Author Archives: Janet Mullany

Another Winner!

Updated on September 29, 2009 by Janet Mullany

Congratulations, MariElle, you’re the winner of a $25 Amazon gift certificate. Please send your email address to riskies@yahoo.com.

I didn’t pick a winner based on the quality of the jokes (it was through the impartial and humorless random integer method), but MariElle’s was pretty good–here’s her punchline again:

The young monk asks the old Abbot, “What’s wrong, father?” With a choking voice, the old Abbot replies, “The word was… ‘celebRate!!!’ ”

And don’t you like this authentic, sophisticated medieval wall painting?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged contest winner | Leave a reply

The Brain in the Backyard

Updated on September 24, 2009 by Janet Mullany

And here it is, a photo taken at great personal cost (at least two mosquito bites) of the latest growth in the back yard. I don’t know whether it’s edible and I doubt whether I’ll try to find out.

So with my brain in the backyard, my mind in 1797 Bath, my memory falling down a hill somewhere (I can’t remember where), and my bank balance on its way to the IRS … here’s what I’ve been up to.

I went on Tuesday to see Steeleye Span, an appearance on their 4oth anniversary tour. Eeek. The line for the men’s room was longer than that for the women’s room, probably because of all those dodgy prostates. I counted three people who didn’t qualify for AARP membership (one of whom was my daughter–this concert was a birthday present. My daughter and I did a guest interview recently at MamaWriters which was fun). Steeleye Span was one of the folk rock bands in England started, uh, forty years ago, their main contender being Fairport Convention (although band personnel switched between the two).

Going to see a band you’ve followed, on and off, for a few decades is rather alarming. It leads to all sorts of thoughts about mortality and aging, and a live performance is quite different from recordings which give you a studio (edited, pristine) moment in time.

I didn’t want any sort of nostalgia trip or mourning for my lost youth or any of that stuff but I felt time was running out. Would they sound as good?

Thankfully, yes, they sounded amazing. And, oh, the Regency tie in. Their repertoire contains a lot of eighteenth century material. One of their most recent recordings, Bloody Men, has a whole group of songs, Ned Ludd, which begins with a setting of Inclosure by John Clare (and I’m listening to it right now):

Ye commons left free in the rude rags of nature
Ye brown heaths beclothed in furze as ye be
My wild eye in rapture adores every feature
Ye are dear as this heart in my bosom to me

And the same album has a version of a wonderful, raunchy traditional song, Bonny Black Hare, which proves that yes, in Regency England, they Did That Sort of Thing:

I laid this girl down with her face to the sky
I pulled out my ramrod and my bullets likewise
Saying, Wrap your legs round me, dig in with your heels
For the closer we get, the better it feels

As I said, my brain appears to be in the backyard (and mind in the gutter), but where’s yours today? What music are you listening to?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged fungus, Steeleye Span | 4 Replies

Wait a minute, Mr. Postman

Updated on September 17, 2009 by Janet Mullany

A wet gloomy afternoon here and to my disappointment the mail hasn’t come yet. Even now when the mail delivery means junk or bills (unless it’s your birthday) I still find its arrival exciting. There is the possibility there might be a real letter, a surprise.

I’ve just virtuously cleaned out my email folders and it struck me that maybe we’re a bit too sentimental about the lost art of letter writing. For a long time letters were not particularly private communications–because they were expensive to send, you wanted to get as much bang out of your buck as possible, and quite often they were written for public consumption, to be passed around among family and friends.

Take this example of a very public letter from Jane Fairfax to her aunt Miss Bates in Emma, kept on hand for sharing with visitors:

Oh! here it is. I was sure it could not be far off; but I had put my huswife upon it, you see, without being aware, and so it was quite hid, but I had it in my hand so very lately that I was almost sure it must be on the table. I was reading it to Mrs. Cole, and since she went away, I was reading it again to my mother, for it is such a pleasure to her-a letter from Jane – that she can never hear it often enough; so I knew it could not be far off, and here it is, only just under my huswife – and since you are so kind as to wish to hear what she says; – but, first of all, I really must, in justice to Jane, apologise for her writing so short a letter – only two pages you see-hardly two – and in general she fills the whole paper and crosses half.

Yet at the same time in this society another form of letters existed in the form of short notes, delivered by hand and although it’s tempting to think of these as clandestine love letters, it’s more likely that they were the equivalent of email. You’d send your footman out with the letter, and he’d wait for the reply to be written. Quite efficient, other than the natural inclination of a servant–or some servants to goof off as described by Jonathan Swift:

It often happens that Servants sent on Messages, are apt to stay out somewhat longer than the Message requires, perhaps, two, four, six, or eight Hours, or some such Trifle, for the Temptation to be sure was great, and Flesh and Blood cannot always resist: When you return, the Master storms, the Lady scolds; stripping, cudgelling, and turning off, is the Word: But here you ought to be provided with a Set of Excuses, enough to serve on all Occasions: For Instance, your Uncle came fourscore Miles to Town this Morning, on purpose to see you, and goes back by Break of Day To-morrow: A Brother-Servant that borrowed Money of you when he was out of Place, was running away to Ireland: You were taking Leave of an old Fellow-Servant, who was shipping for Barbados: Your Father sent a Cow to you to sell, and you could not find a Chapman till Nine at Night: You were taking Leave of a dear Cousin who is to be hanged next Saturday: You wrenched your Foot against a Stone, and were forced to stay three Hours in a Shop, before you could stir a Step: Some Nastiness was thrown on you out of a Garret Window, and you were ashamed to come Home before you were cleaned, and the Smell went off: You were pressed for the Sea-service, and carried before a Justice of Peace, who kept you three Hours before he examined you, and you got off with much a-do: A Bailiff by mistake seized you for a Debtor, and kept you the whole Evening in a Spunging-house: You were told your Master had gone to a Tavern, and came to some Mischance, and your grief was so great that you inquired for his Honour in a hundred Taverns between Pall-mall and Temple-bar.

