regshoe | Entries tagged with tv

Before going to see Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of) I re-read the book, and wow, it really is an absolute delight of a book, isn't it? I've read it several times, but I feel like I noticed the details much more than I have before this time through and appreciated the structure and character arcs better. I also appreciated just how funny it is—oh, that bit near the end when Elizabeth is fully aware that she's in love with Darcy and is agonising over how he will surely never propose a second time—and then later, when he has proposed and they're all happy but her family are still being embarrassing... It does seem to me, though, that for all I love Austen's writing I just can't quite feel fannish about it. I don't know; I love some of her characters very much (Mr Darcy being probably my second or third fave, after Fanny Price and maybe Anne Elliot), but somehow none of them quite come across as the right kind of weird or messed-up for me to find truly compelling and blorbo-able. It's funny how that sort of thing works. I was also struck by Austen's sentence structure—she uses commas in a way that's definitely not standard or 'correct' now and seems much more typical of grammatically looser-feeling eighteenth-century writing, which is interesting.

And while reading I also took the opportunity to try another adaptation that I'd never seen before, the 1980 TV series (which is on Youtube, albeit in a somewhat unwieldy scene-by-scene format). I really like this one! It's basically faithful to the book; where it adds and changes things the choices are always interesting and feel like they were made from a place of love for and joy in the original—often expanding on something from the book, showing in specific detail things that Austen gives in summary—even if some of them are a bit strange. It feels quieter and more subtle than the more famous adaptations, which I like. Elizabeth Garvie is just perfect as Elizabeth: she gets 'there was a mixture of sweetness and archness in her manner which made it difficult for her to affront anybody' completely, and (er, according to my taste) her looks also get 'the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow'. David Rintoul's Darcy is very stiff and formal in his manner in a way that's easy to read as autistic, which I approve of on general principles and as an interpretation of Darcy. The adaptation also has an absolutely lovely Jane; a Lydia who is completely her mother's daughter; a Georgiana who suits the character perfectly in her brief appearance; a Mr Bennet whose sharp edges of cruelty are completely not softened. The opening title sequence of each episode pans over a period-style cartoon summary of the episode's events, which is charming. I really liked the house they used for Pemberley, also!

As you know, I am very relevant and always keep up to date on new media released this year, and so I've just finished watching the new series of Doctor Who and We Are Lady Parts. Spoilers ahead!

Doctor Who

I loved Doctor Who during Russell T. Davies's first run, the Nine and Ten years, when I was still at the hiding-behind-the-sofa age; drifted away after Steven Moffat, whose writing I have never got on with, took over; returned for part of the Chibnall-Thirteen period and enjoyed it but felt it wasn't really what it used to be and lost interest towards the end; and now hearing that Davies was returning as showrunner, thought I'd give it another try again. I started with the Christmas special and could just about have cried at the end of it. There it is: this is the Doctor Who I loved—all the joy, weirdness, adventure, warm-heartedness—just how it would be and look and feel now instead of nineteen years ago. (Time is a funny thing: it occurs to me that Ruby was born just a few months before Nine met Rose, how weird is that???) Ncuti Gatwa is so completely the Doctor—that's really the only way you can put it for any actor who's right for the Doctor—I love his energy and enthusiasm, his smile, his accent—and Ruby is a great companion, and they work so well together. Aww, I am glad. :)

Anyway, the series continued really good! '73 Yards' may have been both my favourite and least favourite episode, I think, in that I loved the concept and development but was really frustrated by the non-explanation of an ending. (Yes, it's weird fantasy and won't necessarily have clear rules or logical explanation; but weird fantasy still needs some kind of internal logic and consistency—see below about The Owl Service—and I felt that was lacking.) I am conflicted about Fifteen changing costume every episode; I miss having one or two iconic Doctor outfits, but OTOH all his costumes are so good. :D I did feel that the series was too short and suffered from going too quickly for the 'unconventional structure' episodes—not that '73 Yards' and 'Dot and Bubble' weren't both excellent, but I think we needed to see a bit more of normal travelling life and adventures with Fifteen and Ruby first. I LOVED 'Rogue' and Rogue himself, and I trust that we'll see more of him.

Part of what I like about RTD's writing has always been the warmth and meaning and significance he finds in ordinary human lives, and so I was a bit dismayed by the building up of the mystery around Ruby's origins and the apparent implication that she was going to turn out to be Special in some way. So I really rather liked the reveal that actually it was all totally mundane! But apart from that I think the finale, while loads of fun in many ways, really didn't make enough sense... and I was dismayed to see that Ruby is apparently leaving after so little time! Really too short a series, unfortunately. Maybe they'll go back to 13 episodes in future?

