The Bluestocking - where the laugh emoji is sorely missed.

[MyrtleLion]

Welcome to the Bluestocking Arms!

The company is always sparkling, the drinks are always sublime, and the cakes are mysteriously free from gluten, sugar, calories, and troublesome booze… not that you’d ever notice. 😏

Our enthusiastic team of gerbil waitstaff is ably supported by capybaras, quokkas, and other charming creatures who excel at their jobs while looking outrageously adorable.

You will find many things to laugh at - usually out loud - so take care not to spit out your tea. We are considering a petition for the return of the laugh emoji - just as soon as the AI gerbils learn how to spell.

New Bluestockingers are always welcome. Men can pop along to The Staunch Ally nearby.

Currently also knitting a Woolly Hug blanket for Bluestockinger Swashbuckled. Details here if you can knit or crochet a square before the 18 July.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5350941-woolly-hugs-desperately-sad-news-we-are-afraid-making-a-blanket-for-lovely-swashbuckled-whose-son-has-tragically-died

The St Trinian's Battle Song;

Intro:
(St Trinian's! St Trinian's! Our battle cry.
St Trinian's! St Trinian's! Will never die.)

(Chorus)

Maidens of St Trinian's, gird your armour on.
Grab the nearest weapon; never mind which one.
The battle's to the strongest; might is always right.
Trample on the weakest; glory in their plight.

St Trinian's! St Trinian's! Our battle cry.
St Trinian's! St Trinian's! Will never die.

Stride towards your fortune boldly on your way,
Never once forgetting there's one born every day.
Let our motto be broadcast: "get your blow in first!"
She who draws the sword last always comes off worst.

(Cheers)

I was too busy smoking in the toilets!

😂

There was a programme on BBC2 this evening called 'The Game' about the origins of hurling. It's a series.
Sometimes we get a Norn Iron version of the BBC schedule, so it may not have been shown on GB BBC.
Anybody with an interest in sport might enjoy it - hurling is the fastest field sport in the world.

Deano, the Premier County v the Cats is one thing, but Dublin v Cork??
Tectonic!!

OK I'll stop Speaking in Tongues now
I've done the same thing, android. Like* *I really want to bring the model Bluestocking into the real Bluestocking, then I remember which one is more real than the other!

I love the St Trinian's song, thank you Janes😂

Can someone get a gerbil with some scissors to come help me I've just stolen a sentence from FlirtsWithRhinos on a different thread but I think I tied the knot too tight.

Germoleen had been busy, doing goodness knows what, hence the unforgivable delay.

Words will be had.

Anyway, she has finally turned up to help.

Hope that's better.

Yes! Thanks Germoleen, the stick really helps!

DS had a holiday job at our local theatre when The Vagina Monologues was there for a week.

I’m told he could quote long sections from it, but he said it was, “Not suitable for Mothers,” ie me.

@MarieDeGournay wrote “And I agree that it's a catholic thing, putting a baby under the protection of the Blessed Mother and all that.”

I didn’t realise that was the reason. I worked in a convent for a few years, and all the nuns were formally named Sister Mary Something, eg S Mary Veronica, S Mary Scholastica, and so on, although you didn’t use the Mary when you referred to them. The head signed things “M Dominica IBVM”
(It was a teaching order, the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary.)
Yes, there really was a Sister Scholastica.

Intriguing 🤔

Florence was used for Irish boys and they became Flor or Florry usually. I know one in his fifties but I don’t think it’s used for boys today.

Other than Mary as a middle name for boys, I can’t think of any other opposite sex names used here in the past.

Florence was used as the English version for an Irish name - possibly Fintan - so was being used for males in Cork long before Mr Nightingale gave his daughter a Chelsea/Brooklyn type name in 1820.

Babies under Mary's protection may also follow the Spanish pattern of being named after her feasts - Immaculata, Assumpta, Concepta - or shrines - I have several cousins called Carmel and have known Lourdeses and Lourdas and Doloureses, and Jacint(h)a and Lucia got used a lot after Fatima became a major pilgrimage destination from the 1950s. The feast names were used more by nuns as 'names in religion' that in the wild, but then people named daughters after favourite nuns, particularly nurses, so it went on.

