diary of a Chav is totally brills! (7/25/09)

All right, everyone? I'm dead chuffed, innit, cos I have just read Diary of a Chav (aka Trainers V. Tiaras) and Slinging the Bling, and they are proper amazing.


Our heroine, the mouthy, trashy Shiraz Bailey Wood, aged 15, tells it like it is in her totally amazing diary. Her parents are broke, her earrings of choice are massive gold hoops, and she's ready to rebel against being a chav (chavs are working-class folks who fancy American hip-hop fashion, bruv). The series follows our girl Shiraz Bailey Wood (yeah...Shiraz like the wine; Bailey as in 's Irish Cream...cos her mum is classy like that) as she figures out what in the bleeding hell to do with her life...and where the gold chain–wearing Wesley Barrington Bains II fits into it, of course! Choice quote (on auditioning for reality talent show):

Ten pounds flaming ninety-two pence we spent on those matching red leg warmers and devil horns, then we only get one verse into "Maneater" by Nelly Furtado and this snotty-looking judge in trousers so tight you could see the outline of his trouser snake tells me I'm singing like someone strangling a donkey.

Yeah, BARE JOKES, bruv. Jog on.

Um, yeah. Author Grace Dent (whose website is proper stacked) has written six of these! Diary of a Chav is out in the U.S. and Slinging the Bling (as Posh and Prejudice) is dropping here in December. I don't know if the others will be making it stateside, so I'mma order them all from Amazon UK (ooh! or I'll buy used imports on Amazon), cos Shizza is proper hilarious, and it is not even remotely possible for me to express how totally poppin' these books are.

Check awesome sketch show Little Britain's take on chavviness:



Hee hee! Also, it is 100 percent necessary for you to go to Dent's site and check the kidz' comments on the American cover for the first book!



Let's just say that the fangirls don't really approve. And now, I'm off to score some more Shizza books!

Robin Hood Roundup, Part 1: Timeline! (7/24/09)

Okay, so I don't know if y'all have cottoned on to this, but I am, like, a huge dork. I'm a dorkodactyl, in fact.

Dorkodactyl!

Proof positive: Last night, I watched the History Channel's History's Mysteries: The True Story of Robin Hood…and I already knew about half of what they told me. Presaging the History Channel is not a great sign.

History of the Hood

But now I am even more informed! Lucky you! And as I promised, I'll be giving y'all the lowdown on my Robin Hood–related activites. So here's the brief rundown of Robin Hood as we know him, right up through 2010.

1190–1290 (ish): Various dudes may or may not have been the actual Robin Hood. Contenders include Robert Hod, Robert Hood, and William Robehod (fugitive, 1261); our Robin may be an amalgamation of these gents, among others. But they weren't gents. They were thieving gits.

Zazzle reps for William Robehod with this tee.

1200s–1300s: Robin Hood ballads make the rounds of Merry Olde England. Our boy Robbie fights with the Sheriff of Nottingham, kills the king's deer, and chillaxes with Lil' John. He rocks a bow and arrow, he steals stuff, he's rash, and he picks fights with everyone he meets. Not so much with the whole VolunteerMatch biznass, this one.

Nottingham's 1949 nod to Robin Hood

1377: Robin first appears in print, in the poem Piers Plowman. Piers cops to knowing RH ballads better than the Lord's Prayer. (Oh, no he didn't! That sumbitch is going to HELL!)


1500s: Maid Marian makes her first appearance. Finally. Old Rob, who used to be a poor-ass, thieving yeoman, becomes the dispossessed Robin of Locksley, Earl of Huntingdon. Now that he's a rebel with a cause, he becomes all idealistic and warm and fuzzy and starts stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, just like President Obama wants to do. (And just as it should be, thanks.)

1600s–1800s: Robin makes regular appearances in children's stories, adults' stories, songs, plays, games of Catch Phrase, etc.

1900s: Errol Flynn, Douglas Fairbanks, the Costner idiot, Cary Elwes, and Michael Praed, among others, don that jaunty green cap. But eff them. The point is, Marian is consistently portrayed as bitchy and awesome—she's mouthy even when she's relegated to damsel in distress.

1988: Robin McKinley writes the grim Outlaws of Sherwood. Marian is the best archer of the bunch. Robin, unlike most Robins, is compassionate and anxious, rather than cocky and mocking. I LOVE this book.

Lucy Griffiths as Maid Marian. She will eff you up.

2006: The History Channel hires a man with hair that bears a suspicious resemblance to a mullet to chart historians charting Robin Hood. Apparently, Barnsdale (in Yorkshire) and Nottingham (in Nottinghamshire) have been arguing fiercely for a REALLY long time over where Robin Hood was actually from.

