The best time and place in history

By Rhiannon

This week we had a little competition at work: a bottle of wine for the best answer to the question posed by an article in Intelligent Life magazine: what was the best time and place to be alive? The article clarified the question in the standfirst: if you could travel back in time, what would be your destination? It also presented a sample answer by one Patrick Dillon, historian.

I didn’t win. But that’s because, though I wrote a response (which forms the basis of this post), I didn’t really answer the question, at least not in the spirit in which it was intended. Short answer: I give nostalgia very short shrift.

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4 November 2011 | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Names, gender and identity

By Rhiannon

I was surprised at how disappointed (and disturbed) I was to discover that the title character in The Sword of Rhiannon was, in fact, male. And not only male, but a male evil god accidentally released from his prison. (This isn’t a spoiler: you find out who he is by page 4, and he’s out by page 15. This is not a book for hanging around.)

I feel rather better about him now, having finished the book and realised he was the only actual character (rather than plot device) in the story. But it made me think about how our identities are tied up with our names and our genders. I was much more bothered by a male Rhiannon than an evil god Rhiannon.

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30 October 2011 | Tags: , , , , , | 4 comments

The Sword of Me

By Rhiannon
sword

I can’t now remember why Robin and I decided to run an egosearch on Google Images. I think it might have been something to do with a discussion on the relative popularity of our names. In any case, Robin doesn’t seem to have very much of a net presence. A search on his name reveals primarily photos of a woman (apparently a US television chef) followed by a bearded man whose middle name is Robin.

A picture of me is among the top hits for my name. There’s a different one further down, along with a bunch of other people who share at least part of my name.

Scroll down far enough, however, and you come across this:

I had to find out more about a book called The Sword of Rhiannon. The blurb looked as if it might even be a decent story, Amazon was selling it for a few quid, and my birthday was coming up…

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29 October 2011 | Tags: , , , , | One comment