vivdunstan

Only belatedly learned that the external examiner for my Dundee University history PhD, Prof Stana Nenadic of Edinburgh University, died last autumn. She was a delight as an examiner: meticulous in her approach, with probing questions while still encouraging and a joy to chat to at my viva. RIP.

Here is a nice writeup of her life and work. A memorial conference was held in Edinburgh in the last two days.

Powerful video from Dundee University staff, including my history colleague Anja Johansen, who I've known for over two decades.

Finally resuming my listening and reviewing of Benny audios from Big Finish's series!

Just as a reminder, Benny/Bernice was introduced as a companion of the Seventh Doctor in the early 1990s Doctor Who novels. She then spun off to have her own adventures, and Big Finish made a long-running series of audio adventures starring Benny, played by actress Lisa Bowerman. Benny, like the more recent River Song, is a professor of archaeology. The stories are set in a scifi universe full of Doctor Who lore and monsters. Benny is often sent to investigate an archaeological site or matter on other planets. But in the series she is largely based at the Braxiatel Collection, an archive of strange artefacts, run by the mysterious Irving Braxiatel.

My latest listen is another in the 6th season of Benny audios. In this one, Benny and her former husband / on-off lover Jason Kane go to investigate the status of a museum on a war torn planet.

This is another sometimes brutal audio to listen to, following The Kingdom of the Blind. Like that one this includes accounts of torture, though less directly, rather recounted later. But it's still a tough listen, and does capture the sense of a society in anarchy, with a complicated picture of right and wrong, and certainly not a clear-cut black and white image.

More worryingly the soundscape is chaotic and it can be difficult to follow what's going on. I don't think it was as coherent as it could have been. However there are extremely powerful musings on the role of museums in preserving and sharing culture, and also their potential misuse for propaganda and power reasons. Benny also faces some rather direct questions about the supposedly open nature of the institution she works for.

So it was ok, but not one I'll rush to listen to again. Though the repartee between Benny and Jason was strong. Old friends rather than lovers now, but with a comfortable relationship that sees them survive a dangerous mission.

Watching another Treadwells recorded talk, and laughing when the speaker said "You don't need to note the references to books etc., I have a bibliography for you." Yeah right. Brings back memories of some St Andrews CS lectures in 1993/4 when a couple of us had to go along in person months afterwards to ask insistently for copies of the slides we were supposed to get and why we had been told not to take any notes at all! Anyway another good Treadwells talk.

I'm working my way through a subset of the Treadwells of London talks available for members, getting through all the ones I fancy before I cancel my recurring monthly membership subscription. Tonight's talk was from an archaeologist speaking about ritual deposits, especially in private houses between the 16th and 19th centuries. Fascinating. Possibly too many slides for the time allotted, but I certainly wasn't bored!

Finished reading a new book about the letters of Mary Queen of Scots last night, Captive Queen: The Decrypted History of Mary, Queen of Scots by Jade Scott. Review to follow soon on my academic blog. Meanwhile, and continuing the literary theme, I’ve started reading about a 1930s book forgery case, The Book Forger: The true story of a literary crime that fooled the world by Joseph Hone. Likely to review that book in due course too.

Back home from the V&A Dundee now. Really enjoyed the Kimono exhibition. We could turn up any time to get in, with our new joint memberships, and the V&A staff handled that we hadn't got our member cards in the post yet. I came away from the front reception desk with a freshly printed temporary membership card, and they will look into the missing cards (I'm thinking Dundee East postal depot backlogs!). It was incredibly busy when we got into the exhibition, so much queuing needed to get around the different sections. Slightly anxiety inducing for infection phobic us. We dodged a few obviously coughing or sneezing people ... And we skipped some bits that were of less interest. But I saw all the bits I really wanted to see. I was especially interested in the early history and some of the related artefacts on display. Plus kimono pattern books and drawings and paintings from the 18th and 19th centuries. I was agog at those. I only had a few things I struggled to see from my wheelchair because of height/arrangement. More of a problem was navigating around the fellow visitors, who were so engrossed that we'd often have to very clearly alert them to wheelchair coming through. I needed a horn! But we both enjoyed it and are glad we went. And just outside was the Dundee Tapestry exhibition still, which was also attracting lots of visitors, and we were happy to go round it. Bought stuff in the shop after - which is still a bit too much of a squeeze with a wheelchair, though somewhat improved after my feedback a year ago which they acted on. Then coffee and bagels lunch at the kiosk/van outside. Very glad we made it, though I won't be surprised if the same thing happens as last time we went there, and we've picked up an infection (was Covid a year ago). Fingers crossed not though!