Do you still eagerly anticipate the mailman or coming home to a mailbox stuffed full of envelopes? Have you received any interesting mail recently? And do you find it difficult to delete emails?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged footmen, mail | 8 Replies

Mungo Park

Updated on September 10, 2009 by Janet Mullany

Mungo Park (not a place–he was named after a Scottish saint), was born this day in 1771, near Selkirk, Scotland, and was an early explorer of Africa, generally credited with being the first European to find the Niger River. He’s a fascinating character who deserves more than one post, but I was particularly pleased to find it was his birthday today as I’m currently reading a wonderful book by Richard Holmes, The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science. It’s currently on sale at half price at bookdepository.com and you can read a far more coherent account than mine of the book at salon.com.

It seems like every couple of years I come across a nonfiction book that moves and inspires me and this is one of them. The last history book I raved about was Bury the Chains by Adam Hochschild (if you’ve ever had a conversation with me invariably I tell you to read it). Like Hochschild, Holmes has a vivid grasp of the age and his writing is beautiful.

Now my problem is that I haven’t got to the Mungo Park chapter yet (I’ve been reading about William Herschel, the balloonists of the age, and another explorer, botanist Joseph Banks who visited Tahiti, but I skipped ahead and browsed around).

Parks was a Calvinist, born in humble circumstances, eventually becoming a doctor with a severe case of wanderlust. His first expedition was as Assistant Surgeon on a naval expedition to Sumatra.

He was recruited by Joseph Banks on behalf of the Africa Assocation which sponsored expeditions, and as relations became hostile between France and England, moved from scientific and commercial interests to political ones. Similarly, it was proposed, and feared, that the French might invade England with balloons (something I’m strongly tempted to include in the WIP, but resisting). So the Africa Association wanted to find the legendary city of Timbuctoo (where buildings were reputedly roofed with gold) and discover a trade route via the Niger before the Frogs got there.

Here’s an excerpt about one of Parks’ experiences in 1796 shortly after he’d caught his first sight of the Niger. He’d been approached by an African woman and was a bit nervous of what he might encounter, following an embarrassing episode where a group of Moorish women had examined him to see if Christians were circumcized. “I thought it best to treat the business jocularly.”

But the woman took him home to her family where they sat around him spinning cotton and singing him to sleep.

Park suddenly realized the song was extempore, and the subject was himself. He was amazed when he began to understand the words: ‘It was sung by one of the young women, the rest joining in a sort of chorus. The air wa sweet and plaintive, and the words literally translated, were these:–“The winds roared, and the rain fell. The poor white man, faint and weary, came and sat under our trees. He has no mother to bring him milk,; no wife to grind his corn. Chorus: Let us pity the poor white man, no mother has he…”‘

The women reversed all Park’s assumptions about his travel in Africa. He realised that it was he–the heroic white man–who was in reality the lonely, ignorant, pitiable, motherless and unloved outcast. It was he who came and sat under their tree, and drank at their river. He found it hard to sleep that night, and in the morning he gave the woman four brass buttons from his coat before he left, a genuinely precious gift.

When his Travels were published in Britain, this incident had a strong impact on its readers who included Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire. She rewrote the song and had it set to music by Italian composer Giorgio Ferrari. But you’ll see she also restored the current thinking, of the European “discovering” Africa.

Apologies for the lateness of this post and I hope you enjoyed the snippet about Mungo Park and the excerpt.

What have you read lately that’s inspired you?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Africa, Hochschild, Mungo Park, Richard Holmes | 5 Replies

Happy Birthday, a joke and a PRIZE

Updated on September 3, 2009 by Janet Mullany

What is a Risky Regency? Who writes Risky Regencies? What are the challenges, pitfalls, and benefits of writing Risky Regencies?

And so began the Risky Regencies in August, 2005. At that point the lineup was Amanda, Elena, Megan, and me, plus Cara King (now writing YA–or what? Tell us, Cara), Laurie Bishop (now writing contemporaries–calling Laurie, where are you now?).

Megan and I talked about starting a blog when we were at the RWA National conference in Reno, NV in 2005 since we both had books coming out around the same time, and the others came on board too.

I met Elena at the airport waiting for a cab (a very frustrating experience since we could see the hotel but not get to it–Reno is not a place designed for walking. It is a place designed for gambling, period). We had a long discussion about sex and Regencies.

That was a pretty interesting conference for me, my first book about to come out, after a couple of years trying to sell a Golden Heart final ms. that no one wanted, and having my first meeting with my agent. Also I felt stoned the entire time at Reno and it was because extra oxygen was pumped into the hotel (to encourage reckless behavior?) which is why I told my agent-to-be this joke and she still signed me on:

What is the difference between an alligator?
“?”
An alligator swims in the water and walks on the land. Now, what is the difference between a shark?
“?”
A shark doesn’t have a difference. It only swims. What is the difference between a shark and an alligator?
“?”
An alligator has a difference and a shark doesn’t.

Yeah, I know. If you want to see some authentic Regency jokes, go to the joke section at Prints George (a great place to buy reproduction prints) and don’t blame me if you think they’re disgusting.

Four years is a long time for a blog to survive and we couldn’t have done it without you. It’s been wonderful seeing our traffic increase and making new friends.

So, the PRIZE. A $25 Amazon gift certificate, and to be entered for it, tell us your favorite joke; or tell us how long you’ve followed us and how you found us, which sort of posts you enjoy, and what you’d like to see more of. The winner will be announced at the end of the month.