Laura Vivanco's avatar

Laura Vivanco

@lauravivanco.bsky.social

153 followers 63 following 607 posts

Independent scholar of popular romance fiction. My website, with more information about my work, can be found here: www.vivanco.me.uk/

I also maintain a database of scholarship about popular romance novels: rsdb.vivanco.me.uk/node/4327

Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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So, I thought it would be nice to embroider her a brooch. It's about 6cm across. #HandEmbroidery

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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Can't post this to Instagram because the person this is for might see it. She's having a significant birthday and the invitation featured

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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Reading "In recent years we’ve found multiple ways to divide ourselves from one another. And lost that sense of a self-confident, outward-looking country which values its own people in every part of the UK" I'd be interested to know what her position is on things like

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Reposted by Laura Vivanco

Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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I'm sure you've done this already, but I've reported the fake account. 😡

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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But how "left leaning" is Labour compared to what we already have in Scotland (e.g. nationalised water, no tuition fees, no prescription charges, the Scottish Child Payment)? SNP voters are left of Labour bsky.app/profile/chad... but possibly they'll be abandoned by the SNP if it moves > Kate Forbes

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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This does suggest to me that Labour's dominance in Scotland could be quite fragile (to use the word which was the focus of one of your more recent posts). And it also suggests that Labour shouldn't assume that Scots are no longer interested in independence.

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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I don't have a valid passport so can't comment on the difference, but I didn't want to burden my council, which is already having to make cuts, and it seemed a lot easier to vote by post. However, postal voting hasn't gone smoothly for all and I don't know who pays the Royal Mail etc.

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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Exactly! There aren't many options for non-disabled, not-young but still-under-60-year-olds who don't drive and don't have a valid passport. You'd have to apply for a special document or give up on the idea of voting on election day and ask for a postal vote instead.

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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The thing is, if you're not a "young person" but you don't yet qualify for a bus pass, and if you don't drive and don't have a valid passport, your options are limited. I'm not sure what they could add to ensure it's easier for people aged 26-60 to vote in person.

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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Zoe Williams has been monitoring the way this is being covered

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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This reminds me a bit of how in my romance scholarship database I will include research on a text I don't consider romance if the author of the scholarship is approaching it with your kind of mindset (by which, in that context, I mean using lots of romance scholarship as secondary sources).

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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I had to go and look up which the largest five were (by population, I assume) and looking down the list just a little bit from Germany, the UK, France and Spain, there's also Poland, which notably managed to oust their far right party last year.

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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🐟 (appropriately coloured fish looks sad as it swims upstream)

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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I really hope this exit poll is about as accurate as the UK one!

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Reposted by Laura Vivanco

Mark Chadbourn's avatar Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social
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Shock follows shock! Exit poll puts Le Pen’s right wing National Rally in THIRD …behind the left wing NFP and Macron’s Ensemble.

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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Ugh and 😭! I was hoping the Yale report would reverse the rush to implement Cass but maybe it'll just take time.

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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Or the PFI/PPP schemes, which Gordon Brown was very keen on, but have been heavily criticised

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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This may be not at all relevant, but all I knew about him prior to this was him choosing to travel at a time when we were supposed to be in lockdown. I think it does suggest someone who thinks the rules should be flexible for them.

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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I think the thinking about it too much explains why I've been playing online solitaire endlessly. Don't want to do research because it would involve thinking about things that end up making me feel miserable. So, today the plan is to do embroidery instead of solitaire.

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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Yes, and then there's the climate crisis. So this is me.

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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I think this is a very good, concise summary of where we're at in the UK, with the caveat that even if "The mood of the moment is one of optimism for a better Britain" I spent yesterday feeling miserable and not at all optimistic because I don't think Labour will make enough of a difference.

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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Thanks! I hope that it didn't. But this bit from the page I linked to made me worried about him.

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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I was definitely not thinking of the versions with individual toes! But I had a look around and you can find examples of historic shoes which were built to fit the particular needs of the people who would be wearing them. www.press.jhu.edu/newsroom/rea...

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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I had a quick search to find out what happened to Guillaume Le Juponnier books.google.co.uk/books?id=o64... and I'm getting the impression he was imprisoned and then released, but not until he'd been branded with a fleur de lis on the face. My French is rusty, so maybe someone could check that?

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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I don't know much about "foot health" but they strike me as possibly being similar to modern "barefoot shoes".

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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This post comparing the current forecast with (one aspect of) Jeremy Corbyn's result and Tony Blair's suggests a (comparative) lack of enthusiasm for Labour among voters. We'll have to wait and see what the actual results are, of course.

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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Well, no, there's an estimate of 13 Reform MPs, which is really bad, because it gives them an even bigger platform. Some polls had suggested that the Tories might be wiped out, and this exit poll doesn't suggest that. Labour will have a huge majority but the vibe isn't one of big enthusiasm for them

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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I literally kissed a few frogs when I was a child. When they didn't change, I even (once) tried a tadpole, in case the problem was that it would only work on a frog the equivalent of my own age. I was really careful not to swallow it by accident. So, researching romance tropes from an early age?

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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I just read this review of a book about the Kennedy men yesterday.

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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Yes, that was why I thought it was better to get a postal vote. Which, in my case, did arrive pretty much on time and I sent it back about a week ago so it worked out fine for me, but obviously that's not been the case for everyone.

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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This gender split presumably reflects the voters Reform/Farage has been trying to appeal to?

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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I also have a vague memory that I asked one of the archivists in advance whether this was something they'd be happy to add to the collection. And with something like an expensive annotated copy, you wouldn't want it to end up as a lending copy that could be damaged/lost.

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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Definitely not the only one! I thought this last time but I couldn't afford them. What I did do was get a buy-it-now of Courtney Milan's The Duke Who Didn't and asked for it to be sent directly to maurice.bgsu.edu/record=b7165... I think it's signed by Pele, but that's not mentioned in the record.

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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Yes, it's so irritating! Do readers really need to be constantly reminded that the male hero is the manliest man with the most masculine body parts possible? Did the author think we might otherwise forget, or make an incorrect assumption about how manly he is? 😡

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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Well, any time you want to ask, I'm here! The database isn't quite as searchable as I'd like, but it does have tags and it's definitely more comprehensive than my memory 😜

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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That made me run off to Google Books to check to see if the "flat male nipple" was still around in romance, and it looks as though it is: www.google.com/search?tbm=b... (there are a couple of engineering texts thrown in the mix!)

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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I can't even get my head around how to do smocking on a flat surface! But I liked how these looked.

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Laura Vivanco's avatar Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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I was sure there was a conversation on here about the connections between fabric art and science, but I can't find it. Anyway, here's a link to a geometry conference paper on how to design 3D smocked objects igl.ethz.ch/projects/3ds...

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