Let's All Go Down The Strand*

* Today's title is from a Music Hall song and the picture above shows where The Strand and Fleet Street met, just opposite The Royal Courts of Justice.

I was without the internet for 5 days last week and felt like I had lost a limb.  I had a major panic on Monday when I discovered that my router had given up the ghost because I needed to download the reading for my seminars.  Thank goodness Surrey Libraries give you the opportunity to book an hour session on the internet for free.  I was able to download all of the reading and then print off and study at home.  This was the third technological incident we had in a couple of weeks (Sky box stopped working & my laptop is refusing to work properly were the others) so I hope it is the last for now.

It was very busy at King's last week.  Extremely interesting lecture on 'The Trials of Oscar Wilde' and the West End on Tuesday afternoon. Then on Wednesday we had our first workshop to help with writing our dissertations.  The MA dissertation for English should be approx. 15,000 words and we have from April to September to write it which at the moment seems ages (ask me again in mid-July!).  I've written a MSc (master of science) dissertation before so was feeling relatively relaxed about this but that was more of an investigation/project (the benefits of mentoring).  By the time we finished our two hour session I was feeling a lot more nervous about writing this one but, I hope, in a good way.  After that I spent an hour in the cafe checking e-mails (I was able to use my i-Pad and the King's wifi) and then my Oscar Wilde seminar; very interesting.

On Thursday I started with my Modernity & the City seminar.  Our tutor is amazing, he ranges so widely across subjects.  This week we were talking about the poor in 19th C London and how the writers of reports and stories tried to persuade their readers that something needed to be done!  One of the things that amuses me is we were reading Charles Booth's report about the London poor and there is a lot about families living in abject poverty in one room in buildings around Covent Garden.  Anyone familiar with the London property market will know that flats round there now cost hundreds of thousands of pounds - a huge difference in 160 years.  I wonder what would happen if those people could see the streets they used to live in now?

Back to the City then for lunch with a friend, who is looking absolutely beautiful in her pregnancy!  Then dash back to King's for presenations about applying for a PhD and applying for funding.  I really want to do a PhD and I could do it without funding BUT I think it would look much better to say that a funding body thought my research was worth supporting.  The chances are tough - I think there is about a 1 in 4 chance of being accepted to a PhD at King's but the chance of a funded PhD drops to1 in 30.   We got good advice however, including not starting an application to King's by saying 'I have always wanted to study at Oxford'!

I also met my personal tutor for the first time on Thursday afternoon & she was great.  She gave me some ideas about books to read for my MA dissertation and was encouraging about the PhD subject.  I was exhausted when I left her and set off down The Strand for Charing Cross station.

This week we are moving on to World War I and tanks (yes, it is an English Lit course) and Our Mutual Friend which is probably my favourite Charles Dickens novel ever.  Oh yes, and my first essay is looming on the horizon.  I love it tho'!!

Thanks for reading & I'll hopefully update more quickly next time.

Tired but happy in Paris & St Petersburg*

* with apologies to George Orwell and, of course, I'm only there in the pages of books!

I am now two weeks into the MA. I had this fantasy that I would spend four days a week on my two modules and then be able to take Fridays to read things that I just found interesting. My weekends would be spent on whatever I fancied.  Hmmm - how naive was I?  I've just spent the best part of today, Sunday, reading articles for one module and Friday was spent the same way. The amount of reading is huge and whilst part of me says this is at it should be - it is an MA in English, the other part feels a bit nervous that I'm not taking enough in as I'm having to read everything so quickly.

But I have to tell you that I absolutely love it. I have vast numbers of e-mails, everyday, inviting me to  research seminars being held by all the arts & humanities departments as well as the School of Advanced Study, to participate in King's medical research (not brave enough to do any of that yet) or to join in various college activities. The English department alone seems to have weekly events run by either the staff or research students & everyone is so nice that you really want to go and support them. It's only been two weeks since I started properly but last Wednesday as I was walking past the (illuminated and beautiful) chapel I realised I felt like I had been here forever!

Last week we looked at the Great Exhibition of 1851, Marx on the value of labour and Guy Debord on spectacle and commodification. Really, really interesting stuff. Basically you have all these theories about the Crystal Palace itself - it was the first pre-fabricated building in London and had the first public toilets (thank you Prince Albert).  There were huge concerns about the building - would people boil to death inside when it got sunny (not in London methinks!) and how would the lower orders behave.  There had been revolutions across Europe in 1848 and Britain had only just emerged from the trauma of the 'Hungry Forties' when people where actually starving so you can almost understand their concerns but, I am pleased to report, the working classes (who could afford to attend) did behave themselves and no foreign revolutionaries instigated any attempts to overthrow the government!! 

