"Do you have anything to eat? I'm starved."

She looked it, too. Amy had most of a bag of dried apricots in her jacket pocket and she handed it over.

"Thanks." The other girl pulled open the packet and set to with a will.

"So - " began Amy, and then stopped, unsure how to go on. Do you have a name? How did you get here?

The strange girl didn't seem to notice her awkwardness, just continued to gobble apricots with every appearance of enjoyment. She paused for a moment to look up. "These are really good!" she said.

"Really?" Amy smiled grimly. "I've got pretty sick of them myself." It seemed at the moment there wasn't much to be had except for the packets of dried fruit.

"But they're nice. All different," explained the girl, examining one and then taking a small bite. "See? This one is a bit crispy in the middle."

"Ugh," said Amy, "I hate those ones, all weird and woody, they freak me out."

"You're so negative about everything!"

She said it quite without rancour. Amy almost laughed. "And you're almost insanely positive about everything."

...From (a fic based on) my crazy big ff-style rpg thingum with a bazillion cool characters.

-

Eidan leaned back in his chair and regard Gabriel with suspicion. "That's what I don't get. You're a poet. How do you get off being such a fan of things being explained?"

Gabriel frowned slightly. "I don't see that my life is such a contradiction as you make it out to be..." he said. "There are times, and times."

"So?"

"So - " Gabriel wrestled with a thought, "certain truths are rather more urgent. One doesn't give a poem to a man about to walk off a cliff. No-- that's not really it, I oversimplify, before you tell me....

"Perhaps it's simply more that... yes -- you don't - I don't, one doesn't - love poetry because it is vague, quite the opposite. Normal conversation, the mundane surface of life, is generally hopelessly vague, and poetry can cut through all that wrapping to give you just a glimpse of the bright and blazing truth behind. By coming at a thing sideways you can see it clearly, if only for a moment..."

The date is the 17th of November.

(...The Oxfordshire Rising of course).

How does one commemorate something like that?

Dear ----,

Why must I begin each and every letter with an admission of my own utter and complete hopelessness? I am sure you have noticed and are grown as tired of it as you no doubt are of the rest of my hapless attempts, but I really feel I must continue to do this. Because there are no words. Because I am hopeless. I am aware of this, aware of my own hopelessness in ever even beginning pour onto paper what you make me need to say. And I am aware that I spend altogether too much time being aware of this, aware aware aware and awake and -
- oh, love, how you make me ridiculous!

But oh, how you also make me brave! You make me take up pen and write, write because my heart must otherwise burst. I fear no ridicule - no, not even yours! Because - and perhaps you will think me crazier still now - a rebuke from you, any words from you at all, I would treasure up forever!

I write to you in a delirium. The world is hot and cold, all the colours burning through the frozen white night. The merest word from you and I am pitched into the sky, set aflame... I walk distractedly from room to room. The walls are hollow, and it seems like they all bear your portrait, but when I look again, you have vanished.

...I have so many words and not a single one is ever right! I sometimes think that in all this - this writing business, I mean - I'm digging for legendary treasure, and of course I make a terrible mess of it and in the mean time the sand flies about everywhere. I am searching out the truth, what to say, what I mean... Or, which is nobler, I am seeking your words - and I have so few of them.

I will stop now. I do not mean to throw words in your eyes.

Keep yourself well, and remember me. Let all the words fall away and I stand before you unarmed. I love you.

----

So what, after all, is Love? Love with a capital L, looped in scarlet and gold calligraphy when words flow like blood...

Say that the words are not enough -- and I suppose they aren't, because words are only an approximation of Music. Or -- don't say approximation. Say quantification maybe; decimalisation. Divide everything you are and everything you feel into pieces, measured, lettered, how can I even begin to tell you--?

And yet...

And yet.

Words are enough to move me, enough to splinter my soul into crazy pieces and scatter me across the sky like stars. And, oh, from here I can see everything... Everything that never held together when I was only myself, whole within myself, unbroken and unopen to anything else. From here it does not seem to matter much what Love is, after all, only that it is.

Everyone at Hall Fell: *sorting out who's bringing what to tea party on Sunday*

Tom: So- what shall we put on Mary and Ellie? Cream and jam?

Edmund: ......Tom, you really want to think about how you phrase things.

