I was deeply surprised when I saw the photo. I didn’t – and still don’t – remember how isolated the school was.

For kids from further away, like the isles, they stayed in a hostel on school premises as weekly boarders. They were pretty much a close-knitted gang, in spite of ages, interests and classes. Now and then, the others and I stayed at their hostel during a particularly bad weather spell.

When the school hostel was full, we stayed at random locals’ homes nearby. Usually just for an overnight stay. There was already a hotel, but I’m not sure why we didn’t stay there. Probably to save costs for school? Anyroad, many classmates’ parents and guardians stayed at that hotel, which is how it came to know as ‘the Tearful Hotel’. They almost always cried when it was time for them to leave the their children behind.

I remember staying with an elderly woman who tried to feed me the idea that Jura was the heart of all things evil. She said things like “The whirlie is be seeking thesh mudsy souls. Yours as well, beddie.”  Heh. What a daft bat. She was a good cook, though.

There were maybe fifteen houses near the school? Only ones in the area, too, if I remember right. Quite a few locals kept to themselves, but when we came across them, they were usually polite and approachable.

Yeah, I’m honestly shocked at how isolated it looks in that photo. I don’t remember that aspect at all. I suppose it makes sense now I think about it.

Usually, it was a case of take a long walk from home to a designated school bus stop, get into a school bus, snooze or stare out of window groggily during the one-hour-and-half ride (we rarely talked as it was around 6AM), and get out of the bus into the school. Vroom through the day.

Back into the bus, talk or fight with other kids during our hour-and-half ride, get out of the bus into a long walk home. Pounce on my tea. Spend the evening as I please. Off to bed. Next day, repeat. So I suppose that’s why the village and the isolation weren’t quite part of my awareness.

Kids from my area and I didn’t even go to the school during winters because of snow and landslides on the only mountainous road between us and “the world”. During this time, we were home-educated from roughly mid-December to maybe early February.

This issue was resolved when they found a way when I was in my final year at my other school*, by adding a line nearer our home. So my younger brothers commuted by train during a snow season since then. Lucky bastards. But it did mean they would arrive at school at around 11AM and leave school at around 6PM, due to the train timetable.

<– Yes, just two carriages.

(*For those who haven’t read my old blog: in my second or third year, my parents transferred me to a boarding school — as well as signing me up at a summer-term school — after the Heyer fiasco to correct my learning with a round-the-clock education. :D They had already considered transferring me after the Gaelic fiasco in my third junior year, but the council persuaded them to give the school another chance (it wasn’t school’s fault, though; it was the council’s for deciding to impose the ‘all Gaelic’ scheme on school). Then roughly two years later, the Heyer thing happened. )

You know what pissed me off about this school? The shortest route from my home area to the school would be across the water. If you look at the photo, you’ll see that big brown hill. Our home area is behind that.

So instead of across the water, we had to journey to south for twenty miles, then round a corner, and then down south west for roughly fifteen miles to the school. I’m pretty sure it was roughly thirty-five miles each way, roughly three hours per day in total. If we went by water, it would be roughly fifteen miles with a 30-minute sea ride, roughly an hour per day in total.

Mind you, the advantage to that long busy journey was homework. We did it on the way home, or school, so that we wouldn’t have to do them at home. Sometimes, we bus kids traded our homework. “Do this maths homework, I’ll finish your English essay!” and “Let’s trade this science prep for your sociology prep?” Once in a while: “Hm, buy me a [lunch/drink/magazine/book], I’ll do your homework. Take it or leave it.”

Of course, I heavily relied on Maths and Science kids to help me out. While I understood English, Art (as in, art history) and History, I’m still not exactly sure why they relied on me for Geography. I never understood how I got good grades for that, either. I still don’t feel I understood Geography, but somehow I did. Odd.

Here’s another to give you a better idea of the school area:

That air landing thingy wasn’t there during my time. The school is the one with the white buildings, in between the sports field and a cluster of the grey buildings. That’s all I can remember, to be honest. It’s been what, twenty-five years now?  I don’t know. It was a long time ago, either way.

Seeing that photo of the school had made me shudder. It really does affirm how much I loathe being in an isolated area. It’s great for a fortnight holiday and all, but as part of the everyday life? No thanks.

