Miss Elaineous: September 2024

Monday 9 September 2024

BROMPTON CEMETERY YOUTUBE VLOG LIVE...

My Brompton Cemetery YouTube vlog is now live!

Link:-

I went to an open day at Brompton Cemetery, London, and got to walk down into the rarely open catacombs.

During the Victorian age local cemeteries were becoming increasingly overcrowded, with burials taking place on top of former burials. Horror stories abounded: gravediggers jumping up and down on old corpses to fit new ones in; the cutting through of mistakenly exhumed limbs whilst digging new plots; accidentally digging so deep that corpses fell into the sewers and were flushed away. The Victorians believed that the rot and mildew caused by these unsavoury actions led to miasma (bad air) which was considered very unhygienic and the transmitter of disease. In London this crisis led to the creation of the 'Magnificent Seven'. The term refers to the seven large, private London cemeteries which were established in the 19th century to alleviate overcrowding in parish burial grounds. Brompton Cemetery is in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and is the only cemetery in the country to be managed by the Crown. Come and take a walk in my shoes in this magnificent museum of the dead, and I'll show you the graves of some notable people. It is said that Beatrix Potter took the names for some of her characters from gravestones here!

As you know, I will always be a writer before anything else, and I have blogged about Brompton Cemetery following my last open day visit, link:-

https://elainerockett.blogspot.com/2019/08/miss-elaineous-visits-brompton-cemetery.html

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TTFN

The Miss Elaineous

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Thursday 5 September 2024

ALL DAY LONG by JOANNA BIGGS

ALL DAY LONG

JOANNA BIGGS

A PORTRAIT OF BRITAIN AT WORK

THE BLURB:

What do people do all day? How does work affect our lives? And what happens when we don't work? From Westminster to the Outer Hebrides, Joanna Biggs travels the country to find out who we are through what we do.

THE REALITY:

This piece of non-fiction serves as learning material for something I'm really interested in. Unemployment always gets a mention in society, and underemployment has also become a big issue in the past 20 or so years. I'm also investigating whether underemployment and overeducation can actually be a blessing in disguise, as a failed career does have the potential to push an individual onto a different trajectory, possibly resulting in happiness- or not. It's my job, as I see it, to investigate this.

I have long recognised the fact that the hiring process nowadays is flawed to the state of being egregious- with many online applications simply falling into the ether. And don't get me started on processes such as unpaid internships (or modern slavery, as I prefer to call them...) But that's an investigation for a different day. Back to the book and I love that this gives an insight into what we do at work and how rewarding it is from an entirely unbiased perspective, and hats off to the author for doing that. I have strong opinions on employment in Britain and what it means today, but when I do write about it I will have to make sure that my passions come across as coming from the head and not the heart. I now fully understand what Gillie Bolton (she lectures on using writing as therapy) meant by “the writer's bleeding heart must be kept off the page.” Before I didn't, and insisted that the writer's bleeding heart must be kept on the page, as we connect via emotions. But, in fiction, the emotions must come from the character, not the writer. And, in non-fiction, whilst it's excellent that the piece is driven by the heart, it must be written from a head point of view. I'm so glad that this book gave me the chance to think and unpack my previous thoughts.

This book will make you understand the background to what drives some people and the hard work involved in real success. You also pick up the various motivations involved across the board, and everyone needs that motovational element, no matter what the job. But it will also make you very angry when you see how badly those employed in “lowly” work or the unemployed are treated. It's always fascinated me that stupid employers expect people to be “passionate” about the most shitty job. Why can't these daft clowns realise that in many jobs people are simply there to do the work, earn the money and go home? (Actually, in the notes at the end, it would seem that one employer has certainly learnt this...) My God, it would appear that the working world is full of bullies, and insecure bullies (in the future, let me be the one to speak out about them- this author certainly does, very subtly and cleverly).

It's the quite matter-of-fact yet humane approach to this book that makes it so interesting. It's a book that should feature on every school curriculum.

Sunday 1 September 2024

THE HILL GARDEN AND PERGOLA YOUTUBE VLOG LIVE...

My Hill Garden and Pergola YouTube vlog is now live!

Link:-

https://youtu.be/jsZSkR-Yyvw

The Hill Garden and Pergola stretches for over 230 metres, and is a raised walkway of more than one level; some 20-30 feet high. The house next door was once owned by Lord Leverhulme (1851-1925), who made a fortune manufacturing soaps from vegetable oils. He remodelled his house- called The Hill- extensively, even adding a ballroom. He created the Hill Garden and Pergola to offer extra space when entertaining his guests. It also added extra privacy, so that the riff-raff who traversed Hampstead Heath- which is, after all, a public right-of-way- couldn't see into his house! I can't believe that I didn't even know about this place until stumbling across it by accident a few weeks ago. Come and see (what I now call) my secret garden, in the centre of London's biggest cottage!

As you know, I will always be a writer before anything else, and I have blogged about the Hill Garden and Pergola recently, link:-

https://elainerockett.blogspot.com/2024/08/miss-elaineous-visits-hill-garden-and.html