2006–2009: Jonas Armstrong rocks Robin for the BBC's latest (and now-defunct) Hood offering. Richard Armitage delivers consistently creepy performances as Guy of Gisborne. Lucy Griffiths is a fabulously dressed, completely anachronistic, totally ballsy Marian.

Jonas Armstrong: the hipster Robin Hood

2010: Russell Crowe will be wearing the quiver in Ridley Scott's update. Cate Blanchett will be Marian. This could be awesome. It could also be terrible. Stay tuned! (For kind of a longish time. See you in 2010, guys!)

Russell Crowe as the next Hood

Nebulous date in future: Nottingham totally has an awesome-looking Robin Hood Festival every year, and I HAVE to go. The vendors make real longbows! Real medieval coins! Real arrows! (Dudes. Medieval arrows could pierce modern bulletproof glass. That. Is. WICKED.)

Cary Elwes and a sheaf of bulletproof glass–breakers.

Mayhap I will see you there.

Doctor Who! Prawn & Prejudice! (7/23/09)

Sci-fi nerds, hold on to your flux capacitors! Actor Matt Smith is stepping into the multi-century shoes of Brit time-traveling legend Doctor Who. Smith will be the eleventh Doc; I've only seen a few eps of the show (it's one of many on the old Netflix queue), but I've grown pretty attached to David Tennant's version of the Doctor.

Just in case you were wondering why I heart the erstwhile Doc...check this Comic Relief starring David Tennant as Doctor Who as English teacher (with Catherine Tate as Lauren! Yay!):



But that is neither here nor there—Smith's first eps of Who will drop in spring 2010. Apparently, the new lead writer is a hardcore fanboy, though, so that bodes well (see Lord of the Rings, done so right by überdork Peter Jackson).


In Jane Austen news, AustenBlog has posted a review of Prawn & Prejudice...P&P transferred to a 21st-century seaside town. It actually sounds pretty out-of-this-world, and I must read it. Anything with a line like "And what of his sisters? Were they not awesome? Quite the most elegant creatures you ever beheld?” is totally down with me.

I did finally get around to checking a few pages of the ubiquitous Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and, oddly enough, I see its appeal...and yet. It didn't quite work for me. It's all very cut-and-paste-y. It's been a raging success, though, and has spawned Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, per the Young Publishers Blog. Thoughts?

Dial-a-Ghost, plus ejaculating cake! (7/22/09)

First up: adorable kidz' book. (I am a big old sucker for children's lit. I think maybe there's less navel-gazing than in grown-up land? Whatever it is...kidz' books rock!) Dial-a-Ghost, by Eva Ibbotson, is pinch-its-cheeks cute. To wit: Oliver Smith's evil cousins try to scare him to death—but the lovely, oh-so-British Wilkinsons turn up and befriend him instead. Confusion and awesomeness ensue. (Adopta the ghost-animal lover helps.)

Basically, any book that starts off like this:

The Wilkinson family became ghosts quite suddenly during the Second World War when a bomb fell on their house.

possesses just the right amount of whimsy, I think. Also, my biggest, most Anglophiliest obsession is British English. The English on the Other Side of the Pond rocks my socks, and it totally runs rampant up in here. Yes!


Speaking of the Second World War, which was a long time ago...1623 was also a long time ago. And here is a mince pie recipe from 1623! Thanks, Britain Express! They also have more reasonable recipes, like Harry Potter's fave, treacle toffee.

Once upon a time, I checked out a book from the library with old English recipes—but as minor details (such as oven temperatures) were conspicuously absent, I didn't get very far. Nor with the mince pie recipe, I think. It instructs you to "cut the best flesh of the best flesh" from a leg of mutton, for starters. A tad vague for me.

Anywho, while we're chatting about food, how about star British chef Heston Blumenthal's ejaculating cake? Heston did a series of period dinners (the Victorian one featured an enormous glow-in-the-dark absinthe jelly), and ejaculating cake is a Roman delicacy, apparently. I couldn't find a video of Heston's cake in action, but for a more mod, very graphic (read: kind of crass) American version, check out this (very) short video (premature ejaculation short, if you know what I'm sayin').

Heston Blumenthal's ejaculating cake, post-coital.

In de rigueur Harry Potter news, Emma Watson has confirmed to Paste magazine that she will be attending Uni in the US, at Brown. (Actually, she said, "I’ve got a place there to read literature." How Very British.)

Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson being adorable together.

You can also check out the Paste interview with Daniel Radcliffe, as well as their general Harry Potter mania, including props for my boys Harry and the Potters. Nice.

Joe and Paul DeGeorge are wizards who rock.

(Side note: Paste and its founder/editor-in-chief, Josh Jackson, are both awesome. Like many, many other mags, it's struggling hardcore right now, so if you lurve music, you might consider subscribing to it.)