Pause: *happens*

Me: *gets it and starts laughing hysterically*

Tom: Eh?

Edmund: What you just said...

Tom: I said... "What shall we... put on..." ...Oh.

The cats don't approve of the ghosts. This is largely because the ghosts are messy souls, no pun intended, and the cats feel that everyone should maintain a certain degree of sophistication in the house. Some of the ghosts have really let themselves go: hair unbrushed and those pretty Victorian bonnets all but forgotten about. And the buttons that fall off the their bodices and off their shirt sleeve cuffs... that's what Mrs. Callow really notices, all those ghost buttons lying about the place. She puts them away in the sewing box. The ghosts never ask after them.

She was going to be late.

She checked her watch. 10 minutes. No - fifteen; she always set her watch fast. She could make it. Fifteen minutes wasn't great; she wouldn't be early, but she could just about make it. Probably. Well - it was going to be a close-run thing. She squinted at her watch again. A very close-run thing.

Something had to be done

She walked as fast as she could, clinging all the while to two facts which she really, really hoped would prove to self-evident. First - time flies when you're having fun, which she wasn't, and second - a watched kettle never boils. So, thinking logically, all she would have to do was keep a sharp eye on her watch - say... check every 20 seconds or so - and time couldn't go anywhere! Better still - look at her watch the whole time!

Arm held out in front of her, head down, staring unflinchingly at her watch, she marched onwards at speed.

...

She woke up, head aching, and looked up into a sea of concerned faces.

Somehow, impossibly, she had apparently walked straight into a lamppost.

...She was going to be very late indeed.

...and so they began to write, and their tears splashed down and blossomed the ink over the paper...

-

the things we used to talk about:
persuading paper birds to fly

-

a fox in a frock-coat
the well-behaved sort to tip his hat
how do you do

-

she should have been cold to the core - but it was as if the warmth was something physical, some mass inside that had been stolen away leaving only a space - she collapsed upon the desk -

</i>I've lost his voice completely now, but I scribbled it all down straight away in my notebook with the pen I'd been using to practice calligraphy, so the words are there.</i>

-

"Hello, m'dear," he says, stopping in front of the bus stop where I'm sitting after chasing the bus that just left halfway up Whiteladies.

"Are you a student?"

"Yeah, I am," I say.

"Of... English?" he asks shrewdly, looking at my notebook and penmanship.

"Music. Quite close."

"Music!" he exclaims, walks in under the bus shelter and sits down. "What about Brahms? Do you like Brahms?"

"Yes, I like Brahms..."

"Mahler?"

"Well -" I really haven't heard that much.

"4th Symphony's good isn't it?"

"Mm, yeah - I don't know, I'm not really that much of a Mahler person..."

"Then what kind of person are you?"

"I - well I play oboe, and I like a lot of baroque music -"

"You play the oboe?"

"Yes."

"Can you read music?"

"Yes."

"What about write it?"

"Ha - yeah - that is, I'd really like to. I'd like to be a composer."

"Can you sight-read?"

"I - yeah, kind of, I'm quite good." I remember how I'm always the one people have to talk to so I say simply: "So what about you? Do you like music?"

"I'm the quintessential musician," he says, "I am the music."

There's not a whole lot to say to that except for "..wow."

" - though not in the way you'd might think," he continues, "Because I'm dark-skinned, people think rap, soul..."

"That's a bit of a shallow judgement..."

"I was raised on Bach and Beethoven..."

"I was raised on the Beatles. I'm not from a very classical background."

"I had them too, of course... tagging along like fleas on my backside..."

"Oh - yeah?"

"They had some good tunes, I suppose."

"And really, some innovations -" Though he's not really listening, I don't think.

"Some good tunes, Paul McCartney did have something... Yesterday was a good tune, and Eleanor Rigby, they were good tunes."

"Yeah."

"But me, I'm middle-aged now, and Paul McCartney -- he owns islands off the coast of Scotland! He's just too rich. Well, m'dear, I must be getting along and leave you be, mustn't harrass you or I might get arrested."

"Ha, I appreciate it," I say, smiling to show it's a bit of a joke.

"Goodbye."

"See you."

I never quite get around to saying what I rather feel like saying which is: "It's not often people just talk to people like this."

