Work on the music hall chapter continues; I think I’m about 2/3 through, though there’s the usual comments to myself to fix later and add details, which I’ll be doing next week. Submission is a week tomorrow, followed by review on the 25th - day after MUGSS wine evening! - and I shall then be contacting other people about it, to see where I may stand.

Ellen Terry, aged 16, taken by Margaret Cavendish

I like this period; it embodies so much of the fascination of the Victorian era - so close to ourselves and yet so very far away, they underwent so much change in such a relatively short time, and both our country and the rest of the world was never the same again. Of course ‘era’ is a loose term and historically speaking there’s three Victorian-eras, given that Queen Victoria was on the throne for a long time, but even the early Victorians have that irresistible mix of like us but different. Part of the appeal, to me anyway, is that we can also see it. The daguerrotype was invented in 1839 and Eastman founded Kodak in 1888, and moving images were being produced from the 1880s - Hall Caine, whose novel I’m currently working on, had a career which spanned Henry Irving, Bram Stoker and Alfred Hitchcock, his books were made into plays and silent films. Being able to see photographs to me makes the whole thing more accessible but there’s still that immense distance. Also, I love the risque nature of this photograph, which was taken in 1864.

And to finish, something more mundane, a quote from a footballer recently signed to Manchester United:

“Manchester is the city of rain. Its main attraction is considered to be the timetable at the railway station, where trains leave for other, less rainy, cities”