And now I leave you with my new favorite thing: the Guardian news quiz. I always fail, but it keeps me informed, more or less.

For example: Did you know that Prince Charles is now repurposing his bathwater to his garden? Sounds like my whole switching from tp to leaves theory wasn't as far off as one might have thought!

Economic Meltdown, 1875-Style (7/21/09)

OK, readers. I have a problem. A nineteenth-century British lit problem. I'm kind of an addict. You can have all of your modern writers and your oh-so-now novels. It's Anthony Trollope for me, my lovelies.

Case in point:

The year: 1875.
The scene: London. Trollope had been out of the country, and he was shocked—shocked!—by the sordid state of affairs he found when he returned. And so a novel was born.
The modern hook: The story revolves around one Augustus Melmotte, a dodgy financier who threatens the city's economic stability. (Yes, Wall Street? You rang?)
The book: The Way We Live Now.


My gal Filmi Girl had been bugging me to read some Anthony Trollope, but I wasn’t sold till I realized the BBC had made a miniseries of The Way We Live Now, 'cause the BBC has faboo taste in period dramas, the old dears. It's been a year or so since I read it, but Melmotte and company are much more relevant now that our American moneylenders have been ravaging the world than it was back in the golden days of 2008, when the land was rife with milk and honey and people had jobs and houses.

And so it goes. I’m not sure where to begin praising this particular 825-page tome (825! For reals!), but I love love love it. Yes, Trollope paints his high-society characters as anti-Semites (welcome to the 1800s, kidz). Yes, those same characters believe that Brits are intrinsically superior to Americans—and other foreigners, as well. Yes, I gasped when prim Miss Carbury refers to the “nasty American woman.” (Who are you calling nasty, bitch? Unlike you, Mrs. Hurtle, TWWLN's token American, does not at any point consider going in for some COUSINCEST. Jaysus.)

But Trollope is so delightful! TWWLN is like an 825-page edition of Us Weekly (Barack Obama: He's just like Us!), but without the guilt—because it’s literature, y’all, not celeb gossip. And yet it most definitely is gossip—stickin' it to the Victorians for corruption, snobbery, and general rakishness. All of his characters are fully developed, and he's unnervingly attuned to behavioral characteristics—I should no more like to be judged by Mr. Trollope than I would by Miss Austen, that’s for effing certain.

And, by the bye, the above-mentioned Mrs. Hurtle is all kinds of badass. Trollope implies that we should disapprove of her “manly” actions and states that she herself would prefer to be more “feminine.” But his mild censure of her rockin’ independent behavior does not stop us from disagreeing with him—much like Shakespeare’s disapproval of Cleopatra does not stop us from understanding that she is one awesome bitch, and that Antony’s downfall is his own damn fault. Holla.


But consider yourself warned: The miniseries captures the overall insidious spirit of the book, but our pal Andrew Davies (writer of Pride & Prejudice '95, among other period gems) goes overboard this time, very definitely altering the content of character personalities and handling Mrs. Hurtle's story most infamously. I think "a good healthy boinkfest" would probably sort him out, but that's another post entirely, isn't it? At any rate, don't let that sway your opinion of the book. Which is awesome.

Jeeves & Wooster! Eeeeeeeee! (7/20/09)

Oh. Mah. Gah. P G Wodehouse, where the eff have you been all my life?!? Your idle, somewhat useless gent Bertie Wooster and his omniscient man Jeeves (Jeeves, y'all! The original Jeeves!) are my new bromance heroes. (No offense, Paul Rudd and Jason Segel!) Brilliant? Check. Hilarious? Check. I just devoured Carry On, Jeeves, and now I need to read the remainder of the Jeeves and Wooster canon.

Also, the P G Wodehouse Society has a pretty topping website, complete with a cocktail recommender. "What would Jeeves make?" and all that. I say, old boy, this is rather spiffing stuff, what?


Hee hee. Srsly, I love it! And apparently Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie play Jeeves & Wooster, respectively, in several seasons of a Masterpiece Theatre series, which I am obviously going to need to watch. House, shmouse. It's Wooster for me! My crush is totes on Jeeves, though, y'all. He's very bossy. Word on the street is that I can relate to that.

On an entirely different subject: Kidz are way more awesome when they're British. Observe:



Awww! Chahlie!

And now, I believe one Jeeves has a cup of tea ready for me to begin the day…

Robin Hood Roundup: A Bajillion-Part Series (7/13/09)

I love, love, love Robin Hood times millions. Once upon a time, it was all about Walt Disney. Then, it was Prince of Thieves (urgh, Kevin Costner, could you be more American?), followed by Men in Tights (tight tights!), Outlaws of Sherwood (Robin McKinley’s fab YA retelling), and the BBC’s most recent Robin Hood (which alternated between being fabulous and sort of awful, but ultimately lost me in the sexist finale of series 2).