In 'Modernity And The City' we studied St Petersburg.  The photograph to the left is of St. Isaac's Cathedral and at the top The Admiralty Spire.  I think St.  Petersburg is absolutely beautiful.  I was lucky enough to have to go on a work trip three years ago in early July.  As you can see the weather was fantastic & it was during the period of the 'White Nights' when it hardly gets dark at all.  I had just over a day to look around on my own and was able to visit the Hermitage, the Church on Spilled Blood, stroll down Nevsky Prospect and see the beautiful rooms inside the Strogonov Palace.  I stayed just opposite St Isaac's in the Hotel Astoria - a great place to stay if you can visit.

Of course in the seminar we were looking at a far less enjoyable side of Petersburg life.  We read Dosoevsky's Notes from the Underground and Gogol's Petersburg Tales.  I really enjoyed both, but particularly 'The Overcoat' by Gogol.  The authors are writing about St Petersburg in the 1840s and 50s so its a massively rigid society in which clerks don't matter but the gentry and military do.  There is a strong need for recognition in all the stories and I think the character in 'The Overcoat' is the one who manages to achieve it- in a fairly novel way.  We talked a lot about facades and prospects, St Petersburg was built to impress, all of which you can still see even if the city isn't quite in its imperial pomp today.

This week we're looking at Charles Baudelaire and the Flaneurs (apologies for the lack of accent there).  We're looking particularly at his poems Les Fleurs du Mal or The Flowers of Evil which apparently deal with some subjects that were a little sensitive in the 1860s.  I've read some of his prose poems and have found them quite touching.  The Encyclopaedia Larousse defines a flaneur as a loiterer or fritterer away of time (isn't that lovely).  They used to stroll around Paris, sometimes with a turtle, in the passages and arcades.  But there is a real sense of melancholy and disaffection in Baudelaire's work - it wasn't all fun being a flaneur because you might have had to keep changing your lodgings and you probably needed a job to support yourself.  Our tutor is lovely and seems  to know everything so I'm really looking forward to the seminar (if I can get all the reading done).

I'm also reading Our Mutual Friend at the moment for our seminar in a few weeks time.  It's 800 pages so I'm supposed to be reading 40 pages a night but I did read a bit extra today.  Normally I don't particularly like Dickens.  It's all of the cliffhangers he had to incorporate as the novels were serialised but are for me intensely annoying in a novel.  I normally get irritated with the silly names too (needed to make them memorable) but I like the name of the Veneerings (what was that about facades and false impressions) so maybe the course is starting to have an impression on me?                                                                     

Thanks for reading.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Only Connect

A few years ago I started to research my family tree.  I am very lucky as my mother's mother had an unusual maiden name and her family have tended to be in the right place at the right time (for censuses) and are easy to find in the records.  I was amazed at how many of my ancestors seemed to have some kind of connection to my life or interests (granted I was wanting to make those connections).   My Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather (I think) for example lived in the street where my sister and I worked two centuries later.  He ran a circulating library (the earliest forms of library) which is absolutely appropriate for a descendant studying for an MA in English.  Imagine the fun I could have discussing the latest of Jane Austen's publications with him.  I wonder if she was popular with his readers?  Those of you who know me know my love for Boston - imagine my amazement to find out my Great-Great-Great-Grandfather died there!  He was a merchant seaman (not surprising for a Liverpool family) but I think there is something rather poignant about the fact that I love visiting the city for holidays and he ended his days there.

My grandfather's (my Mum's Dad) side seemed to be much tougher to research as his surname is more common and, whilst the maternal line was very settled in Liverpool, his father's family came from the Lake District and were there as recently as the mid-19th century.  As the family made their way down, however, they do seem to have become involved in the industrial revolution - we have an engraver at a calico printers in the family and this involvement in the Lancashire Cotton Industry makes me feel proud.  My ancestors were there as the modern age was being born and having spent the afternoon looking at modernity as part of my background reading it really creates an interesting link for me.