Bone-tired, aching, numb - yes both: inside and out, respectively - and not unhappy. Far away, desperately in need of sleep.

So here's how you make a whimsical little lovely drink, approximately.

1. Prepare Essence of Coffee by making some incredibly strong instant coffee in a cup. Boil water, pour in a few inches, add several teaspoons of coffee powder, stir. (You'll need only a couple spoonfuls, to taste, in the finished thing, but presumably it can be kept for a bit once made.)
2. Put milk in a bottle (500ml?), nearly up to the top. Or put in 4 tbsp of milk powder and cold water.
3. Add a couple bottle cap fuls of vanilla syrup
4. And however many tsps of Essence of Coffee you feel like.
5. Shake shake shake
6. Enjoy~

Simple things... I felt like Mozart with a felt-tipped pen.

The words come easy and so do the silences. Talking -- the half-hearted rain and pigeon-powered aircraft -- talking -- the Bible brought to life in silly voices. Half-formed and incoherent, as serious as you like, or not. Watching the city lights, misty on the horizon, Bristol's own Aurora Borealis... Friendship like I don't deserve -- such blessings break my heart

a girl sitting by the window of a café on the third floor high above the city. Twlight, dull-light, failing light and the vulgar headlights of cars. Coffee, ice cold, delicious - hint of vanilla - one of those little Things she still turns to for comfort, like cinnamon tic tacs, cinnamon anything, medieval love/death songs and the smell of old books that itches at her eyes and excites her mind. Sit still long enough in the twilight melancholy - no reason at all - and maybe the pumped in/up music will fade and you can hear the other voices, words of café procope of days long gone by

~

inky stained fingers, think - I'll use this pen now while it's not important, leave blotches (like tear drops, or nothing so very tragical) over the random outpourings, thoughts of a thoughtless half an hour

~

Fidélio Léonore, pale skin and red hair, smiling and moving lightly like a fairy of autunm. Says what's on her mind, if you could see her soul it would be sparkling, pure clear crystal. Willing to be fathomed, seen, known, understoof, wondering if anyone will make the effort perhaps, but these are not things that concern her overmuch. Dressed in red (dark) and white -- I see the afternoon sun reaching the dull room alight on her collarbone and the curves of her face, laughing. She says, I feel like I've known you for ages, and always she smiles in my mind.

Léonore is her name, or Eleanor. Léo, Lenore; she is Ella, Fidélio...

An artist who doesn't create. Of course you're going mad.

...

It doesn't count. Phrase-making doesn't count.

--

Maybe the difference, maybe the only difference here, is that deep down... it may not truly be the fear of a life unknown so much as a life purposeless that haunts.

I ask not for a long life...

--

Damn straight I want to die young.

--

Question. So why don't you smoke then?

Answer: because a) everything on the surface is horrible and b) cancer is not the way I want to go.

--

Sweet nothings, nothing, nothing at all so sweet.

--

Beyond this -

Ear to the wall - for they are perhaps only in the next room. Hark at the voices across all the centuries and the scaffolds.

--

But oh... oh my truest loves, whatever will become of us?

I mean really...

--

She wakes up to find scratches, long, red, hopelessly shallow, down her legs and across her belly. In her sleep maybe she's clawing away at herself, this cucoon she must be free from, this dragon-skin. Or it is only the layers of the world. She wants desperately to be new, young, please take me back to how it was.

--

Listen, I'm sorry about this, I really am, though I don't know quite why.

Try me again sometime, when I'm a little more myself. Or less, whichever it really is.

Well, ... well isn't it great to finally have free access to 8000+ scholarly journals? she says calmly.

Anyway, here I will plonkity links and things... *sleepy* I just came across something rather baffling that immediately makes me: "Noo, what the... what are you talking about?!?" ...(but then who am I trusting and where do I get my original views of everything?? This seems highly unlikey but WHY?)

This cites a book which: "comprehensively demolishes the positive myth of Revolution." Twas in 1919 -- but then, eh, you can't say it's wrong JUST because of that.

But I do find it very eyebrow-raise-worthy indeed how apparently the Revolution was plotted by the Duc d'Orleans.

