Prussic Acid?

I’m not sure whether or not to continue with this lockdown ‘recreations’ series that I’ve accidentally stumbled into, but I believe I promised Booky Goatherd a few weeks back that I’d ‘give my Radcyffe Hall’, so I’m making good on that promise!

I’d originally hoped to co-opt my cat, Puffin, into this picture but she was in absolutely no mood to co-operate, so I’ve drafted in this little cardboard dog which was given to me by the star of my previous blip. Thanks, Sarah!

I was aiming to approximate this picture of the writer Radclyffe Hall and her dog, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radclyffe_Hall taken around 1930, a couple of years after the publication of her most famous book, ‘The Well of Loneliness’. I’m afraid I haven’t been able to find out who took the original photo but if anyone knows please tell me and I’ll credit them!

I don’t think that ‘The Well of Loneliness’ is a great work of literature by any means, but it is an important one, in that it portrayed a romantic relationship between two women at a time when this was considered extremely controversial. It has been the subject of debate and criticism from various quarters ever since - focusing on the political rights and wrongs of the book’s representations of gender and sexuality according to the prevailing views at any given time - and was famously the subject of an obscenity trial at the time of publication in 1928. The then editor of The Sunday Express, James Douglas, opined that he "would rather give a healthy boy or a healthy girl a phial of prussic acid than this novel." Which is just the sort of publicity I would assume any author would be extremely grateful for!

This evening, I’ve attended (via Zoom) a live recording of one of my favourite podcasts, ‘Like Minded Friends’ with the comedians Suzi Ruffell and Tom Allen (see Extras). Great stuff! And now I’m about to catch up with the BBC adaptation of Eleanor Catton’s novel ‘The Luminaries’ which, quite by chance, I read during the first couple of weeks of lockdown. I loved the book so am keen to see how it translates for TV.

Today’s song really has to be ‘The Well Of Loneliness’ by McCarthy (the band that were the precursor to the rather better known Stereolab) www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCt_T_xY6Eg