The Bluestocking Women's Pub, in which we wait excitedly for the next instalment of Gosie's adventures. Gosie, Glass and the Gerbils' Dilemma.

[AsWithGlad]

Previous thread
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5559589-the-bluestocking-womens-pub-in-which-gosie-returns-to-the-trail?page=1

Welcome to The Bluestocking, the best (perhaps only) online women's pub. Nothing in the food or drink can harm you, everything is served by a very enthusiastic crew of gerbils, and any curious menfolk are welcome at the Staunch Ally down the road.

I like a good ( non gory) crime story myself.

I had one boy who handed in his pal's piece the following year... (His pal had given it to him.)

"So, John, please explain to me what you meant by 'the reestablishment of the equilibrium'."

"Eh...Speak English, Mrs Weary!"

At least he didn't deny it!

How did I miss this?

One of the funnier ones...(IMO)

One of my English teachers was also a Head of Guidance and would never believe ill of a child or a parent because she was not a cynical bastard like me nice.

She had a particularly challenged S1 class and was reading the book "The Wee Man" with them.

As a homework/quiz challenge, she set the kids the task of constructing a house for the wee man. They were to use a shoebox.

The winner came in with a shoebox which had been wallpapered, contained miniature furniture and had a disco ball and working light (courtesy of a battery pack).

When I expressed my doubts that the child had done it himself, my colleague became quite irate.

Several months later, I had to cover a class containing some of the same kids. They were giggling over the fact that the boy's mum had made the shoebox house.

Of the 57 years of Bookers, I've read at least one of the shortlisted novels for 38 of them. I might try filling in some of the gaps.

I'm still incredibly tickled by a Booker prize winning author getting a B+ for doing his daughter's homework. That's just fantastic, Fuzzy. Thank you for such a great family story.

I needed a Booker prize winner for my yearly reading challenge. Lots of them are odder than my usual taste but I chose Orbital by Samantha Harvey. I would have preferred to read Fuzzy's dad's book I think!

I’m still struggling with getting back into the habit of reading, judging from reviews I’ve read or heard over the years some Bookers might put me off for good. Probably being unfair - I think I’ve read 2 or 3 and enjoyed them, including Possession which was one of those books I read and immediately read again, slower.

I did buy a new book when I was at a loose end in town yesterday while DH was in Specsavers though - following a few mentions on here I got Just One Damned Thing After Another.

I liked Possession. And can’t wait to hear what you think of St Mary’s, Errol!

I’ve got two Pratchetts I started re-reading which I should finish first so this may be some time!

Two Pratchetts at the same time is just greedy!

Good morning everyone and wow Fuzzy!!

And now for a quick and I hope acceptable derailment. Could I ask you to read this. I find it so sickening that I need to share. Thank you.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5566205-2-years-for-over-100-victims-sexual-violence-is-taken-far-too-lightly-lets-have-this-sentence-reviewed-tw?reply=154137187

Am going to start in chronological order, though I have Possession beside my bed as I’ve been wanting to go back and re read it for years! But that way, when I reach the 2000s I can take a view as to whether to abort…

@Thehorticulturalhussie that is horrendous. You can also copy any comments and send them to Kemi Badenoch as leader of the opposition at [email protected]

I’m a bit of a troublemaker, me, so have regular chats with my MP and her team…

I'm almost embarrassed to admi this, as he is so popular, but I just don't get Pratchett. Not sure why, I simply can't get engaged with his mind set.
< Runs away and hides>

I hope Fenella isn't resorting to bribery! Or worse...

In fact, I wonder if she was also behind the reintroduction of Monopoly into the games room yesterday. I fear she's trying to nobble the gerbils!

Good morning.

I had an acting-up slo-o-o-o-o-w computer for a few days, followed by no computer at all for 48+ hours, so I'm scrambling to catch up. Not that I'm tech dependent or anything.

Still very dry here, but five colchicums up and doing, and five cyclamens, trying to make autumn pretty rather than just dusty.

HAGADAPA

Wow re Fuzzy's Dad's Bookers!.
Booker's?😧
It would be totally outing so don't tell us Pike! but I bet there's some speculation going on😄

It's funny his poem only got a B, but it must have confirmed to him that he was right to go down the prose route😁

It's wonderful to have the gerbils back home💙
They can have all the best-quality sunflower seeds in the entire world, as far as I'm concerned.
And they always sort out their um.... little disagreements - after a particularly heated game of Monopoly, so no harm done.

Do they have tiny hairbrushes to tidy up their fur after a Monopoly-inspired set-to has left them looking so dishevelled??
Gubbins could do with a bit of a brush-up too, though knowing Gubbins, it'll only last five minutes and then she'll look her usual endearingly untidy little self again

Bloody hell!
My DC all had to do a project at primary school. I was massively pissed off one year when DC whose mothers I knew had at the very least done the typing and probably half the writing (I overheard them at the school gate) got 'gold' or whatever it was and my DD, who had done all the work herself, found herself a new person to interview when the first fell ill, and designed a brilliant front cover entirely on her own, got 'silver'.
For once, I became That Parent and wrote a strongly worded letter of complaint.

Gillian! Gillian!
Can't find her.
She's hiding.

I loved the way it was just casually thrown in.

Did it get a result, Edith?

I have in my time read 20 of them, and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy is my favourite book.

However, so many of them, particularly in the 1970s and 80s are about inner states and thoughts, and I don't understand that. My autism means I find emotions difficult to name and although I have a rich interior life (have you read the Gosie Chronicles?), I don't understand how other people interact. So I like a book with a plot.

A friend makes a point of reading the Shortlist between publication and the announcement of the winner. I just couldn't do it.

And I know Midnight's Children won the Booker of Bookers etc but I just can't read Salman Rushdie. Though his memoir, Knife, about the attack on him was very readable.

It's funny his poem only got a B, but it must have confirmed to him that he was right to go down the prose route😁

I think he'd had about 15 books published by by this point!

I used to set plagiarism traps for students - little quirks in essay titles or exam qq that referred directly to the lectures, or something - a bit of deviousness and imagination
I was a tad impatient with colleagues who kept on setting qq which were easily plagiarised/essay milled and then complained endlessly about plagiarism..

It used to be quite easy to prove plagiarism - there was always an Americanism or a typo or the presence of a word like 'eleemosynary' in the middle of otherwise poor prose that kept popping up in a number of students' work...😏

I think AI has made it more difficult.
More deviousness and imagination on the part of examiners needed!