Yesterday I found out something really exciting.  It seems (I'm 90% sure but need to do a little more research) that through my Great-Grandmother, on my Grandfather's side, we are descended from the family that tenanted the amazing building pictured on the left during the 18th Century.  This is Speke Hall which is a fantastic National Trust property just outside Liverpool.  Now I don't think it looked quite this good when my ancestors were there, in fact the next family to own the Hall considered that the tenant farmer families had ruined it!  I just feel amazed that I could be connected to history like this.  Other people have done work on this family and they seem to be relatively easy to trace as they are all christened or associated with a church in South Liverpool which has done a great job of preserving its records.  The really exciting thing is that people have traced this family back to the 1540s - how brilliant is that!!  I started my family history research after my Grandparents had died (in their 90s) and how I wish I had started when they were still alive.  My Grandad particularly would have been thrilled with this information, he was a really proud Scouser!   I think I wanted to feel rooted,or connected, but I never expected to find out just how rooted to that part of the country my family is.

The title of this entry is Only Connect, which is the epigram from Howards End by E.M. Forster.  It's a great book about three families, the poorer Blasts, the bohemian Schlegels and the capitalist Wilcoxes.  Forster looks at the interactions between the families in the context of places and culture.  This afternoon I was reading about the difference between place and space.  I won't bore you with the details but it was very interesting and the book that I read suggested that Forster isn't quite so against the city as first reading may suggest.  Perhaps he just found London at that period difficult to capture as it was changing so constantly?

I finally start the MA tomorrow - huge, huge hurrah!  A lecture and then seminars on Wednesday and Thursday. I'm sure I'll be nervous when I actually have to advance some ideas but perhaps the idea of how much change all of those ancestors saw can help me cope with a new beginning!

Thanks for reading ...

Here we go, here we go, here we go

Last week I registered at King's.  I was actually surprised at how well organised it was, wait in a room next to the registration room until the queue lessened and then join the green line to hand over passport and documents to prove you really had passed a bachelor's degree.  Unfortunately my degree certificate didn't arrive until Friday but I had something from the OU which stated that I wasn't arriving at King's under false pretenses.  All in all it must have taken about 20 minutes and then it was pick up the ID card which doubles as library card, be presented with a couple of letters stating I am a full time student (hopefully useful for convincing the tax office I don't work anymore) and I'm officially a student.  Well, I haven't paid yet but there doesn't seem to be much of a rush for that - what funding crisis?

Off I went to the library again (that's a picture of the entrance above, copyright King's) with the added excitement of being able to take some books out.  I'm currently reading Pierre or The Ambiguities by Herman Melville and not particularly enjoying it so I concentrated on books that would help with this.  I had walked to King's from Victoria Station, as it was a nice day, but my route took me past The Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey and so was full of tourists (hopefully spending lots of money).  It took me quite a while to get there so I decided that a bus was the solution back and whilst that took nearly as long it was much more comfortable.

Tomorrow is 'Induction' - three hours of it and then two hours of drinks.  I feel a bit nervous, not quite sure what it will bring and what will be expected of us. My great fear is someone asks me to stand up and explain what I have learnt from the background reading on Freud (not much really).  We also have a library induction on Friday - I'm sure I won't be brave enough to admit to already having used it - who's the old swot in the corner?  I'm really looking forward to starting the course - it's been nine months since I was accepted and nearly four months since I left work so a bit more structure in my life will be greatly appreciated.

I had a quick trip to see my parents at the weekend.  Dad & I went to see Liverpool play Wolves on Saturday afternoon.  Last week I saw something someone had written about watching football not being entertainment, it's far too stressful for that (although I guess if your team is Barcelona and they're playing their brand of football-porn you might not agree).  This was one of those afternoons.  The first stress was parking the car.  Anfield is situated in the middle of rows of terrace houses so no nice big official car parks.  When I first was allowed to go (in about 1980) you could park in the streets nearby and kids would offer to watch your car for whatever the going amount of money was (Dad used to look after people's bikes for a few old pence in the late 1930s).  Now those streets are all on resident's parking permits and anything possible is turned into a carpark (garage, school playgrounds,churches and even some people offering to rent their drive to you).  The charge is now £10 and there's no competition - the cost of going to a match certainly adds up.  We parked in a local junior school playground that meant I was able to combine football with some genealogy - we passed the house some of Dad's family lived in when the 1911 census was taken. 

I love the feeling of going to the ground - when we leave home we may see a couple of other cars with people wearing replica shirts or scarves.  As we get closer we start to see people walking to the ground, initially in maybe twos or threes and then, when we get to Stanley Park, people start to converge and as we come out of the passageway into Anfield Road suddenly there are hundreds of people all dressed in red - the main artery as opposed to minor veins.  Anfield is old, undoubtedly and perhaps if/when a new stadium is built there will be more tickets available and more ladies' toilets (please!) but it is magical.  It's a combination of residual emotions from European nights, tears spilt over tragedy and the souls of many of the faithful (although now the pitch management is so scientific I wonder if you can still spread ashes there?)  We were right in the corner of the Main Stand, parallel with the Kop and with a slightly restricted view, which no-one told me about when I bought the tickets, but nothing I know matches being part of more than 35,000 people singing You'll Never Walk Alone as the team comes out - no wonder so many old players hang around.  If it's addictive in the stands, how much more so is it on the pitch?  I won't go into the detail of the game - the team is still a work in progress (and watching was extremely stressful at times) but they won so we've got a 100% record in the games we've seen this season!

