The Bluestocking, vol 69: Nice
Happy Friday!
How's your New Year Resolution going? Mine was to spend less time on trivial crap, and more time on either big projects, or spending time with people I like. Both are going pretty well; I've just confirmed that I'm going to Nepal in February to write about girls' education. Until not long ago, the country had a system called kamlari - essentially, indentured servitude.
I'm not much of a foreign correspondent; before my last trip like this - to Uganda in 2016 - I had a little blub at the boarding gate. Every time I reach an airport, I'm always convinced that I will die in a plane crash; so the news that there was not a single death in a commercial jet last year has really cheered me up. (Department of irony suggests that my plane to Kathmandu will be the one that breaks that duck, doesn't it?)
On which note, in the secrecy of the newsletter, I can say that the big project of this year is writing a book. It's a (partial, imperfect) history of feminism. It's been narking me for a while that I am so poorly informed about the history of the women's movement; I also want to know more about how previous generations of women got stuff done. If there's anything you'd like to see in there, or any questions you want answered, hit reply. I'm tackling the subject thematically, and one of the striking things I've already seen is how often the pushback is the same, no matter the ask. It's hurting your cause to be so aggressive! What about other issues, like [x] and [y]? Isn't improving life for women going to make it worse for men?
Helen
Jon McGregor on writing
There are other sorts of time, besides the writing time. There is thinking time, reading time, research time and sketching out ideas time. There is working on the first page over and over again until you find the tone you’re looking for time. There is spending just five minutes catching up on email time. There is spending five minutes more on Twitter because, in a way, that is part of the research process time. There is writing time, somewhere in there. There is making the coffee and clearing away the coffee and thinking about lunch and making the lunch and clearing away the lunch time. There is stretching the legs time. There is going for a long walk because all the great writers always talk about walking time being the best thinking time, and then there is getting back from that walk and realising what the hell the time is now time. There’s looking back over what you’ve written so far and deciding it is all a load of awkwardly phrased bobbins time; there is wondering what kind of a way this is to make a living at all time.
Why yes, the book does mean that I will be posting more pieces about how hard it is to write, thank you for noticing.
Up and then down
Two things make tall buildings possible: the steel frame and the safety elevator. The elevator, underrated and overlooked, is to the city what paper is to reading and gunpowder is to war. Without the elevator, there would be no verticality, no density, and, without these, none of the urban advantages of energy efficiency, economic productivity, and cultural ferment. The population of the earth would ooze out over its surface, like an oil slick, and we would spend even more time stuck in traffic or on trains, traversing a vast carapace of concrete. And the elevator is energy-efficient—the counterweight does a great deal of the work, and the new systems these days regenerate electricity. The elevator is a hybrid, by design.
This piece on elevators is full of juicy nuggets: "In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early nineties, the door-close button doesn’t work. It is there mainly to make you think it works."
I love stories about stuff that has to be near-perfect, unobtrusively, because we won't tolerate failure. (I guess planes fall into this category too, now I come to think of it.)
Historical generals pointing out the way to the loos.
Quick links:
- You know I love Hazza, and when she says an equalities policy is going to be a cracker, I'm here for it.
- People do crazy things at 19, 29, 39 etc.
- How not to be distrac
Guest gif: Reshuffle is over!
See you next time! PS. if you crave more of me (and why not), I'm presenting Week in Westminster on Radio 4 at 11am on Saturday.