Ohh, and it's a freemason plot too. Interesting. Yesss. So Danton and Desmoulins were bought by Orleans - yes, ok, that's plausible enough in the early years... I'd like to see you fit Robespierre and St-Just in that way! *blink* It just seems such an insane idea that my head is spinning! Apparently their plan "got out of control" (Orleans', and Mirabeau's?)..... but, um, surely they.... gah, surely they wouldn't be THAT stupid as to assume they could control -- well, I suppose they might think that.......... but we're saying just a FEW people stirred things up, everyone else was happy and etc etc?

"The red, white and blue cockade - the origin of the revolutionary tricolore - happened to be the livery of the Duc d'Orleans. Desmoulins said: "When patriots needed a rallying sign, could they have done better than to choose the colours of the one who first called us to liberty?". "
- hm, I don't recall Desmoulins having said that in any other source I've ever read ever.

"The situation has a parallel in the Russian Revolution, where most Bolshevik leaders were non-Russians: Poles, Jews, Georgians etc. The use of foreigners to kick-start revolutions and to terrorize local people into acquiescence has always been a major strategy of the Left, perhaps why they are so keen on mass immigration."

*BLINKETTY WHATTHEDENMARK??!* There is... so much wrong with that paragraph.

Just - guh!!! There are about a thousand paralells that actually DO exist between the Revolution - why make something stupid like this up??

So -- everyone was ok, then some outside agitators "terrorized" them into, uh, revolting against the monarch? Er, yeeeah.

"An Orleaniste agent also assassinated a journalist, Suleau, who had boldly produced writings exposing their plot."
A new interpretation..... all I know about Suleau I basically know from PoGS, where he was killed by Theroigne but ... well, this just doens't wash if you don't believe in this guy's stupid conspiracy theory!!

And THEN he goes into this big thing about how the royals were all lovely and harmless and submissive and the mob was bloodthirsty and liked killing people and there were only seven people in the Bastille anyway -- and that's all basically true.... well, the king was just useless etc etc, and the "mob" were frightened by the fact there were TROOPS arriving in Paris........ but, um, I thought his original theory was more along the lines of: "OUTSIDE agitators hatch a plot etcetc", now we've got the usual "mob goes mad" thing.

"After the King's judicial murder, the Commune turned on the people. Why did so many go to their deaths without fighting back? "The despotism of the demagogues was organized, while the people were composed of solitary units that could not coalesce". There was a fear of whom to trust. The Left relies on its superior organization to paralyse all opposition. Method has always been its chief strength."
Buzzahwhaa?
NOW the "people" are all innocent again and the government is pure evil. Hee, just wait for the bit about the tricotes and further bloodthirst mobs...


"As George Orwell observed in his dystopia, 1984, it is not enough that enemies of society be destroyed - they must go to their deaths utterly discredited even in their own eyes. In Dec 1792, Louis XVI was put on trial on sundry trumped-up charges, including: stockpiling bottles of rum, committing more cruelties than Nero and bathing in human blood. This travesty of justice - the Assembly being both accusers and judges - ended with the King being condemned to death. At her trial in Oct 1793, Marie Antoinette was similarly demonized and even accused of the sexual abuse of her own children, before being executed. Wild accusations and enforced confessions also featured in the Bolshevik Revolution, strongly reminiscent of Mediaeval witchcraft trials."
This is a good point. And things that Herbert and people said were utterly sick.


BUT THIS WRITER ANNOYS ME SOOOO MUCH. He just KEEPS GOING ON ABOUT "THE LEFT" and how they're PURE EVIL.

"Despite being ostensibly democratic, the hard-line Socialist Republicans under Robespierre changed the law in other ways too: banning "coalitions of workmen" (i.e. trade unions), freedom of the press, religious liberty, free speech and being allowed a defence or witnesses during a trial. "Democratic despotism" is no empty phrase but a well-attested reality."
- the trade unions thing I find interesting, there is some basis for freedom of the press claim, but he's being a little general.
"democratic despotism" still makes no sense, I'm afraid. It's just, uh, not democratic. What does he think should happen?? Absolute monarchy?

