Jane Austen promoter sexually abused on twitter

This is from The Telegraph

 

 



The background is appalling.  Caroline Criado-Perez (pictured), who lobbied to have Jane Austen on the £10 note, received threats from twitterers. A distressing amount of the abuse involved -- believe it or not! -- threats of rape.

 

Tom Chivers blogs about it.

The Canoes of Kupe revisited

Back in 2012, I posted a couple of times about The Canoes of Kupe, a history of a world-famous wine growing regions that was written by my friend and colleague, Roberta McIntyre, and shortlisted back in 2003 for the New Zealand Book Awards.

This book has been republished, in a new edition that was launched at the Martinborough Wine Centre.

An item in the local Star commemorates the event. Roberta's research, it says, "started in Wellington while she was living in a grand four-storied colonial residence on the Terrace.  She wondered who could have built such a home, which led her to discoveries about John Martin and his life in the region, and in particular the Martinborough area."

As the writer, Amanda Ritchie, concludes, "The Canoes of Kupe has been applauded by long-settled locals and newcomers to the region. It is an accessible and fabulous insight into the place we call home, and acts as a great reminder that there is a richness in New Zealand history that is worth treasuring." 

Well done, Roberta.  It is good to see that great book out in the shops again.

Juror jailed for posting on FaceBook

From the BBC

Two jurors have each been jailed for two months for contempt of court

 

One researched a case online, which is clearly against the rules.  The other was silly enough to express his opinion of the defendant on Facebook.

Kasim Davey, 21, of London, said he had sent the Facebook message last December as a result of "spontaneous surprise at the kind of case I was on".

His posting - containing strong language and an offensive word - suggested he was going to find the defendant guilty, said BBC News home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw.

Davey's Facebook post: read: "Woooow I wasn't expecting to be in a jury Deciding a paedophile's fate, I've always wanted to Fuck up a paedophile & now I'm within the law!"

The judge at Wood Green Crown Court was alerted and Davey was discharged. The defendant, Adam Kephalas, was eventually found guilty of sexual activity with a child.

Davey told the High Court he was unaware he had been in breach of a formal order made by the crown court judge. He accepted he was not meant to discuss the case but believed he was only prohibited from using the internet to carry out research.

In their ruling, High Court judges Sir John Thomas and Mr Justice Sweeney said they rejected as "untruthful" Davey's contention that his message was not meant seriously.

They said it made clear to his Facebook friends "he would use his prejudices in deciding the case" and his choice of words "underlined his disregard of the duties he had undertaken as a juror".

Religious controversy powers bestseller

From GalleyCat on mediabistro.com

Fox News, it seems, set out to discredit a book about Jesus of Nazareth, and succeeded in creating an instant bestseller.

Reza Aslan, who wrote the book, and called it Zealot, is a Muslim.  Which triggered a certain interest in ultra-conservative ranks -- with unexpected results.

After Fox News religion correspondent Lauren Green interviewed  Aslan  the book promptly hit the No. 1 spot on Amazon.

The New Republic has a great article about the Internet’s response to the interview. Here’s an excerpt:

"Fox News, which like U.S. Steel is vertically integrated, ginned up “controversy” over the book by publishing an article claiming that the “liberal media” routinely fails to disclose that Aslan is a “devout Muslim,” and then reported on the (again, auto-fabricated) “controversy” by having host Lauren Green confront him with this. Having established Aslan’s Muslim-ness, Green conspiratorially asks, “It still begs the question: Why would you be interested in the founder of Christianity?” She then accuses him of obfuscating his faith, and he responds by noting that a statement of his religion appears on “the second page of my book” (page xviii, to be more precise).

Even more surreal is the audience response on Amazon.com. Zealot currently has 141 five-star reviews and 100 one-star reviews!

Hit the GalleyCat link at the top to see/hear/read the entire interview.

Amazon UK scraps free delivery -- but books escape

From the BBC

So book-buying can be considered a loophole, now...

Online retailer Amazon has scrapped free "super saver" delivery to the UK on some products worth less than £10.

It reverses a policy introduced in October 2009 that let items be sent without postage charge if customers agreed to wait up to five business days for delivery after the dispatch date.

The new threshold will not apply to books, DVDs, music, video games and software products.

Customers buying non-qualifying products, such as a USB memory stick worth less than £10, for example, would face a postage and packaging charge of £3.99. Some postage charges on other goods could be even higher.

BUT ...

Amazon, which achieves about £3bn a year in UK sales, said multiple orders worth less than £10 could still be delivered free if they included a qualifying product, such as a book or DVD.

Jane Austen is official!

Yup, the public opinion counted.

And Jane Austen is going to be on the ten-pound note.

