696: Chs 3-4 — Mr. Harrison's Confessions

Sep 19, 2025

Ep. 696: Mr. Harrison's Confessions | Chapters 3-4

Book talk begins at 25:15

Pears, parties, and peculiar housemates—Mr. Harrison’s adventures just keep getting more awkward (and more entertaining).

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SEPTEMBER Raffle - Box of Raffle by Andrew Ordover

THIS WEEK’S TEA: https://bit.ly/craftlit-pdtea

Farley's Bookshop!

Don't forget to send us your crafty videos

• Durham U English Courselist

• And a close up of a class and one from the U of York (thank you LilyM)

• We caught Hank Mansplaining Knitting

• The Ultimate “We Have Notes” video from @KristineVike

• And the evil of Private Equity predatory practices (actually, she has a LOT of useful informational videos!)

• Spectacular FIXED SciShow video: I Remade the SciShow Knitting Video (with accurate SCIENCE) https://youtu.be/5btQokB32dQ

Solomon’s Seal:

• Dutch Tiles—as with Cranford, these were out of style when the story was written/takes place. They have a resurgence of popularity during the Arts & Crafts movement: https://www.regtsdelfttiles.com/antique-delft-wall-tile-18th-century-horseman-in-manganese-rosette-corner-motifs.html
• The Jargonelle pear (Pyrus communis ‘Jargonelle’) is an ancient, hardy, long-lived pear variety, first mentioned in the 17th century. It produces medium-sized, yellow-green fruit with a reddish flush and musky, sweet, juicy flesh, ripe in late summer. The fruit must be eaten fresh as it does not store well.

• Sir Astley Cooper & Sir Robert Peel again
• Duncombe (silent final “be”)
• The back room was my consulting-room (“the library,” he advised me to call it), and he gave me a skull to put on the top of my bookcase, in which the medical books were all ranged on the conspicuous shelves; while Miss Austen, Dickens and Thackeray were, by Mr. Morgan himself, skilfully placed in a careless way, upside down or with their backs turned to the wall. HA!
• Women’s veils: https://www.sewhistorically.com/mourning-in-the-1850s/ deep widow’s mourning; such veils and fails, and capes and cloaks, that she looked like a black crape¹ haycock².
• very mal-àpropos that I could hardly keep from smiling; ³but I would not have done it for the world, … ‘“I have the ‘dognoses’ of my dear husband’s complaint in my desk, Mr. Harrison, if you would like to draw up the case for the Lancet.⁴ : Mrs. Malaprop is a comedic character from Richard Brinsley Sheridan's 1775 play The Rivals. She is a pretentious and self-important aunt who constantly makes humorous verbal blunders by using words that sound similar to, but are inappropriate for, the intended word. This type of linguistic error is now known as a malapropism. Her name is derived from the French term “mal à propos,” which means “inappropriate” or “poorly placed”. ***a memorable scene occurs when she instructs her niece, Lydia Languish, on the importance of controlling her passions, famously advising her to begin matrimony with “a little aversion,” and later attempts to describe Lydia’s headstrong nature by calling her “as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile”. then
• She tells Lydia that she must forget the young man, saying, “But I say it is, miss; there is nothing on earth so easy as to forget, if a person chooses to set about it. I’m sure I have as much forgot your poor dear uncle as if he had never existed”.

Miscellaneous

• Don't forget to send us your crafty videos

• BOOK/WATCH PARTIES coming up in 2025: Last Thursday of every month, 8pm Eastern:

  • Sep—The Last Unicorn (movie)

  • Oct—Random Harvest (book)

  • Nov—Random Harvest (movie)

  • Dec—Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal (book)

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