Honestly, I’m still shocked at how isolated that school looked. I mean, I knew it was a bit isolated, but not that isolated. *shudder*

I’m incoherently thrilled because I’ve been relying on nothing but my crummy mobile phone to access the Internet for the past fortnight. And no way of expressing opinions in my usual style. No rambling posts. No prattling comments. No endless tweeting. It was truly a massive dent to my self-absorbed soul.

Anyroad.

A Historical Romance Author Expresses an Opinion

During a Saturday night, I decided to browse through the hard drive of my old travel laptop.

(For some reason, Will put my current laptop and my old travel laptop in wrong computer travel bags the night I left for the national tour. We didn’t realise this until I opened up the bag on the first night and saw I had the old travel laptop. I think I wept in despair. I mean, I hadn’t touched it since roughly 1997. My non-related work, my lifeline to the Net and all? Not there. What it does have: a dead internal dial-up modem, Windows 95, Office 97, old work documents, old games, folders of random stuff, etc.

Oh, and a Netscape browser with URLs still bookmarked. I was hugely amused to see old rom sites: The Romance Journal, Thrill Me Kill Me Kiss Me, Dangerously curvy Reviews, AAR, RRA-L, Rana’s World, Romance Junkies, RBS (Romantic Book Swappers) and my own html site, which I completely forgot until then: A Scot on a Rampage Through Scottish Romancelandia. It features a collection of excerpts from Scottish historical romance novels; each with an accompanying explanation why it didn’t work or what was wrong with it. I actually found it educational and perhaps helpful. I was also surprised to find my explanations non-judgemental and non-critical. Just a simple explanation each time. Unfortunately, I left the laptop at the hotel, so I can’t copy one example for this post. I hope I will later.

Anyroad, Will had no time to travel up to pass on the right laptop. He’s at the moment responsible for the decidedly vigorous mites (W’s lately taken to calling the youngest, ‘Speedster‘ and the oldest, ‘Spyder‘), the ongoing construction work on house and of course, his job. All this while Anna on holiday and me on a national tour.

He said he’ll cope just fine. I believed him because he was once a househusband who looked after our then newborn oldest. But he and I forgot one little detail: he’s roughly seven years out of practice.

On the night before I left, he said something like: “It’s just a matter of establishing and maintaining a regime.”

But on the second day?

“What the fuck is wrong with him? Why does [youngest] keep throwing books down the toilet? (later) I’m worried about [oldest]. It can’t be normal that he likes staring at his meal until it cools down? (later) [Youngest] threw your hairbrush down the toilet. (later) [Youngest] threw my shoes down the toilet. (later) I’m going to buy a lock for the bathroom door.”

And the third day?

“Why won’t (oldest) eat meat? He’s pushed them aside. He’s not sick, is he? (I explain) Isn’t he kind of too young to be a veggie? (later) [Youngest] stripped himself naked and ran like a banshee in Waitrose. (later) I’ve been thinking, we’re not paying Anna a decent salary. Is 50% increase okay with you?”

And the fourth?

“No worries. My regime’s firmly in place.”

Fifth?

“Where’s your address book? I need Aunt B’s number. (half an hour later) (almost bitterly) She said I should ‘muddy your hands like a proper Scotsman’. Your aunt can be a real **** sometimes.”

Sixth day?

“Me and the monsters have reached an understanding. No worries. Sorted. (roughly two hours later) Do you think they have a memory deficiency?”

Heh. As you see, he’s been rather busy. No chance to drop off my laptop. Hence me clinging to my mobile phone as if it was a lifesaver. And it was.)

During a browse, I stumbled across folders of review drafts (I found one so brutal that I blushed; I really went for this book’s neck), blog drafts, random snippets, odd reminders and photos.

The best find? A snippet of this RRA-L conversation, took place in 1996, between  two American historical romance authors: Danelle Harmon and Connie Brockway.

Background info: 

If I remember right, Harmon wrote a response — to a thread on the value, validity and worthiness of historical accuracy, I think — in which she admitted that she could no longer enjoy reading US-authored Brit-set historical romance novels. I believe she stated that if authors were to exploit a foreign country or culture to make a living, they should at least try to make an extra effort in their research and portrayals.

This prompted quite a few responses from authors and readers. My favourite were the one between Harmon and Brockway – a snippet you will see below — and the one between Harmon and Margaret Evans Porter (fellow American author who’d also lived in England… well, the isle of Man, to be precise, but according to her blog, she’s now back to living in the US). Unfortunately, I didn’t think to save this one. I may have, but I’m sure it’s disappeared into the vortex of abandoned 3.5″ disks.

