Academy Of Armitage Studies - pass the Twiglets...

[Bodenbabe]

Welcome to the new common room! Grab yourself some Twiglets and a glass of Chateau Gisborne or some Polish Cordial and come on in - the water's lovely!

Twiggy, oooh, i like that! (can be skinny in my head :o)

Oh God yes, the "please, pleeeease" bit - blimey, had to turn the heating down a bit there. Am about half an hour away from It, I think. Am preemptively hyperventilating and ing. I suspect you heard it in the best possible way but that's out for me, sadly. Tidying up the detritus from the kids' Xmas tree decorating is probably not conducive to thudding. Thanks for the plot explanations, Theresa.

I hope you are not painting today, Twigs, or you would certainly not keep within the lines.
Go back to the start of part 2 and listen to him when he says ''my beloved'' Talk about warp core breach. Aaarrrgh.

I will listen to that bit after I've finished this one - need to finish Pt.3 before have to go to school in an hour. Blimey, even the most innocent of lines are making me all dicombobulated eg. when he says to Mrs Rawlings "let me place you in the drawing room"

OK, I think we're almost there...

Brace yourself, Twiggy...

Hmmm, not feeling good about that glass of milk...

Oh heck, here we go...

Twiggy, are you all right? Speak to me!

Oh..... oh.....

Mine... all mine.

Have to rush away now (dammit, I need my girls right now!) as I volunteer in school on Thursday afternoons. But will be back later. Gawd knows how I'm supposed to concentrate on reading with the kids this afternoon...

Bad Lovelace. Disrupting your day like that!

Oh Twigs - can't believe you're off to volunteer at school with that in your head.

You've no chance of concentrating whatsoever....!

Hello all. Offspring is still poorly and not in school.

Twiggy - As I interpreted it, the fire was a small one and Dorcas had already put it out by the time Lovelace used it as a pretext to get into Clarissa's chamber. She agrees to marry him, I think, because as a single girl cast out by her family she has no viable alternative. And I hope you are in no way approving of what Lovelace has done to Clarissa, which was a premeditated and carefully-planned assault (for which he would have been hanged, if prosecuted).

Holly - You really are a bad, bad girl.

Well, back to my ailing girlie. I wonder if the doctor does house calls?

So sorry your young lady is still not better, Missy. I guess the witch doctor was a quack. Maybe the good Dr Crinkles can do better.

I did say I hate myself for allowing myself to become skewered by Mr Lovelace's honeyed tongue. You just have to imagine the part spoken by some petulant little fuckwit to know what is happening here. A rather naughty bit of character-layering IMHO

Well, that's the essence of the characterisation, I suppose - the lovable rogue (although I think Lovelace goes so far beyond roguery that he ceases to be lovable and becomes quite sinister). And testimony to the power of the performance (and the imagination).

I must distract myself with wholesome thoughts

How goes it on the banks of the Limpopo? Do thank the witch doctor, but I don't think his spells travel such long distances. Is he on skype, perchance?

More seductive reprobate than loveable rogue, perhaps, Missy.
Did you notice how Mr Thornton holds his teacup in a rather working class manner? He should stick his little finger out, surely.
The witch doctor certainly is on skype.[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRHdyW3Avpw
Give him a call]]

Things on the Limpopo are fine as far as I am concerned. I can't say the same about Teri as she has just got the sack from her job at B&Q for practising her in the aisles with a few friends.

Yes about the seductive reprobate. I was trying (badly out of my depth here, but bear with me) to make the general point about the lovable rogue being one of the archetypes that crops up in a lot of fiction - especially that aimed at women - but Lovelace (in my view) lying well outside the boundaries of what might constitute lovable roguedom. Reprobate he is indeed.

Err, thank you for the witch doctor. I had to cleanse my ears by listening to this [[

chanson from the land of the midnight sun]].

I'm not surprised Teri got the sack after that little escapade. Perhaps there's a vacancy for her as another elf in Santa's grotto in British Home Stores (Runcorn branch)? B*gger of a commute, though.

A propos the drinking of tea. Meant to say that Mr Thornton's way with a teacup is indeed thrilling puzzling. I had assumed that, once it had been realised that teacups work better with handles, the handles were used. Was there some phasing-in period during which cups had handles but they weren't used? Or must I confront the truth that Mr Thornton is a little uncouth slow to adapt to fashion?

Perhaps the Academy needs to go on a field trip to the Spode museum to research this very important issue?

Oh yes, archetypes in ''women's fiction''. I especially unheart the strong silent hero with, usually, muscled thighs moulded by his trousers and a square jaw, who is rude and boorish to the heroine, and so on and so on. I can't read a lot of it now even for light relief as I can see all the moves in advance, and laugh,cynical jade that I am.

I don't think Teri deserves another job even in Runcorn (poor maligned town, I am beginning to feel quite guilty about its regular pillorying, largely by me)

You see she pinched my bright idea. I was planning to ask a few of us to join me in doing that routine for the boys, at the New Year Party.

Now it'll have to be the Time Warp, or something.

Oh poo, I've just described Mr Darcy!

Fitzwilliam Darcy at your service, my dear lady

Even setting to one side, for the moment, my cellulite ishoos, I doubt my terpsichorean skills are adequate to that little routine, Holly. .

Tres snazzy. Gucci or Armani, do you think? Or his man in Savile Row. I take it all back, what I said about him, I am all suckered in anew.
I suppose the muscled thighs are better off moulded by trousers than thus

Oh Lordy, Holly. I was expecting some leather-clad nectarines there. Not that.

Tousled hair, sideburns, cravat - what's not to like?

I shall have to ask MrsLucasNorthPoleDancer then. Though the Time Warp is easier than the quickstep. And we don't have to do it in corsets.