Really weird.... I have no clue what he DOES want, because this "left" he's describing is not really what people nowadays who call themselves "left" type people would what... what with no freedom of the press, religious liberty et al. He doesn't even comment on how the initial good intentions went sour or ponder as to why that might be....
Oh yes, I almost forgot -- that's because he believes there never WERE any good intentions, he thinks that there was this plot by outside agitators to ... uh, kill a lot of people for no reason.
No, so, seriously, what does he think THEY wanted?? He's got NO ARGUMENT here, and his only intention seems to be to demonize "the Left".

"King condemned to death by 361 votes to 360 votes. Philippe Egalité announced: "Solely occupied by my duty... I vote for death." When, in late 1793, the Duke himself was out-manoeuvred and ended up on the guillotine, onlookers shouted mockingly "I vote for Death!" and "You voted for the death of your kinsman!". D'Orleans had used too much dynamite; in blowing up the Bourbons he destroyed the throne itself."
...Um? Ohh, kaay, so he's saying Orleans wanted to be king himself, or equivalent. Well, that's not such a ridiculous theory. I just REALLY DOUBT he was the one who started the whole revolution because of it, and reading this is not making me more likely to believe it.

"There were certain people the Left could never win over, therefore, in the words of Jean-Paul Marat: "We must give up the Revolution or do away with these men... we must destroy them." By warring against elements of the nation (the Church, independent craftsmen, landed gentry, the educated, people with property or aspirations etc) - mostly on the grounds of class envy - the Left has historically always been a force for division. "
!!!! "(the Church, independent craftsmen, landed gentry, the educated, people with property or aspirations etc)"
Oh, because none of the leaders of the revolution were at all educated or had any aspirations, no no. They were just a bunch of talentless wannabes who like to mess things up. (I could mention, say, Abbé Sieyes, Mirabeau, Herault de Sechelles etc etc etc... but I won't because I don't think it's that good an argument - though it certainly beats his.)

"Marat - described by Webster as "a malignant dwarf" and "homicidal maniac""
*DIES A DEATH* Whyyyyy must they doooo that?? Funnily enough of course, he was a bit homicidal and certainly malignant to some people -- but then he was a popular HERO and spat blood and fire for what he thought...

"was a former Orleaniste fixated with purging society of class enemies. He inspired the Reign of Terror (1793-94), which - like Stalin's War on the Kulaks (rich peasants), Mao's Cultural Revolution or Pol Pot's Killing Fields - devastated many rural provinces. Recalcitrant Royalist areas like the Vendee, Lyons, Normandy, Toulon and Franche-Comte became scenes of horror, with thousands killed in mass drownings, shootings or by the guillotine. Prudhomme estimated just over 1 million deaths in a nation of 25 million. France thereafter ceased to be the most populous nation in Europe."
(I'm not sure about the figures, but we'll let that go - at least he's bothering about provinces though, and he ---- oh, wait. I was about to say he's not insisiting it's just aristocrats dying, but actually..... he says "purging societies of class enemies" and then goes onto talk about mass drownings in the provinces etc. One could easily assume we were still talking about landed people rather than peasants etc at the Vendée. Yeah, and by comparing to other things in that way -- wow. So much wrong there.)

Marat "inspired the Reign of Terror", did he? All by his lonesome? (Well, it's not so ridiculous as what I thought for a minute it said, which was: "Marat who instigated the Reign of Terror" !!!)

"With a few exceptions, like Marat (whom Webster described as "an elemental - a materialization of pure evil emanating from the realms of outer darkness") it is hard to see most of the revolutionaries as wicked human beings. Some - the conspirators like the Duc d'Orleans - were basically selfish and greedy, which are reprehensible qualities, but which are also extensions of the normal drive for self-preservation. Some - the idealists - were narrow-minded fanatics, but no doubt well-intentioned and convinced they were building a better world. The "Incorruptible" Robespierre was almost a paragon of the disinterested intellectual."

. . . . ok, first... not so completely outrageous as it could have been, normal people etc, maybe...

BUT AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA, I've got to find this Nesta Webster book with Marat the "materialization of pure evil" in it!!!

