The Bluestocking is open for business

[PricklyBall]

I've scrolled back a few pages and I can't even find the last pub thread.

So I've taken the beer towels off the pumps, tapped a new barrel, polished the glasses, fed the goat and applied brasso to the patriarchy busting canon.

Come and join me - all tastes catered for - beer, gin, wine, cocktails, coffee and a nice cup of tea.

We've finally hauled the xmas decs out of the loft. So I thought I'd celebrate with a glass of mulled wine and 5 minutes in The Blue Stocking.
I so wish there was a RL pub of this name. I have a little smile each time I pop in.

Ah ....Joan Aiken....I had an anthology of hers when I was young, 'A Necklace of Raindrops....? I know that I enjoyed it.

I can't be doing with the forced bonhomie at this time of year. Don't get me wrong, I like a bit of good cheer and all that, but, being forced to eat lukewarm turkey for the sake of team bonding and being nice to the inlaws........ naaah.

What're the opening hours looking like over the festive period Prickly?
I'll come and join Nyx1 in companionable quiet.

Dido Twite was one of my heroes when I was a child. I love Joan Aiken.

My god the Stepford wives are out in force tonight. There's a thread over in relationships (not even AIBU) where a woman posted feeling a bit down because she's ill, her husband called her a liar etc. then swanned off to some sort of record store opening event leaving her to put their toddler to bed. Loads of Stepford bots putting the boot in saying "do you have form for lying?", "are you literally at death's door?", "you sound capable to me..."

But on the plus side, DS and I went to see the new Star Wars film which was great fun and bursting at the seams with interesting female characters doing stuff (little bit bittersweet as it's Carrie Fisher's last role - I'm raising a glass and toasting her: "she died drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra."*)

• For the non-CF nerds out there, this was what she joked she wanted as her epitaph.

Not a Star Wars bod, but I do think CF had some interesting things to say about life in general and I loved her 'epitaph'.

Missed your earlier question about opening hours - I propose a festive lock-in for anyone who fancies it.

Ooh, glad to hear The Last Jedi is good.
Dido Twite is wonderful. I missed out on her as a child but my children won't.

Oh yay there's people about
Everyone here is watching the Strictly final except me, couldn't be arsed watching any this year
MN is much more fun
I'd love a festive lock in

I'm happily watching Naomi Wilkinson's nightmares of nature on CBBC.

The Last Jedi is great fun, but not without flaws. More than that I will not say (no spoilers on this thread).

Yay! A man's voice to celebrate. I have a subscription to the Telegraph (taken out in a post-Trump resolution not to live in an echo chamber), and I love their parliamentary sketchwriter because he's very funny, even though I don't share his politics. But his column today includes a little shout out for the idea of buying a child's Christmas present via Refuge's website! So I'm also raising a toast to Michael Deacon.

I've just watched Mama Mia yet again. Crap story and some cringe moments, but it always makes me smile. I saw the stage show with a friend who died last year so happy associations 😎

I was out for posh drinks last night so wore the posh velvet frock, must be 25yrs old, but as it only gets an outing about once a year on average it still looks pretty good oh - and of course there were all those years it was too small for me but too good not to keep.

So, I should be good tonight, but sod it, can I have a large sloe gin and tonic. While you're pouring I'll go sort out the real thing ......

Yes, please no spoilers - where I am I can't watch it in English, and I don't speak the local language, so I'm having to wait for a trip to the UK or (whispers, torrents).

Back from kids Christmas Bazaar, where youngest was very disappointed to discover, Santa wouldn't be attending, but DS1 sang beautifully in the choir (in an american accent - international school problems...), showing the kids how to make pomades by stabing oranges with cocktail sticks and cloves (back to basics here), and promising a christmas tree hunt tomorrow so we hopefully don't have to make do with an artificial one this year....

I really feel like FWR is home. I spend time in reddit, but mumsnet is so much snugglier, with lots of other topics to chip in on, and FWR to come back to.

Cheers (mulled wine - they even sell it at the park here in winter!)

Whitehandled, thanks - you reminded me that I have mulled wine which I forgot to drink (wtf?!) when I put the decs up.
So I'm having a mug now 😎

Today I read - in one go - Phillipa Gregory's "a respectable trade" and I bawled my eyes out through the entire thing. I know it's fiction, but it was real and I have a bit of a tendency to overempathise :( (though I wouldn't consider it overempathising, but I have been told to mentally step back a little more than once...)

I can't be doing with the forced bonhomie at this time of year
me either. I dont drink irl so have to summon lots of patience around merry folk!

Menthol...

cartoonhd.life/full-movie/mamma-mia-10391

Thank you Beyond - I've been looking for inspiration for something to load on my kindle and I think you may just have given me an idea...

ROFL - beyond - I watched it on netflix once I think....

I can always do that Christmas movie Netflix was tweeting about, but I went and got my self stuck on some indi movie about the revolution in the country I'm in (all about a women, docu done by her daughter, so even totally feminist!) - not normally my thing at all, but watching and listening to the woman in her home was really interesting.

Christ, I'm just going to name change soon anyway - I'm in Serbia, nothing mysterious about it, dunno why I'm being cagey, not like we stay in a country, or I stay in a name long enough for it to matter, plus I'm freelance, and the people who employ me wouldn't give a damn anyway!

Beyond, I hear you.
That book is utterly brilliant on so many levels, I was blubbing away too.

I've read The Other Boleyn Girl several times and the film was good but too short to do it justice
There were many scenes from the book - especially having to smuggle Anne away because of baying crowds - that were superb and would have worked so well on screen.

I need an intervention. I've spent so much time getting about the trans / changes to GRA stuff, rediscovering my inner radical feminist, that I'm now binge watching Kirstie's Handmade Christmas (yes, dammit, it's on series record). I have an opinion on who should win the Christmas jumper challenge and am about to get another G&T .....

I'm now engaging in the delightful fantasy of dressing myself in black head to foot (it is a fantasy, so I have the athletic bod I had 25 years ago), abseiling down the buiding and swinging through the window ninja-style to stage an intervention and rescue Cat from Kirstie's Handmade Christmas. I will of course let her bring her G&T with her as I whisk her back to the safety of the pub. Then ply her with more G&T from the optics above the bar (do you have a favourite? my ninja skills extend to instantaneously updating the stock).

Oh I might read that too. I've read a lot of her stuff but stopped recently because it's all become a bit going through the motions.
I really hated wideacre but I loved the other Boleyn girl.

All the crap about rapist anonymity after Liam Allan has "triggered" me, I am feeling angry today. I feel like i have to share my history to show what anonymity means in reality but then I feel like I've overshared.
Grrr

Cats - what is adorable about Kirsty is that she is just so wonderfully inept, yet so pleased with what she produces (unless it's changed an awful lot).

I find that the booze extends the angry period. you'll still be simmering tomorrow, but be able to temper it with practicality (like..... freezing profiteroles before christmas..... I'm grasping here...)

Oh, and have you tried cucumber in the G&T - it may be passe - I'm working off a leaflet from that one that comes in the ceramic bottle from about 3 years ago.....

Quentin

Quentin, you mean over shared for you or in terms of what people think? If the latter, stuff it.

Have Wideacre on the TBR pile.

I also need escapism after reading TRA madness but I'll stick with children's books. Recording The Scandalous Lady W. I have seen it once and Natalie Dormer was awesome as usual.

Quentin - you don't need to share, honestly we all know. My virginity went while I was pushing on his chest saying no (we'd agreed no penetration without condoms - just the tip defense! HA! I remember the exact day - bet he doesn't).I bet the vast majority of women have similar stories. Every woman I've ever been close enough to talk to has.