Kate Fox

I've been reading Kate Fox's Watching the English, along with a lot of geology, this weekend, research for the book I'm working on, which has class issues and geology in it. (Hee. What a funny sentence. I crack myself up. Class issues and geology.)

Anyway, the Kate Fox book I learned about over there on Crooked Timber, recommended by Chris Bertram,

http://crookedtimber.org/category/books/

and it's as good as he said.

mr. delagar objected when I ordered it*, esp. since I had to order it from England (American Amazon.com did not have it) and pay for it at the very unsatisfactory exchange rate (I can't do transoceanic math, but the nine pounds the book cost over there cost some hideous amount over here, not to mention what it cost to fly it across the ocean.) Also, mr. delagar claimed Paul Fussell, his hero, had written some very much better book about class which I could read instead.

Bah, sez I. Because I don't like Mr. Fussell. And I'm glad I did. Kate Fox is full of interesting bits about jam (it's jam if you're upper class, and preserves if you're middle class, and so there, also, the chunkier and darker it is? The higher class you are) and how the lower-middles wear less clothing and the upper class wear lots; and how the lower-middle has tea and the upper class has supper (pronounced "suppah," mind you) and besides all this she has funny footnotes.

I love a book with funny footnotes.

I'm also reading Wodehouse's Wooster books. They go remarkably well with Kate Fox. Not so well with geology, though. Anyone know a good novel with lots of geology in it?

Meanwhile, the kid is in bed. She's on antibiotics, which are making her ill. I'm giving her yogurt with live cultures and applying a heating pad, and letting her listen to all the booktapes she wants. Anyone have any other ideas? Aside from taking her off the antibiotics, which I don't think I want to do.

Also: thunderstorms, lots of them, so that our power keeps going off.

It's been a lively weekend.




*Not very loudly. He hasn't a leg to stand on, not with all the records and cds and books he is constantly ordering from England and Germany.