Anyhow, I remember that thread as a friendly, fun and – for me – educational debate. Shame I didn’t save the entire thread, though.

Of course, it goes without saying that I haven’t tried to obtain both authors’ permission to repost this. No need to, I felt, as it took place on a public mailing list. Having said that, please do bear it in mind this conversation took place in 1996 — so their views may have changed since then.

I think the newsgroup layout format may be confusing to some not familiar with the Usenet, so I’m adding the colour blue, to the quoted parts of Brockway’s response, to clarify who wrote what.

Newsgroups: bit.listserv.rra-l
Date: 1996/01/26

—————————-Original message—————————-
“Connie Brockway” writes:

> Okay, you ex-patriot you, how do we handle this situation? I love traveling
> in England but I can’t move there, even for a season, so I must rely on
> impressions and information squeezed into my yearly ten day excursions.
> Since I am the world’s best tourist, those are going to be touristy. And I’m
> never going to “get it right.” ;<

Connie!!! Good to see you again.

First off, perhaps I should have inserted a disclaimer in my original post, that I was not tarring all of the books with the same feather. And I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t always “get it right,” either. I, too, have made mistakes that, upon enlightenment, have later caused me no small degree of embarrassment. I can think of a certain sunrise in TAKEN BY STORM, for instance <>. Live and (hopefully), learn…

Some time ago, there was a discussion on this list as to why (American-written/published) historical romances are not popular here in the UK, and why they are not even available in the average bookstore. You don’t see clinch covers at all here, and the only (American-published) historical romance authors to be found over here are the very big names, i.e., Lavyrle Spencer, Amanda Quick (sometimes), Diana Gabaldon, etc., and even these can be difficult to find. Romances that are set in Britain are very popular with American readers, but they don’t fly, here, and I have given much thought and speculation as to why they do not.

At the time of the discussion, it was suggested that perhaps the reason the British don’t provide a lucrative market for historical romances set in Britain (and written by Americans), is because these books don’t “ring true” for them. At the time, I had a vague, rather puzzled understanding of why this might be so, but not a real grasp of it; now, after living here for nearly 15 months, I think I can begin to understand perfectly. It has nothing to do with travel and touristy details; it has everything to do with cultural differences and attitudes, not only between the Americans and the British, but between various regions and societal classes within Britain herself. There are subtle (and not so subtle), but very different ways of thinking between the British and the Americans.

I am not claiming that I’ll always or ever be able to get it just right, either; nor, am I claiming to be able to “think like an Englishwoman” — yet — but my attitudes and ideas *have* undergone considerable change and re-aligning since I’ve moved here, and having changed so, I can understand just what sort of things the average British reader is going to find annoying about so many of the American-written romances, and now some of those same things are beginning to annoy me. Whether I like it or not, I find myself stuck between two cultures, absorbing the opinions and attitudes and way of thinking, of both.

Don’t even get me started on say, the issue of declawing cats, or the use of the emergency brake, or the way a woman of influence or power feels she should dress, or any number of other things that illustrate the very real differences between “Brit-think” and “Yank-think.” <>

> Now, here I may “cause a conversation”, but I don’t believe American romance readers need detailed authentication of every aspect of their English books. We have ideas, very romantic and probably fallacious ideas, of what certain eras in English history are like and we don’t want them upset. And they shouldn’t be if they serve the purpose of the romance novel.

Again, I’m referring to something less tangible; I don’t believe American romance readers need “detailed authentication” of every aspect of their English books either, Connie.

But I do think that authors, regardless of where they’re from and where they set a book, regardless of what genre (or lack of one) that they write in, owe it to their readers to try to get that which they’re writing about, right. Failure, for whatever reason, to do so is not only a cop-out, it adds fuel to the fire of our genre’s detractors, who are glad of any excuse to abuse and ridicule it.

Personally, I don’t feel that historical (or contemporary, for that matter) truths should be changed just to suit readers’ whims or preconceived (but erroneous) beliefs. Yes, life in other ages was very different from what it was now; people were much less cleanly, and things like sanitation, hygiene, dentistry and medicine were, compared to today’s standards, still in the dark ages. I’d be the first to agree with you that these sort of details are not romantic, and don’t need to be included in our books in order to satisfy the requirements of realism. Things weren’t a whole lot different in America, either, so this really isn’t even a “British issue,” or something that I was even referring to when I wrote my original post.

> What was my point? Oh yeah, that in some case verisimilitude can justifiably take a back seat to atmosphere.