Thanks for reading ...

Nearly there ...

(For anyone who hasn't read before, after 22 and a half years in the full-time world of work and the part-time world of studying I am about to begin a full-time MA in English 1850 - Present at King's College, London)

Well, it's all getting very exciting!  I am getting daily e-mails via my college e-mail address inviting me to join the orchestra or choir (no-one has told them about my complete lack of musicality), attend various lectures (not relating to English) and asking if I would like to register for the Associate of Kings College qualification (AKC).  The AKC is very interesting.  It's open to all students across the college and covers ethics, theology, history etc.  It's a bit of a hark back to the earliest days of King's.  You attend lectures over three years and then sit one exam at the end and, if you succeed, you are entitled to use the letters AKC after your name.  If I was an undergraduate I would definitely sign up.  My MA is only for one year, however, and although I have now seen that you can study for the qualification 1 year in situ and 2 via distance learning, I'm just not sure.  The programme of lectures looks really interesting but should I just concentrate on doing as well as I can with the MA?  Decisions, decisions!

We had our modules confirmed on Friday (hurrah) and I was relieved and very pleased to get all of my first choices.  Our core course is called Texts, Culture and Theory and we all have to take that.  In addition my modules are: 'Modernity and the City' in Semester 1 (not really sure what the difference is between a Semester and a Term, another thing that has come after my time); followed by 'Poetry, Perception and Place' and 'Turn of the Century Representations of Sexuality' in Semester 2.  Then it's on with the dissertation and I have to decide exactly what I'm going to do for that.  At the moment I'm torn between something to do with classical influences on TS's Eliot's poetry, was there really a fin de siecle or something about women authors and hysteria.  I'll need to decide & firm up my ideas pretty quickly!

We complete college registration on Thursday (and pick up NUS cards and college ID/library cards) and then next week it is the English MA Induction.  I really can't wait to meet tutors and fellow students and just to get going.  I've enjoyed my summer of reading and preparing but I just want to make a start on everything now!

Thanks for reading ...

Today's the day the teddy bears pick new owners

Yesterday I went to a Teddy Bear Fair. Let me describe it for those of you who have never attended one.  Hugglets organise two fairs a year in Kensington Town Hall (February and September).  There are four rooms full of stalls selling manufactured bears (such as Steiff), artist bears (such as the lion above), vintage bears and materials/kits to make your own bears.  When I first started collecting bears there were three UK monthly magazines and lots of shows.  If you weren't in line for the Kensington fairs way before they opened you might not get the bears you wanted (most of the artist bears are one of a kind).  Unfortunately, as with all things the economy has impacted on people's ability to spend a not inconsiderable amount of money on teddy bears and so, I learnt yesterday, there is only one bear magazine left in Britain (Teddy Bear Times) and now it only comes out every other month. 

I had always promised myself that once I earned a reasonable amount of money I would collect Steiff bears but did nothing about it until one day when T and I took a short cut in Guildford and came across The Bear Garden.  This was a shop full of nothing but bears and after a long chat with the lady in charge I bought my first collector's bear.  (Collectible teddy bears tend to be made of mohair or alpaca although I have a bear made out of silk and they are normally fully jointed.  They are usually not recommended for children at all).   That was the start of my collection or 'hug' as it is officially called.  The normal path for a collector is to start with Steiff, Deans, Merrythought and the other respected manufacturers (I was lucky that a lady called Robin Rive was making beautiful bears in New Zealand and I have some of hers).  They all have (or had) collectors clubs so you start to attend club events and then if you are anything like me you go to a bear fair and suddenly you are confronted with hundreds or thousands of the most appealing little faces and artists you haven't seen in any magazine.  Artist bears can be traditional or a bit more wacky, perhaps a long neck or particularly long feet or a face that doesn't look like a bear at all.  I am always amazed by what people will pick up and buy but my tastes tend to be very traditional.  There are a lot of exceptionally good designers out there and I will just name a few that I particularly like.  Whittle-le-Woods bears make the most beautifully dressed bears and they were amongst the first artist bears I bought.  I have a school-boy, a Victorian bathing beauty and a Chelsea pensioner amongst others.  The attention to detail on the bears is amazing.  In the  
picture to the left you can see Amelie.  She was made for me by the bear artist trading as Humble Crumble Bears.  She is the most beautiful bear and, as Vicky Allum (Humble Crumble) makes bears that resemble old Steiffs, she is rather saggy so she tends to be, very appealingly, slouching.  I have a number of Humble Crumble bears as well.  If you join Vicky's mailing list she will tell you when she has new bears available.  Don't even bother looking an hour after that list has gone out, all of the bears will have been adopted.  (Whenever she is at a fair I'm attending I make sure I get to her stall first otherwise there will be no bears left!).  My final recommendation is for a very different type of bear maker - Bear Bits make realistic looking brown bears, polar bears and pandas among others.  They are of the highest standard and beautifully created.  Yesterday I saw another stall selling a couple of very realistic bears.   I will try and check out who they were because those bears were also magnificent.