(And in the meantime I could go back and watch the pre-series specials—I gather there's some good Donna stuff in them??)

We Are Lady Parts

Aww, We Are Lady Parts is so much fun and so lovely, and I think I liked the second series even better than the first. The relative lack of Amina/Saira material was a bit disappointing... OTOH, there is a canon f/f ship, and Ayesha and Laura are very cute and I wish them every happiness now they've overcome some challenges together. I like the character development all the leads got, perhaps especially Bisma and Momtaz both getting to strike out a bit and find themselves personally and professionally, and I like that even Noor gets a bit of a redemption arc. I love Amina's villain era and am cheering her on. In general I really liked how this series, in both the Amina/Billy and the record label plots, showed how... sometimes you have to make the wrong choice, so you can realise it's wrong, go back on it and return to the right choice more deliberately and with greater knowledge, knowing it really is what's right for you. ('Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving...', perhaps?)

Also I've only belatedly realised that the soundtrack is available to listen to, including all the songs written and performed by the band in the show. Speaking of which the songs are great! I love 'Villain Era' (of course) and 'Glass Ceiling Feeling' in particular (the music as well as the lyrics of the latter—those harmonies in the chorus are gorgeous).

And in among those two new shows I've also been watching the 1969-70 Granada TV adaptation of Alan Garner's The Owl Service, which I happened to find on Youtube and eagerly plunged into. It's reignited my love for the book, which I must re-read soon.

The Owl Service

It is very good, and it's exactly what you'd expect a very good screen adaptation of an Alan Garner novel to be like, if that's imaginable. The theme tune is a mashup of traditional Welsh harp music, motorcycle revving noises and what is apparently water flushing through a cistern, which gives a fairly accurate summary of what the viewer is getting themselves into. (The motorcycle is plot-relevant and very solemnly meaningful, actually.) Garner wrote the script himself, and it is a pretty faithful adaptation—there are some cuts (I missed Gwyn's CH₄ marsh gas! but perhaps that would have been too much of a special effects challenge) and some things are rejigged a bit but there are no huge changes, and many of the lines are verbatim from the book. According to the series's Wikipedia page the little 'the story so far' summaries at the beginning of each episode were added due to concern that viewers would struggle to follow the story, which amuses me; yep, you might just struggle to follow the story... (Why do I mind that so little about Garner's writing, even see it as a strength, when similar non-explaining-things has bothered me so much about some other books? Perhaps Garner is just brilliant enough to make it work; perhaps it's that it never feels like he should be explaining more, or thinks he is.)

It's interesting to see how the dialogue is interpreted, given the original very minimal description of tone and manner, and the series uses some interestingly weird camera techniques that fit the feel of the book beautifully. I loved the final scene between Alison and Gwyn before Gwyn runs off, the 'Stop looking at me like that!' bit especially; OTOH I thought Huw's final dramatic revelation was a bit over-dramatic (though Huw was otherwise very good). I liked Clive's accent, crisp RP with bits of northern poking through—really illustrates Nancy's 'doesn't know how to eat a pear' thing, and hearing it like that makes it more obvious that this is the same thing Gwyn is trying to do... The Alison/Gwyn relationship was rather more overt than in the book, which wasn't really to my taste (though again, the book is so minimal with details that you can't really say they weren't kissing in an ellipsis, Renault-style). Somehow the significant absence of Margaret felt more noticeable and deliberate than it did in the book—perhaps never seeing a character, even in the background, does stand out more than words on the page referring to them but never showing them actually there in a scene? It's an interesting choice, anyway. I still ship Gwyn/Roger just a little bit. I have made some icons from the series, as you can see!

Re-read A Month in the Country in the last of the summer-ish weather. I was considering nominating it for Yuletide, but ultimately decided to go with a ballad instead (it seems somehow to elude definition—how would I come up with prompts??). Anyway, the book itself is very lovely, and definitely one that rewards re-reading, although in a slightly different way from a lot of books I say that about—it's so dense that the first time through I had to concentrate to follow all the detail, whereas this time I think I got a better impression of the general mood. Also I've now got a rather lovely paper copy, an illustrated edition from a publishing company apparently owned by the author. The design is very pleasing, and it has intriguing summaries of several of Carr's other books in the back—I shall have to track those down.