My gripe wasn’t with respect to atmosphere, which can indeed be captured by a tourist to any country or setting. Specifically, my complaint was targeted at the number of books I see that show more of an American, than British, way of thinking in regards to the British class system.

For example: the number of books out there in which a British nobleman falls in love with a woman of no social consequence — and marries her. This concept becomes even more far- fetched when the woman in question is a penniless foreigner. The British aristocracy was, and is, a very elite and exclusive group — they stick to their own, and are not accepting of “just anybody off the street” when it comes to admitting such individuals into their ranks; in historical times, this precept was even more true.

I do not argue the fact that a few isolated instances are or were possible or even happened. I do not argue the fact that the idea of some dashing and handsome English lord sweeping Miss Nobody off her feet and marrying her fulfills one of the highest romantic fantasies, as I do respect and recognise the attractiveness of this “Cinderella appeal.”

However, when it comes right down to it, such a thing happening is highly unlikely. Is it any wonder then, getting back to that long-ago discussion, why a British reader (who has been born into, and understands, the class system here very well) might fling such a book against the wall when presented with some penniless orphan from the backwoods of Kentucky who suddenly finds herself married to the Duke of Whatever?

I know that these sort of plots are very successful, and appealing. I don’t presume to challenge anyone’s reading tastes, or their right to read or write them. Hey, to each their own. I’m just saying that for *me*, books that no longer fit my picture of Britain, and British life, have fallen into the realm of “wall-bangers” — no matter how well they’re written.

- Danelle Harmon,
Oxfordshire, England.

Books

I forgot to bring along my e-book reader so I went to the nearest charity shop, and picked up some random romance novels. All Mills & Boon.

• Cupboard Love (1975) – Roberta Leigh (quite an interesting read: heroine criticises hero for being “weak and cowardly” on “hiding behind a woman he doesn’t love to escape from a woman he loves”, and she’s really catty about — and towards — the other woman, whom she characterises as a ”desperate gold-digger” for marrying a fifty-year-old millionaire. Never mind the fact heroine herself has fallen for a millionaire banker, who’s at least fifteen years older than her. O, hypocrisy is thy name. At least this one contains quotations from Shakespeare, Rupert Brooke and a few other notable literary figures. Seriously though, it’d whipped up my appetite to read more 1970s-era category romances.)
• Not His Kind of Woman (1992) – Roberta Leigh (DNF)
• And Then Came Love (1954) – Roberta Leigh (haven’t read it yet)

Argh. I’m out of time as the luncheon hour is now over. *sob* I will try to finish this post when I return home tomorrow evening.

Until then, cheerio!

That honestly blows my mind.

The deal has basically given MPAA and RIAA a lot of enforcement power over the Internet and a right to ignore US-based Internet users’ basic rights including basic privacy (if I understood the details correctly, your ISP would and will hand over your name, address and other details to MPAA, RIAA or a copyright holder if your ISP feels you may have found guilty of downloading copyrighted materials without permission).

They say they will use a six-strike basis to control those who make copyright infringement. In theory, a user would receive six notices – for downloading copyrighted materials without permission – before their ISP would terminate their contract.

But it’s not clear on how will they know that those downloads are “illegal”.

ISPs are obviously going to do a lot of guessing when looking at its users’ transfers. So if you uploaded a home video – say, 250MB – of your kids’ birthday party to a known cyberlocker for relatives around the world, your ISP is in the right to suspect you’ve uploaded a music video and send you a notice accordingly.

How about some freelance workers who download presumably private materials issued by their clients? Does this mean your ISP has a right to look at your usage to see what you were downloading without your knowledge and permission on the behalf of MPAA and RIAA? Some materials – a digital image of cover art, for instance – can be up to 2GB.

What if your client did license – say – a song and send it to you via the Internet to make it part of an audiovisual work you’ll be creating for your client, but your ISP – not knowing it’s been licensed – may flag it as an act of copyright infringement and send you a notice? That’s the first of your six-strike record down.

Not only that, your name and details will be given to RIAA to add to its unofficial list of offenders. What makes it crazy is that you can’t dispute this. Your ISP’s terms and conditions agreement will make that clear.

For the sake of logistics, it’s very likely that they will ignore beepers (occasional downloaders) and go after heavy users. It still doesn’t explain what it’d do with people who actually are authorised to download these materials.