 
 I had checked out the Hugglets site to see who would be attending yesterday and fell in love with the rabbits created by The Rabbit Maker.  Strangely enough this is an artist who only makes rabbits both as almost sculptured models and as 'traditional' rabbits. I decided to look at her stall but was sure common sense would prevail.  Well, here is Fifi and isn't she gorgeous.  She reminded me a little of someone just starting school and so seemed absolutely right for my situation (just over two weeks now to the MA induction).  There is a saying that a bear chooses you and in this case I think the rabbit chose me because, whilst all of the rabbits on the stall were simply beautiful, I only had eyes for Fifi.  That was officially it for me; budget was blown and I hadn't come looking for lots of bears to take home so I didn't buy anything else did I?

With a stone heart I walked past tens of other stalls, smiling at the beautiful bears and complimenting artists on bears that had already been sold. (Much safer, I find, if you praise a bear that is still up for adoption they may suggest you hold it and that way only purchasing lies!)  I walked through the two main halls without so much as an itching to pick any bear up and then I climbed up to the upper floor.  There was a stall with some lovely bears on and I was tempted to buy just one small one as they had such wonderful expressions but I turned around and saw Hahira (who you can see at the top of the page).  I hadn't seen a lion at the fair before and this one had the most adorable expression - he looks so sad.  I started talking to his maker and she explained he was created from recycled raccoon fur and invited me to feel how soft he was.  I ummed and aahhed because I shouldn't really buy him but, he was beautiful and I already have so many bears, a lion would be a first.  He's an Anglo-American lion, made in the Mid-West by a British artist so it seemed appropriate I should see him yesterday.  I left the hall shortly after buying him.  I had been there for quite a time and, more importantly, I couldn't trust myself not to fall in love with anything else.

So now you know the story of my trip to the bear fair and my complete lack of will-power.  Did you know people who collect bears are called 'arctophiles' and I was glad that, even in such tough times, so many were out yesterday.  I must try not to attend the fair in February tho' as it's very bad for my bank balance.

Hope you've been OK on this windy Monday (in the UK) and thanks for reading.  

Not Long Now

I was very kindly allowed to visit the Maughan Library at King's yesterday afternoon (I'm not fully enrolled yet so missing the card which would automatically let me in).  The library is in the old Public Records Office, just around the corner from the Royal Courts of Justice and opposite the Law Society.  I hope you can see from the picture (left) how beautiful it is on the outside.  Inside it is very large and light (everything seems to be painted white).  The reading room is absolutely gorgeous and featured in the film of the Da Vinci Code, although I'm not sure how proud the college is of that.

Although term doesn't start for about 10 days I was surprised how many people were there.  I got a bit lost at first and it was eerie to wander through a few empty rooms where lights came on just as I went into the room and then seemed to go off as soon as I left (very efficient motion sensors).  When I got to the English/Literature section though there were about 5 other people working.  I was worried that I might distract them as I took out my pen and opened my notepad but then I noticed there was a constant noise - the tip-tap of computer keyboards being struck.  Hmmm - spot the 'old' student.  I think I'll have to get used to using either my iPad or laptop for note-taking or look like a bit of a dinosaur.  I'm just worried that I'm too slow a typist! I suppose practice will make perfect and as I spent time today typing up my handwritten notes from yesterday I guess it will be more efficient just to type in the first place.

I really want to get organised now.  My prepatory reading is going well (i.e. I'm reading the background books.  If you tested me on Freud not sure how well I'd do) but I want to know when our induction will be and make a start on things.  I really need to learn some patience but it's just because I'm excited.

Thanks for reading ...