HMS Ulysses by Alistair MacLean (1955).

philomytha described this to me as a combination of serious, detailed and impressive war novel and over-indulgent whumpy idfic, and that's exactly what it is. After a mutiny brought on by the absolutely hellish conditions endured by the crews of ships on the Arctic Ocean, naval command punish the officers and crew of the HMS Ulysses by sending her on a suicide mission involving a convoy from the north of Scotland to Murmansk. The book follows the seven days of the voyage and the hardships, dangers and general horrible things faced by the men: U-boats, freezing temperatures, bombers, Arctic storms, etc. Much of the plot consists of very detailed descriptions of particular workings of the ship, the weather, the enemy and the other ships in the convoy, and I couldn't always quite follow exactly why this lengthy technical passage means that something horrible is about to happen to these characters, but MacLean clearly knows his stuff, and the atmosphere is very vivid indeed. The rest of the book, however, consists of equally detailed descriptions of Richard Vallery, captain of the Ulysses, and how he is the most noble, selfless, kind, wise, valiant man ever, the best captain the Navy has ever known, inspiring courage and confidence in men whose hearts are hardened and wills sapped by the horrifying conditions, etc. etc., and also he's dying of TB and keeps dragging himself off his deathbed to go and talk to the men and win their eternal loyalty and command the ship in the face of everyone's certain doom. It's an odd book! It's at once very grim—MacLean does not stint on the descriptions of horrible ways to die at sea, and makes it clear what he thinks of the conventional 'dulce et decorum est' view of war; the ultimate fate of the Ulysses and her officers and crew is clear from the start—and deeply idealistic, with its vision of Vallery himself, rather than any ideals of noble fighting he stands for, inspiring the men to superhuman feats of courage and noble sacrifice. An interesting one.

The Travels and Adventures of Mademoiselle de Richelieu (1744; published anonymously, possibly the author's name is Erskine?). This is a book about an eighteenth-century French lady who decides to go travelling round Europe dressed as a man and has a romantic friendship with another woman who does the same thing, so of course I had to read it. However, it is many things! It's about a thousand pages long, and I think rather less than half the page space is taken up with the main story. The rest consists of various side stories and digressions: tales told to Alithea de Richelieu by the other characters she meets, about their intrigues and adventures, largely romantic in nature; discourses by Alithea herself and by other characters on topics of religion, morality, politics and such things; descriptions of the places she visits, their notable features and histories, which she claims to find very boring but nevertheless keeps writing out at some length. Much as I enjoy a good digression, this got a bit much—they are very random, and the narrative ones are largely tiresome love stories full of the sort of attitudes and themes the 18th century puts in such stories—although I did enjoy some of them, like the discussion of the morality of English theatre. The main story, however, I enjoyed very much! Alithea is a great narrator—mischievous, lively, forthright, daring (I suspect she'd get on well with Jill Trecastle) and her descriptions of her adventures are excellent fun. These adventures largely consist of making women fall in love with her and getting into fights with men (and generally getting out of them when the men turn out to be too cowardly to follow through); the eighteenth-century frankness is both refreshing and interesting, and I think the book has a lot to say, even before it gets to the central romantic friendship, about contemporary views of gender and sexuality.

Anyway, it's even better once it does! In the second volume Alithea meets Arabella de Montferan, a wealthy young widow; they write back and forth, Arabella still believing Alithea to be a man, and become friends. Eventually Alithea reveals that she's really a woman:

When I had finiſhed my Narration, I unbuttoned my Waistcoat, and diſcovered my Breasts, which the lovely Arabella no ſooner perceived, than ſhe claſped me in her Arms with Tranſports rather of a Lover than of a Friend.

...and things between them go on like this pretty much for the rest of the book. There's a lot of swearing that they'll never marry, that no relationship with a man could possibly be anything as good as their love for each other, etc. etc.; even more women fall in love with Arabella in her male disguise than with Alithea, and Alithea is proud and delighted at this; in the end they settle down together and live happily ever after.

I really don't know to what extent all this would have come across to a contemporary reader the way it does to a modern one! The book seems to assume with casual, unworried confidence that homosexuality is obviously impossible (the recurring scenario of a woman falling in love with another woman while believing her to be a man is repeatedly described in terms that amount to 'well, I could become her husband, except I don't have the right physical equipment. What can you do' *shrug*). On the other hand, Alithea and Arabella are explicitly life partners, their relationship is repeatedly described in romantic terms and this is portrayed as largely a good and sensible thing. And, you know, I do think some people in the eighteenth century were aware that lesbian sex existed, so... there you go? Anyway,

luzula, who introduced me to the book, has written an excellent femslash fic which is the perfect complement to it—highly recommended, and can be read without canon knowledge if you're not up for 1000 pages of eighteenth-century gender relations and geographic descriptions and ſs.