P.S. Martin just said he could have done with fewer physical kimonos on display. I also found some of those some of the less interesting elements of the exhibition. But as he said, if you went to a kimono exhibition and didn't see lots of kimonos you would probably be justifiably disappointed! But overall the balance was good.

P.P.S. Have just emailed the V&A Dundee with some feedback on the Kimono exhibition, including how it was much better for me accessibility wise than Tartan, and also to thank them for improvements they have made re accessibility in the shop. Which they did after my feedback a year ago.

On to another story, and one that I find personally one of the most disturbing in the entire Holmes canon.

( spoilers )

On to the next short story, and I'm going to discuss it with some major spoilers in there. So into the ( spoiler section we go )

So a rather slight Holmes story, but many interesting elements nevertheless.

I've read this story several times, but this is the first time I've really enjoyed it. And I think it's probably that I'm looking at it from a more adult perspective, and appreciating things that much younger me didn't like. I remember finding it as dull as dishwater when I watched the otherwise excellent Jeremy Brett TV series - this was the first of the short stories to air on TV in there, in 1984.

Putting the rest in spoiler space, because I am going to get into some detail.

( spoilers )

Incidentally I adore the BBC Sherlock version of this, "A Scandal in Belgravia". To be fair I watched this at a much older age than I saw the Jeremy Brett TV version in 1984. I doubt my parents would have been so enthused if 11-year-old me had seen the Benedict Cumberbatch version.

I finished this the other night, the first in a trilogy I think of stories set in the Scarlet Pimpernel world of the French Revolution, with added vampires. I'd previously read one Invisible Library series book by the same author.

There was a lot to like in Scarlet. You don't need to be familiar with the original Scarlet Pimpernel stories by Baroness Orczy, though it's nice to recognise familiar characters. It is set after the first Pimpernel book, and tells you what you need to know. The Scarlet Pimpernel is an English aristocrat, with a French wife, who with his gang of fellow conspirators goes undercover in France to rescue French aristocrats from the guillotine.

The book is told through the experiences of an English maid, who gets embroiled in the Pimpernel's efforts in France. I did wonder how well this was going to work. Was she always going to be listening at doors, one step removed? But no, she is enmeshed effectively, in what to me was a surprising and good way.

I did expect the plot to go slightly differently in one section of the book, but overall it was full of surprises. And not necessarily following the history as we know it.

I wasn't so keen on another fantasy element (not the vampires) that was introduced later on in the story. But maybe this will be developed more in the subsequent books.

The big downside of the book for me was that there was far too much info dumping about the history. Not least in the introduction to the book, which had a phenomenally in-depth - far, far too much depth to be honest - essay giving a historical overview of the French Revolution at this point. Which I found phenomenally off-putting, and did not endear me to the author. Show us what we need to know through the story, through what the character encounters, and their experiences. Do not have a long-winded and frankly boring history lesson. I would skip this sort of thing when I was my doing my taught postgraduate Masters degree in history including this exact historical period. I don't want to read it in a fiction book, even historical fiction.

Also I don’t recommend following a Dramatis Personae listing with an opening chapter about a whole bunch of folk not in the list. It was a good chapter, but having the list immediately before it was jarring.

There were also extended sections - often multiple pages - of psychological reflections by the characters. I think the editor(s) could have tightened this aspect considerably.

For these reasons I'm rating it 3/5 stars. But I did enjoy it. And would read the sequels. But it should have been better.