The Bank of England has swallowed its pride and overcome its perceived prejudice against women.

Yesterday, it designated Jane Austen as the new face of the ten-pound note.

It was a matter of bowing to public pressure.

The beloved novelist -- the originator of Regency romance, and the inspiration behind the whole of the romance genre -- will probably appear on bank notes in 2017.

Are royal baby names copied by the public?

So asks Vanessa Barford in the BBC Magazine

It would certainly be nice, if so.  Bizarre names make me cringe, particularly when they have been popularized by pop stars and television soaps.  Most of them, in fact, would belong better to pets. 

And George, Henry et al have the ring of tradition.  As do Mary, and, for that matter, Catherine.  No bearer of a name like that is likely to be embarrassed in the future.

However, as Vanessa Barford points, it ain't necessarily so.

Baby name trends are influenced by an eclectic range of sources, says she. In 2001, the girls' name Chardonnay was nowhere in the names chart, only just creeping into the ONS's top 5000 for England and Wales.

In January 2002, Footballers Wives - with a central character named Chardonnay - started on British television. For 2002, the name hit 519 in the charts and by 2003 Chardonnay was at a respectable 372.

Royal names, especially British monarchs, are less varied. The last 11 monarchs have been Elizabeth, George, Edward, George, Edward, Victoria, William, George, George, George and George.

 

George was also the bookmaker's favourite for the royal family's latest addition. Tradition usually plays more of a part for those who are future monarchs, says Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty magazine.

But whether that means that a raft of babies will be christened George this year is a very moot point.

NZ bans horror film starring Elijah Wood

From the BBC

 

A horror remake starring Hobbit actor Elijah Wood has been banned in New Zealand due to its "graphic violence" and "content that may disturb".

Maniac has been restricted to festival film screenings and academic viewing by government officials and will not be eligible for mainstream cinema or DVD release in the country.

The film, directed by Frank Khalfoun, stars Wood as serial killer Frank.
Neil Foley of distributor Monster Pictures said he was "flabbergasted".

The director of the Australia-based company said the ban was an "insult to the intelligence" of adults in New Zealand.

The film, which received a limited UK release in March, is due to screen at the New Zealand International Film Festival in Auckland and Wellington at the end of July.

Ant Timpson, a programmer for the festival, said the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) was concerned that the movie was "injurious to the public good".

Good on the censor, say I.  Not only has the film been panned by reviewers (The Observer's Philip French called it "unwelcome", and The Hollywood Reporter's Megan Lehmann said the film was a "sadistic art-house bloodbath") but there is horror enough in the pages of your daily paper.  And surely a big name like Elijah Wood must feel used?

Elephant Voyages and printed books

At Old Salt Press the hot topic under discussion is how to get our authors' books into print.

And, being Indie authors all working under a cooperative umbrella, it is CreateSpace and Lightning Source that we are exploring.

Novels are complicated enough, but nonfiction is proving quite a challenge. And, as The Elephant Voyage is our first nonfiction publication, I have the job of guinea pig.

With nonfiction, unlike fiction, it is expected to have the book title at the top of every lefthand page, and for each chapter to commence on a righthand page.

This worked out as quite few blank lefthand pages, each one preceding a new chapter.  Being thrifty, I don't like blank pages, so I co-opted Ron, our fine family maritime artist, into producing graphics for me.  And, as the steamers that plied about New Zealand feature large in the developing story, it was decided that he should supply some black and white sketches of these busy little vessels.

And here are a couple, to intrigue and impress you..

WW2 poet and his bomber crew at rest at last.

From the BBC

These men knew moments you have never known,

Nor ever will; we knew those moments too,

And talked of them in whispers late at night;

Such confidence was born of danger shared.

We shared their targets, too; but we came back.

-- David Raikes, pilot and poet


One evening in April 1945, four young men took off on a mission to attack a bridge on the River Po, then carry out a wider reconnaissance.

If they could have survived just 10 more days they would have seen the Allied victory in Italy.

And with the coming of peace in Europe shortly afterwards, their lives would have stretched out before them.

But they never returned from their mission. It is believed their plane was brought down by German anti-aircraft fire, and that everyone on board died in the crash.

Three of the flyers were British - the pilot, Sergeant David Raikes, the navigator, Flight Sergeant David Perkins, and the wireless operator and gunner, Flight Sergeant Alexander Bostock. They were all aged 20.

The crew's other gunner was an Australian - Warrant Officer John Hunt, of the Royal Australian Air Force - who was a year older.

The wreck of the plane was found by an Italian group called Archeologi dell'Aria - amateur enthusiasts who have so far found 16 missing aircraft.

Now, 68 years after they were killed, the crew is being laid to rest at a Commonwealth war cemetery in the city of Padua.