"Deeper and deeper she sank into the literature of the Revolution, collecting several such rare books as La Bastille Devoilée... She published The French Revolution: a Study in Democracy. At last Carlyle's semi-hysterical rhapsody had been met factually... Like Lord Acton she perceived evidence of design in the tumult and a calculating organization. As she worked from original papers as well as printed sources she claimed to have faulted the great Acton nine times. The First World War together with her Revolutionary studies drew out her fearless Bevan fervour. She turned with confident fury on the possible enemies of England. Three books followed in 10 years: World Revolution: The Plot against Civilisation, Secret Societies and Subversive Movements and finally The Surrender of an Empire. They will be worthy of the attention of unbiased historians."
- obit of Nesta Webster...
.......uhh, funny how it says this all so factual... *remembering Marat as pure!evil etc...*

..come on, where's demon!Robespierre? I can't believe he hasn't made an appearance yet...
http://thescorp.multics.org/24webster.html


ANYWAY. blah.


-

About Prudhomme!! http://muse.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/access.cgi?uri=/journals/french_historical_studies/v026/26.4zizek.pdf&session=5800627

http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/(3dnpdtjtvtkqclziv1ceiwjr)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=searcharticlesresults,2,64; Hm?

Bartholomew Steer:

Interesting... a Bartholomew Steer, brother of John who strangely enough seems to have spelt his name (if he did) with an 'e'..., and son of another John Steere is here inheriting 5 pounds when he is 21, in a document drawn up in 1635. So. Our Bartholomew would already be dead. Where's "South Tawton"? Is this just a total coincidence? ^^;;

And then there's this! Which looks to include a source from... *SIGH*... 1625. Gah. It looked so very promising for a moment there. Where's Byrdwell??
!!!! YES!!! I mean, no! , but ultimately YES YES YES!!! I read it wrong. I read the wrong attribution, this is actually the 1596 source!! *does a little dance of glee* I think this is it!!! (Still, where's Byrdwell??) If this is, then I have two more names!!

And for the better bowltinge forth of the truithe of theire intended plottes and purposes you shall (as you shall see cause) remove [Bartholomew Steer, James Bradshaw and Roger Ibell] to Brydwell and cause them to be putt to the manackles and torture that they may be constrained thereby to utter the whole truith of their myscheous devyses and purposes in this wicked and trayterous conspiracy, whereof wee praie you to advertise us from tyme to tyme.

(THE PRIVY COUNCIL TO SOLICITOR-GENERAL FRANCIS BACON, 18 December 1596)

(Heeee, I should have written my absurdist piece BEFORE I researched - the more I find out, maybe the harder it will be... Still, no one else need know for the purposes of the fic....)

Here are some more sources from that month which may or may not be relevent...

   Therfore considering that amongst other thinges which have kindled the heavie displeasure of God to threaten the realme at this tyme with want and dearthe, it is likelie that nothing hathe bin a juster cause than the excesse in dyett, being a custome generally received throughout all partes of the realme, wherby there is also nedeles waste and riotous consumpcion made of that plenty wherewith this land hath byn blessed asmuch as any other contry of the worlde.

            (THE PRIVY COUNCIL TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, 25 December 1596)

*coughsplutter* And "excesse in dyett"!! Ahh, the silly people had too much food, did they? Obviously that's why they're protesting!

I send a letter from Sir Wm Spencer, with examinations concerning an intended rising of the people in Oxfordshire. I want the Council’s orders what is to be done with the offenders, to prevent like attempts. PS. I want your commission, and some order to be taken about enclosures on the western part of the shire, where this stir began, that the poor may be able to live.

            (LORD NORRIS TO SIR WILLIAM KNOLLYS, COMPTROLLER OF THE ROYAL HOUSEHOLD, 14 December 1596)

Yeeessss, this is it! (14th December, they're trying to "prevent the attempts", are they? And on the 18th they're off to torture... right... *thinks* So, was their 'plot' revealed ahead of time? I guess there must have been audible murmurings?)

Warwick Uni's history exam paper site might be generally cool for sources and such...
...For instance: Enlightenment and Revolutionary Paris

Heheheeee, I'll digress for a sec to point out this:

  At the end of the stormy session, I saw a common-looking deputy mount the tribune, a man with a grey, impassive face and neatly dressed hair, decently clad like the steward of a good house or a village notary who was careful of his appearance. He read out a long and boring report, and nobody listened to him; I asked his name: it was Robespierre.

Chateaubriand, Memoirs

Aaack, poor silly man. (Soo amused on listening to "Night Watch" when they call Vimes incorruptible!)

