Maggy’s Laundry

Pic by Arūnas Naujokas on unsplash. There was an awful lot of washing today. Maggy hauled the two baskets to the centre of the lawn, strapped the peg bag around her middle and began clipping clothes to the red wire that crossed the garden. Towels, jumpers, jeans. She filled one line and started on another …

Life Lessons from Animal Crossing: New Horizons

How do you want to escape the current global situation? The biggest video games to come out at the start of 2020 are Doom Eternal and Animal Crossing: New Horizons, so realistically, there’s two ways of distracting yourself: you can either blast demon hellmonsters with big guns or catch fish, do some landscaping and sell …

It’s Not Easy Being Green

Poor Kermit would have had an even worse time of it had he lived in the Middle Ages. Frogs and toads were, frankly, considered to be the worst: they were associated with the devil and thought to be a favourite form of familiar for a witch. Indeed, in North Cambridgeshire, an old word for “bewitching” …

“It’s Research, I Promise”: A Writer’s Google History

This month I’ve been a bit quiet because I’ve been taking part in NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month. Admittedly I’m not going to “win” the month as I’m still well off the 50,000 words target but it’s been really useful for making writing part of my daily routine. I’ve also stopped feeling so paralysed …

You Don’t Have a Newcastle Accent

“You don’t have a Newcastle accent.”   If I had a quid for every time I heard this from people I’ve just met then I’d never have to work again. So before I break the neck of the next person to say this to me, I’m just going to get it all out here. Ok? …

Nobody Expects the English Inquisition

As I’ve mentioned on a few occasions now, a couple of years ago I finished an MA dissertation looking at Medieval magic trials in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (intro here). A lot of people who weren’t face-first in this period of history like me expected to hear me talk about witch hunts and the …

You Should Be Writing: Turn Your Procrastination into Productivity

(Or at least feel like you’re doing more.) As a writer and recent former student, there is one area where my skills are rock solid: procrastinating. Why write an article when the bathroom needs cleaning? How can I possibly focus on a short story when I need to find just the right pair of winter …

Six Degrees of Jason Statham

A couple of weeks ago, I went to see The Meg with my boyfriend. Normally, I’d wait until a film of this sort was out on Film 4 and then watch it with a few beers and a large pizza but we decided to go to the cinema mainly due to one reason: one of …

How To Be A Skandilizatrix

Bored? Want to piss off members of your local community – but with style? Take a leaf out of Elena Dalok’s book. Elena Dalok lived in St Mary Abchurch in the City of London and was had up before an ecclesiastical court in 1493 for practice of sorcery and being a slanderer. We don’t know …

The Pythonissa: A Slippery Soothsayer

Here’s a new insult for you. Margery Ryvel was excommunicated by the church in April 1348 for practising divination, superstition and illusion. Whichever clerk wrote the Latin report that survives in the Register of John de Grandisson, Bishop of Exeter, clearly did not like her or her activities. The report reads as a barely-concealed rant …