Kippers

We had kippers for lunch. Very nice they were too. But I had to take a firm stance and push the decision through. My mother said kippers were for breakfast and Ailz said she'd never had one before and wasn't sure she wanted to start now.

Kippers are great value for money. Three kippers- best quality- organic, no less- are £1.85 in Sainsbury's. That's a very cheap meal.

Women Writers

Some Canadian academic has caused an international furore by saying he doesn't like women writers so he isn't going to teach them.

Fair enough. I wouldn't want to be taught by anyone who hated their subject.

Mind you, I wouldn't want to be taught by him at all. He'd set my teeth on edge.

It made me think about my own reading habits. Right now I'm majoring on female authors. My favourite classic is Charlotte Bronte and the modern novels I'm reading are mostly by women. I particularly like A.S. Byatt, Hilary Mantel, Sarah Waters and Kate Atkinson. I'm halfway through a book by Ali Smith and I've got something by Rose Tremain lined up.  Ailz says women authors are better at getting into their characters' heads. That's a bit sweeping, but I think women on the whole (there are always exceptions) are better at getting inside men's heads than men are at getting inside women's. Too many male authors don't look much beyond their female characters' chest measurements.