Ooooh... heehehe, I really should have found this place for my coursework questions :) I seriously did search.... questions like:

1. What was the significance of the Damiens affair? (not that I'd have known, or probably could have at all easily found anything on him...)

 4. Analyse the role of Paris in the cultural origins of the Revolution? (This could rather fascinate...)

 5. Discuss what light EITHER pre-Revolutionary Salon criticism OR the Revolutionary career of Jacques-Louis David throws on Parisian public taste and political opinion.

 6. To what extent did Paris have a love-hate relationship with Louis XVI? (Heee.)

7.         Did Marie-Antoinette deserve all she got? (ahaha, well I wouldn't have liked to actually do that one... though it would have been a LOT easier than the Robespierre one I actually chose, of course...)

8.        What were the most significant forms of political participation by Parisian working people during the Revolution?

9.     To what extent did the press ‘script’ the Revolution? (EEEE!!! That would have been VERY fun!)


Who is Madame de Pompadour??

4.         Did the Revolution of 1789 have Parisian origins?


5.         Given the diversity of sources and their differing political agendas, is it possible to be sure of what happened on 14 July 1789? (iiinteresting!)

6.         Was the year following 14 July 1789 in Paris ‘the Revolution’s quiet year’? (eee!)

7.         Did Louis XVI have to die? (Saint-Just: YES YES OMG YES.)

8.         Which of the institutions of Terror affected Parisians most?

9.         ‘Thermidor was inevitable as soon as Robespierre had demobilised the Parisian popular movement.’ Discuss. (...this is assuming something, you know... *ahem*)

And then....

10.       EITHER


            When and why was the restaurant invented?


            OR


            In what sense was David a ‘revolutionary artist?

Hehe.


-

Right. Back to Oxforshire, maybe.

This tells us very little except:

[1596] was also that same year that Bartholomew Steer, carpenter of Hampton Poyle grew anxious about the enclosing of an adjacent parish, especially as rye was rising in price. He decided to call a meeting on Enslow hill to go with others against the gentlemen responsible. They were caught, but how many others were as angry and anxious as he was? Hampton Poyle was only thirteen miles away from Cropredy.

-

ACK NO WHYYYY?? It's another one of these paid-subscription journals, how annoying!! The quote from google: "Bartholomew Steer, another. carpenter and an initiator of the plot, had ‘saide
that he would ride and goe. and use all the meanes which he could’ to apprise" made it look rather hopeful too.... *sigh*. Right, OK, desperate times and all....


"Bartholomew Steer, another. carpenter and an initiator of the plot, had ‘saide
that he would ride and goe. and use all the meanes which he could’ to apprise others of their cause."" Indeed, a principal motive behind official concern over vagrants and wandering beggars throughout this period was the danger which they posed in




This essay explores the circulation of rumour and news among those at the lower levels of society in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century England. It does so through an analysis of the court records in which people were indicted for spreading false reports or speaking seditious words and which are now preserved in assize files or amid the state papers. These sources reveal the networks of communication by which information was disseminated nationwide and shed light upon the relationship between oral, manuscript and printed media. They show how wild stories could be whipped up in the act of transmission and were fuelled by the political insecurities of this period. At the same time a more sophisticated awareness of current affairs is evident in some illicit conversations which suggest that even humble people were participating in the arguments which anticipated the Civil War.




censuring everie one according to their owne discontented and malicious. humours without regard of religion, conscience or honestie’. ‘I cann[ot] come


Gaaaaah. Long and arduous process this. More later maybe, after ReBoot XD

Uncanny, uncannily, an uncannily warm day...
Willowy
Sunspots
Cloudburst
Downpour
Liebestod, if I've spelt that right, which I probably haven't.... more the concept than the word, in any case...
Sunless
Shot - as in "my nerves are shot", something "shot through" with a colour, "like a shot"...

Trendy words that... I love so much, I can see why they're trendy...
Graceless (oh, I love... ^___^)
Broken
Break

Just an 18-year-old girl with a morbid interest in this sort of thing...

"Girl? Nay, woman."

"Oh - no, come on... Cassio, help me out here..."

"Well, Desdemona was in love and married and dead by this time..."

"Not necessarily."

"Juliet, certainly."

"Don't bring her into it."