Sorry: I appear to have sent this out earlier missing a whole paragraph.

(Actually, I know why.)

So, I’m a bit annoyed at the moment. It looks like a few more …”gentlemen”…. in the SFF community are currently being outed as general shitbiscuits and sometime sexual harassers. (What are we up to, with novelists now? I’ve got at least five blokes whose careers are mostly from in millennium, and that’s not counting the ones who just skeeve me out.) And we keep doing this. There’s a brief reckoning, some blokes apologise, the non-white ones get driven out of the industry, the white ones say “sorry” and go quiet for a while before showing up somewhere else. That’s the pattern I’ve seen in the last ten years and hey, apparently that’s a big difference from how it used to be because there’s actually a brief period of reckoning and some apologies now?

Therefore, annoyed.

Let’s go look at some archaeology instead. Archaeology at least usually involves dead shitbiscuits, when we can identify individuals at all.

Near Durrington Wells (above, image credit Heritage Images/Getty via the Guardian), on Salisbury plain, archaeologists have discovered a set of monumental pits in the landscape that appear to have led towards Durrington Wells henge.

At Falerii Nova, ground-penetrating radar (GPR) has mapped the whole Roman city, revealing unexcavated buildings. (Paper.)

And bringing back the fascinating discoveries of drought years: Roman Wales: Aerial Discoveries and New Observations from the Drought of 2018.

“Sonnet 25: Let those who are in favour with their stars”

Let those who are in favour with their stars

Of public honour and proud titles boast,

Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,

Unlook’d for joy in that I honour most.

Great princes’ favourites their fair leaves spread

But as the marigold at the sun’s eye,

And in themselves their pride lies buried,

For at a frown they in their glory die.

The painful warrior famoused for fight,

After a thousand victories once foil’d,

Is from the book of honour razed quite,

And all the rest forgot for which he toil’d:

Then happy I, that love and am beloved

Where I may not remove nor be removed.

— William Shakespeare

i. for which he toil’d

The rose is in the fullest bloom of June. It’s fortunate that it doesn’t seem to need much in the way of encouragement: the rest of the garden is growing somewhat overrun and many of my hopes for gardening success somewhat… daunted… by the profusion of dandelions and morning-glory (aka strangling weed).

ii. famoused for fight

*looks at the news*

…Yeah, so. I stand in solidarity with demands to end police brutality, unaccountable exercise of power, and murder under colour of law, and in support of people of colour. Black Lives Matter.

Irish folks, the Irish Network Against Racism and the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland are doing good work, as well as the Irish Refugee Council, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, and Black Pride Ireland. Do your bit.

Also newsworthy, apparenly: trans women are women, trans men are men, and trans rights are human rights.

Let’s remember that the pandemic hasn’t gone away, and it predominantly kills the most vulnerable and most marginalised amongst us: keep up social distancing as much as possible, wear masks while in enclosed spaces outside your own home, wash your hands, and — when not engaged in the important civic work of mass protest to hold power accountable — avoid crowds.

iii. the book of honour

I’m still reading nonfiction by preference — R.F. Hunnisett’s The Medieval Coroner might be over half a century old, but it’s still a fairly comprehensive treatment — but I do want to recommend to you Helen Corcoran’s QUEEN OF COIN AND WHISPERS:

This delightful book is an entertaining queer romp through spying and politics.

Speaking of nonfiction and history, though, here’s a reminder that dry summers give some excellent archaeological evidence in the rural landscape in the form of cropmarks: Roman forts and roads revealed by drought. The paper on which the BBC article is based can be found in the journal Britannia.

And Wolfson College Cambridge is hosting a series of webinars, accessible to the public, on the topic of ancient Greek warfare.

iv. happy I, that love and am beloved

I’m very lucky in so many respects, but I keep finding my mood swinging in exceedingly variable, unpredictable ways. It’s difficult to achieve an even keel, or structure my days in such a way that I feel I’m making space for things that are important to me and to my wellbeing. I don’t know what to do about that, really. Strange days we’re living in.

How are you holding up?

“Witch-Wife”

She is neither pink nor pale,

And she never will be all mine;

She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,

And her mouth on a valentine.

She has more hair than she needs;

In the sun ’tis a woe to me!

And her voice is a string of colored beads,

Or steps leading into the sea.

She loves me all that she can,

And her ways to my ways resign;

But she was not made for any man,

And she never will be all mine.

— Edna St. Vincent-Millay