Because I can't help myself, I've already got about a third of the way through The Friendly Young Ladies. I'm enjoying it so far, though it's not (yet) as devastatingly powerful as the other Renault books I've read, and I look forward to seeing how it all goes spectacularly wrong in the remaining 200 pages.

Anyway, in the meantime I've been watching the 1960s adaptation of Pippi Långstrump on SVT Play. My comprehension is variable; sometimes I'll get pretty much completely lost for a scene, other times I'll be able to follow an entire short conversation and feel very pleased with myself, but mostly I'm still relying on a simple plot that doesn't really require perfect understanding of the dialogue. Anyway, I'm really enjoying the programme itself. I read the books in English as a child and could remember enough of the general setting for it to be familiar, and the whole thing is chaotic, bizarre fun in the way of good children's stories. I have earwormed myself with the theme tune.

The Fabulous Sylvester by Joshua Gamson (2005). Subtitled The Legend, the Music, the Seventies in San Francisco, this is a biography of the musician Sylvester, a gay African-American soul/blues/disco singer who grew up in Los Angeles and lived and worked in San Francisco in the memorable seventies. I read it for book club—having little knowledge of either Sylvester's music or the general cultural/historical background, both of which are explored in detail, I found it very interesting, although the sheer amount and arrangement of specific details got slightly confusing at times. And I didn't have much to contribute at the book club meeting, but never mind—next month's book is a sci-fi novella, so perhaps I shall have more developed opinions about that...

Finished Her Enemy, Some Friends and Other Personages, which continued both highly varied and enjoyable. Unfortunately, 'Aquae Multae Non—' is still my favourite story in the collection—it was a bit of a disappointment having that come second, so that nothing else really lived up to it, although plenty of the other stories are both good and interesting. Edward Prime-Stevenson greatly enjoys self-reccing and mischievous references: 'Out of the Sun', an otherwise rather depressing story, contains a passage describing the main character's collection of queer books, which includes Xavier Mayne's Imre and The Intersexes amongst others (it also includes The Hill and David Copperfield, which amused me—I knew I was onto something shipping David/Steerforth...). Xavier Mayne turns up a few other times, and we also get various other bits of silliness, alongside EPS's thoughts on the philosophy of art, some more fairytales and fables and a couple of religious stories. 'A Prisoner Passes', about the crucifixion of Jesus from the point of view of a Roman bystander, was another favourite of mine—perhaps the shape of the plot was a little obvious, but it was touching even so, and I loved how very EPS the description of Jesus was—he manages to imply so much about his queer reading of the Bible in a short space. The final story, 'Sunrise-Water', is an unfinished novel—I did not know this, so I was disappointed when it suddenly ended halfway through. It was building up to a nice dramatic plot about burglary and intrigue, and also briefly had a rare really interesting relationship between two female characters.

Damn' Rebel Bitches: The Women of the '45 by Maggie Craig (1997). One can never have too many Jacobite history books, and I thought this one sounded like a particularly valuable perspective on the events of the '45—Craig sets out to redress the balance of male-centric history writing, exploring the varied stories of women in the Rising. There are all sorts of fascinating stories in here, and a theme throughout is the diversity of things women did: there are women who persuaded their husbands to fight for the Cause, women who themselves raised men for Charles's army, camp-followers on the march into England, prisoners in York and London and transported to America, women escaping from prison and helping others to escape, Hanoverian women, spies and informers, a fresh look at the more famous Jacobite women Flora MacDonald and Clementine Walkinshaw, and so on and so on. All fascinating stuff! The arrangement of information could be a bit confusing at times—the short chapters are organised by broad themes, which means that the shape of the book follows neither the chronology of the Rising nor the individual stories of specific people exactly, and the resulting jumping around occasionally made things difficult to follow. But it was all very interesting indeed.