I obsessed over each of these in turn, though Prince of Thieves, it transpires, was a mistake. (Back in the day, I thought Christian Slater, aka Will Scarlet, was the hottest of the hot. But now, the combined draw of Slater’s [questionable] hotness, Morgan Freeman’s erstwhile awesomeness, Alan Rickman’s loathesome, love-to-hate-him Sheriff, and John Williams's lovely score cannot counterbalance Kevin Costner’s cringe-worthy Robin Hood, whom I would dearly love to punch in the kidneys...after sticking several arrows up his arse.)

Anywho, fast-forward to present: I am on a Robin Hood mission. A handful of the scads of available Robin Hood movies have been added to my Netflix queue, I’m adding bunches of RH books to my reading list (suggestions welcome!), and I just finished Howard Pyle’s The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, about which more in just a moment.

Apparently Robin is quite the national hero over in Merry Olde England (as evidenced by not one, but three dedicated television shows, for starters), and I, too, have a weakness for a man in Lincoln green. I thought this was maybe a secret shame of mine, much like my other (not-very-secret) secret shame (a raging Harry Potter obsession).


But the nice folks over at the University of Rochester’s Robin Hood Project think the RH obsession has to do less with my obsessive personality and more with his wide appeal: He started out pretty shady in his initial appearance (in 1377), but his “motives have been made truly heroic: his villains are truly villainous, and Robin is portrayed as a moral figure who fights injustice. Most authors identify Robin as the dispossessed noble of the Tudor period, and this adds purpose to his rebellion. There are no inherent sexual connotations in the tale (such as [the] lust, adultery, and revenge in Arthurian literature), and the tale itself generally ends with the overthrow of oppression and the redemption of the heroes.”

In short: RH is straight-up good versus evil; Tolkien, Lewis, Cooper, Rowling, and Lucas have done him proud; and this is probs why I lurve him so. I’ll be periodically updating you on my Robin Hood studies, literary and otherwise (archery lessons, anyone?).


Now, Howard Pyle. For starters, reading Pyle’s Robin Hood was superfun for the following reasons:

1. The book is a highly educational excursion into all the ways in which the word “merry” can be used. A merry walk; merry weather; merry games; merry adventures; merry jests. Everyone and everything also has a great habit of being stout and/or lusty; and


2. Pyle’s version, though not the first, laid the blueprint for all the versions I know, most especially McKinley’s totally badass version, which you should definitely read, if you haven’t.

Unfortch, reading Pyle’s Robin Hood was totally lame for the following reasons:

1. Pyle’s Robin is an asshole who picks fights with innocent passersby for no fucking reason.


2. In addition to being an asshole, he’s not the brightest crayon in the box; and


3. I have a little trouble accepting that Robin and 140 other dudes could have lived undetected in Sherwood Forest for years on end. I like McKinley’s grim interpretation of an outlaw’s life, filled with struggle and fear, so much better.

That’s it for Robin Hood, Part 1. More to come!

Tumtum & Nutmeg, plus food (7/9/09)

I just read the loveliest YA book! It's a collection of three stories called Tumtum & Nutmeg: Adventures Beyond Nutmouse Hall, by Emily Bearns, and it has some of my favorite things:

1. Posh Brits (well, mice) with big houses and modest expectations;


2. Characters who keep falling into adventures when they'd rather be curled up with a nice book; and


3. Fictional mice (much more adorable than non-fictional mice, which can be a bit creepy scurrying around your apartment in the dark).

Included: an evil aunt, pogo stick–wielding ballerinas, and pirate rats! Highly recommended (particularly for the younger set, mind you). But the author's cutie-patootie website has fun for all ages—namely, a recipe for Peppermint Creams. I'm not sure what those are, but they sound lovely.


In other food news, London events company Bompas & Parr, which is apparently an extremely sensitive establishment, "created black cherry and Champagne jellies set with 24-carat gold" to serve last Tuesday in honor of Michael Jackson's memorial. Um, Jell-O? Really? For mourning cakes? Inappropriate much?

More thrillingly, I just found a website called British Food Direct, "for expats and British food lovers," and I think it's going to change my life, despite their faint grasp of English grammar (see below). I mean, holy Cadbury chocolate, Batman! This is fantastic! I will keep you posted.


Finally, my mom is in town, and we stopped in my local Irish grocer for some Nutella tonight. An adorable, white-haired old Irishman asked my mom where the custard was; she didn't know where (or what) it was, so he went off to ask someone else. Instead of getting help from someone who worked there, he asked another man who had been waiting in line, and who led him to it in the back of the store while the cashier held the line for him. A discussion on how to make custard from a powder followed. (Add milk. Bring to boil. Add awesome Irish accent to taste.)