Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Someone give that woman a special cookie

Book reviews: 3 down, 1 to go.

Honours theses: 9 down, 7 to go.

Words about Adelaide: 25,159 down, 24,841 to go.

Gonna stop now, have a whisky, and finish my new Ruth Rendell.

10 comments:

librarygirl said...

Is the RR a Wexford or a different
sort?

ThirdCat said...

You want to be careful writing about Adelaide and special cookies in such proximity. People will start to talk. Or hanging around. You know, waiting.

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Librarygirl: it's not Wexford, but she is writing as RR not BV. The noms de plume, they merge, they blend.

3C, I am terrified that Adelaide people are all going to hate it, and every single one of them for a different reason. Did you know that the lovely lively statue at North Tce and King Wm (horse, Boer War) actually has huge significance for South Australians' nationalism, because when the Boer War started we were a colony and by the time it finished we were a state in the federation? See, I don't think about things like that until someone points them out to me. Also, the sculptor was a vet, which explains the excellent horse, though no female soldier would have dragged at the poor thing's mouth like that.

Also, Dame Roma and the Canova Venus, if their statues are to be believed, have exactly the same sized tiny little feet. Venus could get into Dame Roma's buckled low-heeled pumps and they could both get into Queen Adelaide's black satin slippers with the crowns on.

And also, some scion of the Balfour family went to Paris in 1922 and came back with visions of frog cakes dancing in his head. Obvs the inspiration was the Parisian patisseries and the classic petit four, but history does not record whether he was inspired by frogs in particular because, well, you know.

And the man in the red coat in the middle of the Charles Hill Proclamation painting is Colonel Light, even though the key says it isn't, and even though he wasn't there.

Facts coming out the wazoo right now. I think my head asplode, etc.

David Irving (no relation) said...

So, when's the book going to be published? (I'm sure you've told us already, but I'm lazy and forgetful.)

We probably won't hate it ...

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Oh thanks, DI(nr), very cheering. Deadline for submission of manuscript is Feb 1, my father's 84th birthday ...

*pauses to have hysterics*

... but no idea of publication date; second half of 2011 some time, I assume.

Lucy Sussex said...

I think I'd rather give you a chocolate eclair. Or a biscuit, to avoid the Americanisms.

ThirdCat said...

Here's a thing: did you know that the name carved/engraved/etched on that horse's arse is the same name as the mister's? Everytime we drove into Adelaide, up from the country I would look at the horse, little knowing how much it would later make laugh. I guess it is the name of the sculptor and it's not an awfully unusual name, but still, I like the coincidence of it and give it greater meaning than I prolly should.

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Oh, that is fabulous, and you're right about the sculptor. Have not as yet closely inspected the horse's arse -- too busy taking pics of the rifle so that gun-nut Bloke can identify it, which he swears he can do from a photo -- but have just consulted Simon Cameron's beautiful little book on the statues of Adelaide, Silent Witnesses, to confirm.

Lucy, 'special cookie' is code mockery for someone who seems to expect a pat on the head, and may originate in LOLspeak, but you're right, I would rather have a chocolate eclair.

David Irving (no relation) said...

Feb 1st? Shit, you've got months of procrastinating time left ...

Elsewhere007 said...

I'd take you out to buy one -- a cookie, I mean. Or bring one round.