Almost as interesting as the history itself was Craig's approach to it. She discusses in some detail the process of historical research, describing her sources (which included some familiar letters from The Lyon in Mourning), who wrote them and where they came from, and the difficulties of piecing together the facts of a story from fragmentary and vague historical evidence. Her style is very informal, almost chatty—I get the sense that she's writing somewhat in deliberate contrast to the academic history which she feels has tended to leave women out—and her personality comes through very strongly, passionate, opinionated and impatiently cheerful. This made for enjoyable reading, although I thought some of the personal opinions and speculation went a bit too far at times. She talks about her own love of the history, her feelings about her historical subjects and her sympathy for them—and she also mentions, at the end of the book, other women's historical interest in the Jacobites and their place in the developing history itself, from Carolina Oliphant, Lady Nairne, writing romantic Jacobite ballads to what Craig calls 'the two greatest novels ever written about the '45'—The Flight of the Heron and Flemington! Clearly she's one of us. :D

I've found out that I can access some of the programmes on SVT Play, the Swedish equivalent of BBC iPlayer, which is a good resource! There are some nature documentaries, a 1960s adaptation of Pippi Långstrump and various news and current affairs programmes, amongst other things. This week I tried watching a nature documentary film called 'Den levande skogen' ('The Living Forest'), about the animals of the Swedish forest. My Swedish is not yet good enough to follow the narration properly, but I could pick up a few phrases here and there, and of course a wildlife documentary has plenty to enjoy even if you can't understand the words. And I did manage to learn some bird names—fiskgjuse, stare, trana (tranorna! <333), örn, häger (although I had already looked that one up ;D ), svan—these being the most important vocabulary to learn, of course.

Last week I decided to brighten up the new year by ordering some books, and all three of the very exciting books have now arrived! I've been enjoying admiring the covers and reading the epigraphs and other bits and pieces at the front—not being able to go to the library, most of my reading lately has been ebooks, but I really do prefer physical books and it's nice to have some new ones to enjoy. I have The Bull Calves by Naomi Mitchison, a post-'45 Scottish/Jacobite family story (it's actually about her historical family members—I'm not sure just how closely based on real history it is, but there's a family tree in the front which goes all the way down to 'Naomi' at the bottom) which I'm really looking forward to; Alas, Poor Lady by Rachel Ferguson, which I read several years ago and thought was a beautiful work of genius—flipping through it now, I think it's even better than I remembered, and I'll definitely re-read it soon; and (a first edition of!) Return to Night by Mary Renault, which certainly looks intriguing—it has a very dramatic cover illustration with a shirtless man in a big gloomy cave, so we shall see what that's all about.

Before I get to those I'm reading another D. K. Broster book, Ships in the Bay!. It's been a while since my last Broster, and it's lovely to return to her writing, historical detail and intricate long sentences and gorgeous nature descriptions and all (somewhat unexpectedly, it's set in Pembrokeshire near St David's, a part of the world that richly deserves Broster's descriptive skills). And the plot is very much her style too, so it's great fun.

I also caught up on the Doctor Who New Year's special today, which I enjoyed! Well, that was certainly a good episode to ship Thirteen/Yaz. :) I'm sad to see Graham and Ryan go, but I thought their exit was well done—I like that they chose to leave the TARDIS, and that they'll clearly continue living good and adventure-filled lives on Earth. (And, hey, now we might get even more of the Doctor and Yaz together...) And the return of Jack was great, of course.

In other TV, I watched the Christmas specials of both Ghosts and All Creatures Great and Small over Christmas—both very heartwarming stories. They are going for the drama with James/Helen, aren't they, but I liked Tristan in this episode too. Julian backstory was fun—and, aww, that scene with Alison and the ghosts singing carols together...

It's finally getting properly cold here, so I've decided it's time to start putting cinnamon and ginger in my hot chocolate of an afternoon. Very good stuff.

Anyway, I was looking around on BBC iPlayer for old David Attenborough documentaries, as you do (in my opinion the best television ever made was 'The Life of Birds'), and came across this, a collection of some of the earliest programmes he made, way back in the 1950s. I've been watching the first couple of episodes of 'Zoo Quest' this week (they've got one long episode about a trip to Sierra Leone, then two series about Southeast Asia and Madagascar, as well as some slightly later and more anthropological-looking programmes).

It's fascinating stuff—very much of its time, this being a time when one could apparently just jet off to Borneo, wander into the forest and find a random man willing to trade a baby orang-utan for some tobacco. It reminds me a bit of Gerald Durrell's books about collecting animals for the zoo, and the animals are similarly characterful and entertaining, especially that orang-utan! But there's some solid natural history stuff too, which is always good to see. It's interesting from a history of TV perspective as well—obviously a lot less polished than modern nature programmes, and it feels much more opportunistic and meandering rather than crafted to tell a story. I'm enjoying it so far!

