The Princess and I

Here's a bit of what we academics call 'impact'.

Some royals are visiting Canada, and staying for a while on Prince Edward Island, seemingly because Kate - the female royal - is a fan of L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables.

What a coincidence - I've delivered a conference paper on the series, and have another one in the works, hopefully for the L. M. Montgomery and Cultural Memory conference on the island in June next year, if it's accepted.

I wonder what the royal's love of Anne is based on. Is it the character's near-endless deferral of heterosexual love and marriage? Is it the frequent racial slurs ('street-Arabs', the French and Americans are the main targets)? Is it Anne's fervent espousal of the Conservative Party? Or the novels' eventual whole-hearted endorsement of World War One, on the basis that a country isn't a nation until lots of blood has been spilt? Montgomery repented of this neofascist position when WW2 turned up - it may have been a contributory factor to her suicide (another detail not often mentioned on the back cover of Anne).

Or might it be that she's only skim-read the first novel and never bothered with the many sequels? Perhaps she'll come to the conference so I can explain all this to her. Before producing a guillotine.

(And by the way, Guardian: it's not a 'Victorian classic'. It was written in 1908, seven years after Victoria's death.).

The Map Whats?

Lou asked in a comment why we're called the Map Twats and whether the second word has acquired a new meaning.

Er… it has for us, denoting four idiots in the countryside rather than a crude term for pudenda. I wasn't present for the inaugural meeting, but the name springs from a discussion between Neal, Cynical Ben and Dan about an imaginary TV show in which some thirty-something fools get lost in the country but always find a pub. The soundtrack was to be (and this is Neal's fault), Cliff Richard's Way Out In The Country, which apparently features the lines 'You're going to find me/way out in the country'.

My contribution to celebrity culture is a porn mag for monarchists, featuring cadet members of the royal family: Barely Regal.

Still available for weddings, barmitzvahs and children's parties…