Perhaps they keep an eye on those who download from flagged cyberlockers, but I often uploaded some of my design works to Mediafire or Megaupload for various US friends to download from. Will they get a slap on wrist for downloading materials that make their ISPs suspect they have been naughty?

If I were in the US, I’d be flagged repeatedly. My employers frequently send me links to download their projects (up to 12GB) to work with. All those materials are copyrighted and definitely not for the public. It’s no secret that I edit-translate scripts and translations of comics. I do need those comics when working with scripts. I have them side by side so that when I work my way down a script, I look at a comic page to see what’s happening (some dialogue make no sense on its own, so it’s all about context).

This wouldn’t be an issue if I work in the office, but I work from home so it’s all ‘here’s a link!’ and ‘Upload that comic, please’. I’m not in the US so why should I worry? Well, some colleagues live and work in the US so if it affects them, it affects me as it’d disrupt each work flow.

It’s also not clear whether they would apply this to special campaigns or experiments (e.g. some companies purposely release one or two works to selected illegal arenas to track for data or – unbelievably, I know – to boost the word of mouth).

I love this quote by Bruce Abramson, who’s an Intellectual Property advisory partner for Rimon Law Group, and he’s also the author of The Secret Circuit: The Little-Known Court Where the Rules of the Information Age Unfold and Digital Phoenix: Why the Information Economy Collapsed and How it Will Rise Again.

“To me that is like saying, ‘I have reason to believe you stole my wallet so I am going to break into your home to look for it. And by the way, I am not going to be held liable if I trash your home in the process. Even if you are innocent.”

Precisely.

Don’t get me wrong, I am against mass-scale piracy, but not against occasional piracy.

I do wince when romance readers and author openly swap links to BBC dramas like Pride & Prejudice, North & South, Spooks and many more, and when film reviewers openly admit to watching films on YouTube or other online video streaming, but I don’t rally against them because well, how can I when I’m in a privileged position?

I still receive complimentary DVD screeners and graphic novels, up to five per week, from various distributors and two unions. So, as a whole, the costs don’t affect me. I mean, I rarely go to cinema – I think the last was Wuthering Heights and I didn’t have to pay for that one, actually – and I rarely buy current-release DVDs. DVDs I do buy tend to be old releases. Like I say, I’m in a very fortunate position.

I actually believe that is why MPAA, RIAA and similar bodies shouldn’t be seen as the best judges. They all don’t pay for DVDs or whatnot. They don’t go out and buy DVDs or whatnot, or do they download materials from authorised arenas.

They don’t get to experience what typical buyers usually experience.

So their privilege distorts their perspective of how it is for their customers. A customer will pay and try to download a film, but technical glitches make the downloading impossible and the customer service dept isn’t helpful. So what does the customer do? In this customer’s mind, he already paid for it and the site’s not giving him what he’s paid for, so might as well to download it from elsewhere. MPAA, RIAA and similar bodies don’t know all this, so they see that customer as a bad guy.

Most bodies honestly don’t believe or see that the main cause of piracy is their own distribution and their rapidly-ageing business models. So, legit customers are getting punished for their oversight.

And what makes it worse? The majority in those bodies rarely use the Internet.

At best, they use it only for emails and to read their favourite business-oriented news sites. One of my employers – he was in a senior managerial position for UK Film Council (now abolished) – didn’t know how to navigate YouTube and had to get his assistant to do the job. As an internet user, he only read emails, trade newsletters, BBC News, the Guardian and Private Eye. That was it. Yet he was in a position where he oversaw his annual allocation – approx £10+M – for the funding of Digital Screen Network.

That’s right, an occasional Internet user in charge of Digital Screen Network.

And you know what? That’s not unusual. I’ve seen this happening again, again and again with various organisations and bodies around the world. And judging by various book blog posts and news articles, this is the case with book publishers and its stance on piracy as well.

So yeah, it’s really worrying that those bodies are getting away with all these recent actions. How long will it be before they will try to apply it to the rest of the world? Bearing it in mind that they don’t see anything wrong with planting its people all over the Internet to promote the word of mouth for their new releases. They abuse the Internet to further their business interests.

There was a recent blind gossip item recently that heavily implied it involved the Hunger Games cast. Some of us seriously laughed our heads off – it was painfully obvious that it was planted to get people to talk about Hunger Games. It’s a very old tactic.

These bodies are obviously seeing the Internet as their playground where everyone has to play by their rules. And now with ISPs on their side, it’s happening.

Scary.