Come closer my pretties...

- Current reading quote: "My phrenologist has advised me to get more excitement in life, for the sake of my health".

- Friday Five with questions to warm the cockles of USian market researchers....

1. Have you ever been to summer camp?
No, we didn't have US style summer camps. Going camping (in tents or less often huts) for a weekend or even a whole week (!) with the Scouts / Guides &c used to be a relatively common childhood experience in the UK, and some schools went Youth Hostelling or to outdoor centres (usually owned by local councils before they were mostly privatised) for loosely geography/biology themed field study trips, but I never did. Specialised summer schools for formal study were uncommon, although older posher kids might attend a week or two for music or languages or whatever posh kids do when their parents want rid of them and boarding schools are on hols. Brits also used to have a lot of language student exchange trips with Europe usually organised by secondary schools.

2. Have you ever made a s'more?
I've seen them in USian movies and they appeared to be rubbery pink sugar melted over dry crumbly "cookie" sugar, thus removing the only joy of campfire toasting which is crunchiness. Why would anyone want to do that? I can only assume the level of advertising to children that would be seen as brainwashing anywhere else.

3. Have you ever slept under the stars (no tent/tarp)?
Yes, and so did all the rural kids I grew up with and my entire early adult friend group, and all the women's group members I knew, and all the greens and neopagans I knew (and probably most of the leftists at some point). Why wouldn't anyone living in a temperate climate, with predictable meteor showers &c, want to sleep out? I dislike camping though because it's too much faff for no reward: minimalist bivi bag or middle-aged mo-ho for me, ta.

4. Have you ever had a member of the opposite sex sleep over at your house?
Ah, yes, the two sexes, and the owning of houses. Definitely another question aimed at my demographic, lmao.

5. What type of bed do you have (queen, twin, bunk, etc.)?
A comfy one, obv. Primarily cotton sheets / pillow cases (pillow case can be refrigerated in summer) and duvet with blanket over in winter. And when I was very ill a few years ago I swapped my hot water bottle for an electric heat pad at the foot end of my bed. [insert emoticon of comfy smugness here]

6. Have you had your bumps "read" by a phrenologist?
/jk, that's not a FF question. Have you though? I bet you have! You look like the type!! I can tell from the shape of your head!!1!! (I was persuaded to have a Kirlian photo of myself taken once. I refused to pay extra for a "reading" but the "psychic" insisted on persuing me to the door while earnestly explaining that I had a strong secondary female presence in my "aura" that was watching over me, lmao.)

- Reading: 58 books to 28 May 2025.

54. Cwen, by Alice Albinia, 2021, 5/5, is a trans-inclusive, anti-racist (anti-misogynoir), women-centred, feminist speculative utopian fiction set on an archipelago of small islands that are part of our contemporary British Isles but where 50% of local power has recently been legislated to women. Written in a very readable style, combining serious critique with the mischievousness of the best feminist fiction. Reminiscent of Ellen Galford (especially Fires of Bride updated and improved), probably intentionally although she doesn't get a namecheck unlike Marija Gimbutas, and the backstory of the islands includes a multicultural feminist separatist commune that fails but plants seeds of ideas and actions which I read as acknowledgement of the positive effects of second wave feminism.

The plot, which is unspoilerable, is that a leading local woman Eva Harcourt-Vane has died under not especially mysterious circumstances, after rowing out into a storm at sea, and bequeathed all her worldly possessions away from her three wealthy and politically influential sons who have demanded a Public Inquiry into the results of their mother's utopian feminism. Past and current events are then presented through the device of witnesses to that Inquiry, especially the dozen women who were most involved in Eva's cabal ( / coven / disciples): what they say in public, their private memories, and responses from other community members. There's a large cast of characters, who can be difficult to keep track of while reading, but many of the asides included from the Public Inquiry scenes appear to be intended as a Greek Chorus effect so the persona speaking isn't individually important and when a character does require closer attention in a scene it's obvious in context so readers don't need to track every utterance of every character for overall reading comprehension and enjoyment. There's also a supernatural element but readers can dismiss that as symbolic if they prefer. It sounds dry but the mix works well.

It's interesting that the situation in this novel is convincingly presented as a feminist utopia / gynotopia provoking massive backlash, but then undercut by the evidence given to the Public Inquiry which shows that what happened is not even equality for women e.g.: 50% representation in local government is under-representation; and the women's club isn't as luxurious and doesn't ban men as extremely as traditional men's clubs in the UK; and the reworking of museum exhibits only adds interpretations and accurately re-sexes the skeleton from a chambered cairn; and one woman working in an otherwise male-dominated field is seen as an unacceptable threat to men's livelihoods; &c.

The tone of this book is realistic encouragement: Utopia is here, and the revolution is always now, because here and now are the only possibilities and we should choose to live as much of the gynotopia in our lives as we can (men too, obv, unless you're one of those losers who finds 50% female a scary number).

I LOVED THIS. 5/5. :D

( Quotes and language use )