Thursday 1 August 2013

Jane bloody Austen - again


From Suffragettes to Jane bloody Austen - now we have her demure visage about to be stamped all over a £10 note, but me and H.I. say, "Why?"

Ok, she was a woman writer. Why don't we have Mary Shelley (another Bath resident) on our banknotes? Weren't the Brontes a bit more talented?

I had friends years ago who could not listen Bach, Haydn, or Mozart without thinking of crinoline dresses, bonnets, and fops drinking interminable cups of bloody tea. They were wrong, though.

When I hear the name 'Austen', I bloody think of crinoline, bonnets and bloody tea - along with unsuitable matrimony - so maybe I am wrong too.

The British woman who lobbied the treasury to include J.A.'s image has been receiving some disgusting threats on Twitter to do with rape and murder, and that is unforgivable.

Let's celebrate Jane bloody Austen, no matter what we think about her as a writer, eh? I for one don't care whose image is on my tenner, just so long as it is accepted at the pub, and I am not alone.

They could put Osama bin bloody Laden's face on a note, and I would still try to pass it off at my local.

22 comments:

  1. I am doing my best to sound like Jim Froggatt.

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    2. Damn, I'll try that again ...

      Personally I'd go for Shelley. She suffered an insufferable husband and wrote some really great stuff within the same marriage.
      Austen, um

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    3. I think Jim may have auto-ignited whilst his carer was removing his toe-nail varnish with acetone.

      Anyway, what the fuck has an insufferable husband got to do with good writing? Many more male writers have had insufferable wives - or at least published ones - but maybe I am manipulating statistics?

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  3. Shame about that woman who lobbied for Austen. It's sad when nut jobs get on twitter baying for blood because of a Jane Austen image on currency...

    I have to admit that I do love a good Austen period drama on TV...I always hope to see you in the background in the scenes set in Bath looking completely disgusted! xx

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    1. Trouble is, I fell out with the man who gets everyone extras jobs here, by implying he was a cunt. That was about 20 years ago, and he's still alive. He's called Paul Cresswell.

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    2. Ha! Typical of you. Now we're denied the pleasure of seeing you tarted up in a a red coat and tricorn hat...

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    3. Every man has his price - can I leave the tricorn on?

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  4. Mark Twain on Jane Austen:

    "Every time I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone."

    :)


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    1. I have never heard that quote from Mark Twain, but now I am going to read every thing he wrote with devotion, and forgive him his habitual use of the 'N' word.

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    2. Please let me add to your Twain repertoire: He said on writing, if the author has no more use for a character, the solution is to take the character out back and push him down the well.

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    3. That's a ruthless way to treat people who you have brought into existence once you get fed up with them. It reminds me of Mary Shelly's treatment of the monster when she exiled it to the frozen wastes of the arctic circle.

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  5. I just read on the Daily Mail's website that the American singer Kelly Clarkson is not allowed to take one of Jane Austen's rings which she legally bought at an auction out of the country. I guess it's considered a national treasure.

    But then again I'm a total sucker for Mr. Darcy .... on second thought it might just be Colin Firth that makes my heart beat faster.

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    1. Well, the ring was made from gold and turquoise, so I am guessing it may not have been made in this country anyway. It was probably Mexican!

      I think that she suddenly understood how foolish she had been to spend 6 figures on it, so gladly parted with it.

      If Colin Firth treated you like that, then you would soon go off him too.

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  6. I know Austen fans are fanatics, but consider the lobbying that surely went into convincing the British Exchequer (God, I love that word) or Parliament, or the shadow cabinet or any other piece of your lovely government to memorialize Jane on a bill. Now I know why I can't get my grand daughter to open the collected Austen I gave her for Christmas. No power of persuasion.

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    1. The word 'exchequer' comes from the board game, 'checkers', so they were gambling with other people's money even way back in those days.

      I know what you mean, though - I have a love/hate relationship with our government. I love the hereditary lords a lot more than the commoners.

      I never read the Tolstoy 'War and Peace' that a relative gave me one Christmas either. Don't hold it against her...

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  7. Her saving grace, for me, is that the first ever mention of 'Baseball' is in her novel Northanger Abbey. It helps remind those Yanks that the game's origins are in England.

    I spent my entire bloody O level year reading bloody P & P.... it makes me bloody shudder still.

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    1. I would have thought that Miss Austen would have played 'rounders' with a soft ball?

      We did 'Far From the Madding Crowd'. I have never read any Hardy since.

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    2. We did 'Far from the Madding Crowd' for 'O' level too. Hideous memories of having to write about the dangerous symbolism of the red uniform seen from a distance on the hillside.....zzzzzzzzzz. I'm a closet Austen enthusiast but 'Persuasion' is my favourite and the TV productions of each usually have my blood boiling as actors plunge inappropriately into Lakes and the house rings with my anal tutting. I wish I hadn't written that now.

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    3. I wish you hadn't written it too - I'm going to spend the whole night wondering what your anal tutting sounds like.

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