The Bluestocking: it's the season of mulled wine, conversations about pineapple and, of course, gerbils. Confused? You will be...

[EdithStourton]

Welcome to the anarchic and marvellous women-only on-line pub, the Bluestocking. The booze won't give you a hangover, the cakes won't make you fat, and the conversations are fascinating, covering knitting, health and safety, the Muppets and anything else that comes to mind.

Climb Peak Woo, have a cuddle with Rosie the Red Panda, and watch out for capybaras busy with any necessary building works.

Welcome in (and name change at the door if you need too).

Just realised Britinme hasn't popped in for a while, unless a post has escaped me. I know she had family over for Thanksgiving. All good, B.?

No! Your name is perfect for this place as is crumble’s. What has sometimes happened is someone has a ‘pub’ name but then forgot to use it on a new thread and that’s confusing.

Meeting with stakeholders in 8 minutes. I'll be fine.

The Walrus is at his Christmas do in That London today. He'll be late back and happy drunk.

Good luck!

I’m enjoying a nice mental image of a slightly inebriated portly pinniped lolloping home.

I won't say I would never name change, but laziness beats boredom, and I quite like the one I have.

(Though in winter, Sionnach Artach seems fitting; although hereabouts it's wet rather than snowy)

I could lean into my Manx ancestry and be Shynnagh Ruy, but it hardly seems worth the effort.

Batshit loves you again now.

I'm rather poor at languages and was reading you as Red Janet for a while.

Ireland isn't a great place for large fauna. Our elk and bears died out long ago, and we've even allowed our native breeds of pig to go extinct. That's even within living memory, my grandfather farmed pigs and they must have been the now extinct Ulster Whites.

But foxes survive, because foxes are cunning and resourceful 😉

If I name change it'll be a variation on this one, so recognisably still me. I think I went French once.

Je suis un gateau?

Names, Schmames! I yam what I yam an' that's all I yam. No, that would make me Popeye. Anyway, you know what I mean. Or maybe not.

Who said that Bluestocking gin doesn't get you drunk?

I stick with Magpiecomplex. Can't be bothered to change it!

One of my earliest memories is being brought up to Dublin to visit the national museum, and being overwhelmed by two skeletons of ancient Irish Elks.
They are now housed in the Natural History Museum, or as it's called by Dubliners, 'The Dead Zoo'😄

The name Mahoney or O'Mahoney [Ó Mathghamhna, modernised to Ó Mathúna] goes back to when there were still bears in Ireland - it means 'the People of the Bear'.

How can anyone not love Marie? 💙 🥰😘😍

I have not been there for a long time, but I swear they have an Irish Elk skeleton in the Ulster Museum in Belfast. It's quite overwhelming to see one up close, and not just because of the size of them - I saw a Tasmanian Tiger skeleton at the Natural History Museum in New York, and it was a similar feeling of almost being near enough to touch something that's gone forever.

The Elk even appears in the now obsolete arms of the Government of Northern Ireland. I have no nostalgia for the old Stormont, but it would be nice to see the Elk back in some kind of public art or heraldry.

I have a question for our Irish patrons.

Storm Bram. Is that an Irish name? I know the storm names are chosen by the UK and Ireland and one.or more of the northern European countries, depending on where it makes landfall.

I also remember, and this will be a thing only meaningful if you know the lore of British left-wing politics, Sean Matgamna who always declared that he was a sensible moderate social democrat and nothing to do with the fearsome Trotskyite polemicist John O'Mahoney. Possibly there were Labour Party apparatchiks who knew no Irish and believed him.

Sean is still with us, I think, and has developed a habit in his old age of meeting and reconciling with people he fell out with 40 or 50 years ago. Which is nice.

Bram would be after Bram Stoker I would imagine, the author of Dracula who was christened Abraham.

The Mormon genealogy bods tell me he's a distant cousin via my Knox line - Catholic Ireland is a small world and non-Catholic Ireland even more so.

I have a closer connection on that line to Monsignor Ronald Knox, who had a fine sideline in detective novels when he wasn't writing theology.

Aw shucks, Myrtle [blushes and scuffs shoe on ground]
I hope the meeting with stakeholders went well, and you and Mr Walrus have a very very pleasantly merry evening

That's really interesting, Sionnach, I hadn't seen that coat of arms with the impressive Irish Elk.
It took me a while to notice that on some badges in NI, the shamrock has been replaced by a flax flower - I've just spent ages trying to find an image of one but couldn't.

So the four flowers of the UK are the rose, the thistle, the leek or daffodil, and the blue flax flower - which is really nice because it's more colourful than the green shamrock. Esp if they use a daffodil for Wales.

I wonder who thought of it - nice idea

It’s not Irish, but Bram Stoker was Irish (Anglo-Irish heritage, born and lived in Dublin).
Bram was short for Abraham.

Bram is Cornish for fart.
Very apt.

Currently got an Internet engineer in my living room. Turns out there was a major problem with my Internet.

He's only from bloody Fife. We've been discussing the Sandie Peggie Case.

Such fun!

Thanks, Tilesarebad - new to the Bluestocking? I think so [but people sometimes confuse me by namechanging🙄] In which case, you are welcome, pull up a comfy chair by the fire, order a drink of your choice - anything at all, we have everything here - and settle in to the Bluestocking atmosphere where we love exchanging pieces of information about all sorts of things, from literature to furry animals to tractors!

Bram Stoker was indeed born in Clontarf, Dublin, his father was also a Dubliner and his mother was from Sligo.

The storm named after him - I presume - is currently lashing the east of Ireland, so Storm Bram is currently blowing a gale at Bram's house

I am doing my best to be big and bwave and not cower as the storm is causing all sorts of whining and clattering and scary sounds😨It's the worst storm we've had here in quite a while, worse than some of the other named ones.

I have a kind of interest in the old Dublin Protestant literary scene, which these days is mostly known for Oscar Wilde and Will Yeats, but was quite a tightly knit extended family of writers with a big impact in their time. They're mostly forgotten - who now reads Melmoth the Wanderer? - but interesting to me as a literary tradition that falls between two stools, not being really British but also not fitting in well with modern Ireland.

The North, of course, had less of a literary scene except for C.S. Lewis, and... well... I suppose Amanda McKittrick Ros is a cult figure, and I wish she were better known.
Amanda McKittrick Ros - Wikipedia