I'm not sure why it's never occurred to me to try this before, but: I have discovered the delights of downloading fic from AO3 and putting it on my e-reader, and it's an excellent way of reading longfic! Much more pleasant than the screen, the formatting all translates well, and AO3 even puts a little note at the end reminding you to go back to the website and comment :D Anyway, I've now downloaded all the existing Flight of the Heron longfics for future re-reading.

I don't think I posted about the Ghosts finale at the time—I watched it last week, it was very good! Aww, such a lovely happy ending for both couples, even if the big misunderstanding between Alison and Mike was a bit silly, haha. Kitty's enthusiasm over the wedding was adorable, as was the Captain getting quietly really into all the trappings of the celebration. Robin giving his opinions on relationships was hilarious, and I liked the unexpected Mary backstory details! Hey, and I see there's going to be a Christmas special—that's two TV specials to look forward to this Christmas. :D

The last few books have been a little underwhelming, altogether, but not without their good points.

By Berwen Banks by Allen Raine (1899). I was in the mood for some turn-of-the-century Welsh melodrama, for which this was pretty ideal! Set on the coast of Ceredigion, it tells the story of the romance between Caradoc 'Cardo' Wynne, the son of the local Anglican vicar, and Valmai Powell, the niece of the local Methodist minister. The two clergymen hate each other (there's a very funny bit near the beginning about them punctiliously and passive-aggressively praying for each other every week), and are not thrilled at the prospect of a match between their young relations, but of course True Love wins in the end, after many hardships. The melodramatic twisting of the plot got a bit much, I think, but it was still enjoyable (and interesting to see an 1890s take on travel to Australia by someone other than E. W. Hornung, haha...). There were some good historical bits in there too—I enjoyed the description of the big Methodist revival meeting with huge crowds singing hymns and open-air preaching, and Raine's pro-Welsh language digressions were appreciated.

Every Good Deed by Dorothy Whipple (1946). This book is about two sisters, wealthy ladies, adopting a teenager from a Bad Home, and I don't know what happened with it—it's nothing like the other books I've read by Whipple. Not just the mean-spiritedness, classism and sexism, but the basic mechanics of the plot and emotional sensitivity of the writing, which I've admired in her other books, just weren't there. I thought it might be a still-finding-their-style early work, but no, this was sixteen years after High Wages, probably my favourite of her books so far. Oh well—I suppose we all have off days!

The War-Workers by E. M. Delafield (1918). This is about women 'war-workers'—in this case, the staff in the office of the Midland Supply Depot, responsible for overseeing and organising a wide range of military-adjacent activities—during the First World War, and in particular Charmian Vivian, the autocratic and mercilessly dedicated Director of the Depot. It made me feel a bit unsettled, overall. I felt very sympathetically towards Char, despite the fact that she really is quite unpleasant as a person. I think it was the way the other characters criticised her, particularly the doctor, who I found completely insufferable—and the way the 'good' characters find happiness in getting around her and shutting her out. I think I feel instinctively that anyone who gets that sort of treatment must be on the right side in a way, even if they do kind of deserve it. (Having read Consequences recently, I'm not at all sure this reaction wasn't intended by Delafield, who certainly has a thing about difficult, isolated loners who only make things worse for themselves). However, I really enjoyed the portrayal of the friendly camaraderie and petty enmities between the rest of the office workers, who all live together in a cramped and makeshift Hostel next to the office, and the book was historically interesting as well—I'd not appreciated how much administrative and organisational work women did in the First World War, and it was fascinating getting a look into what that was like.

In other stuff, I'm in the middle of watching Ghosts, the BBC sitcom about a haunted house from the people who did Horrible Histories, having found the second series on iPlayer. I'm really enjoying it! The comedy gets just a little embarrassment-squicky at times, but the characters and their interactions are all great, and I love how this series is exploring the ghosts' backstories and their hidden depths—I've just watched the episode about Thomas and now feel really sad for him, and the one about the Captain was so sweet. I'd love to know more about Mary's backstory—I think she's my fave of the ghosts, and I'm sure the writers will come up with something more complicated than 'she was burned as a witch' (which they must know is anachronistic anyway...!)—and Kitty's, because I like her a lot too and because so far I don't think we've had any real hint of what her backstory might actually be. Looking forward to the last two episodes :D