I wonder if any baby ever got called Knock after our big shrine?

I've asked MN to remove my possibly over-identifying post yesterday evening, but will put an edited version up once it's gone.

An erstwhile colleague told us of meeting an Irishwoman and being taken aback when she heard "Hello, I'm a tractor'. The woman's name was, of course, Attracta, after a saint.

I was a very meek kid at school but if I lost my shit I lost it properly.

So I'd have had the knuckle dusters concealed in a pocket. Though I did okay without them...

Speaking of names, I was at school with a boy called Jocelyn. He was cool enough not to suffer too much for it.

My NDN's son ( Yorkshire) was called Beverley, and my male car mechanic was Tracy.

I had a friend who was known to use a name tag at conferences etc that claimed she was called 'Attracta Mann'. Tsk.

Another sidling in with her wool and crochet hook if that's OK?

I've done three squares for the blanket (a lattice pie, a steak in a frying pan and a plain waffle stitch) and now trying to conquer the jasmine stitch. Three frogged attempts so far suggest it's winning...

Hello! Just in time for the grand opening of the Bluestocking Woolly Hugs nook. Clara Capybara and Daughters worked through the night, they are just finishing up.

You've currently got a choice of all the best seats

I know a man (in his late 60s) through work who is called Meredith. It confuses people. I've been in a meeting (where many of us met for the first time) which started 15 minutes late because the person in charge of it didn't realize Meredith was already there. She was waiting for another woman to join.

I love how H&S conscious the capybaras* are. It reminds me of my neighbour who wears a hi vis vest to mow his lawn which is surrounded by sturdy fences on three sides and his house on the other.

• edited for mis-speciesing

Clara Capybara and Daughters (tagline "I'll send a capybaras to sort it") is very Health and Safety orientated.

She's also a member of the Considerate Capybaras scheme.

I like your neighbours style!

Nuns use their family names these days, and 'normal' clothes, though you can still spot them [well the older ones] from a mile off by the navy skirt and cardi and blouse ensemble.
So they are a lot less...exotic these days.

There was a saint called Scholastica, hence the nun-name.

I always liked nuns who had names relating to scholars. We had Aquinases and an Albertus Magnus - yes, 'Sister Mary Albertus Magnus' - teaching us, and it was nice that they were taking inspiration from some of the greatest minds in Western history, instead of somebody who was famous for a particularly gruesome martyrdom.

The omnipresence of 'Mary' shows the kind of parallel religion that Mariology was- especially in Ireland I suspect? The idea of having a Divine Mother, and one who had been through her own tragedies and lost her own only son in a violent death, was a very comforting concept for a desperate, hopeless people.

Oh they are very H&S conscious! This photo from an earlier stage of the construction of the permanent Bluestocking shows Calista conscientiously 'footing' the ladder for Gelsomina.

No helmet or hi-vis vest though - believe me, I searched high and low around the house for hi-vis material to make tiny safety gear, but I didn't have any😒

Hello to teawamutu and Dryeroo - it looks like our woolly hugs are bringing all the girls to the yard

I think I shall claim a seat in there for at least part of the morning, and get acquainted with @teawamutu - welcome to the Bluey! Brains and Batshit have been walked, the washing machine has run a cycle, the washer water in the car needs filling and I have a few odd jobs to do, but otherwise - feet up, knitting out, crap on Netflix. I almost never watch TV in the morning, so it will feel VERY decadent.

Fuzzy, I met a male Tracey recently. We'll know when women's social standing equals that of men, because men and boys having 'female' names like Tracey, Hilary, Jocelyn etc will be no more remarkable than women called Alex or Sam.

I think they’re fine without the hi-vis if they’re not working out in public.

Meredith is a man's name. From the Welsh Maredudd - scores of them in Welsh history. The -udd element means 'lord', and also occurs in Gruffudd, Ithel, Idwal, Idris. The traditional nickname for Maredudd was Bedo, giving rise to the surname Beddoes.

Meredith was adopted by English speakers as a woman's name, presumably under the mistaken impression that it is a derivative of Mary.