EIIIIGHTY DAYS AROUND THE WORLD...
Today is the 123rd anniversary of Nellie Bly’s triumphant return from her attempt to recreate Phileas Fogg’s journey in Jules Verne’s book Around the World in 80 Days. We realise Nellie Bly achieved many things impressive even now, but more so considering she did them in the late 19th and early 20th century. Bly argued her way into a job at The Pittsburgh Dispatch paper after its editor mistook her letter of rebuttal to a particularly misogynist piece in the paper as the work of a man and offered ‘him’ a post. At 21 she was working as a foreign correspondent from Mexico and went on to the famous (ethically questionable) asylum expose, where she posed as a patient. Our favourite achievement of Bly’s that we’re taking our Friday 5 theme from today is her beating of Fogg’s (fictional) time – she made it round the globe in Seventy-two days, six hours, eleven minutes and fourteen seconds. This week we list fictional feats we’d like to have a go at…
1. I realise this is hardly going to make me sound any more cultured than last week's Dickens hate-fest, but such is life. When it comes to bringing fiction to life, my mind goes for TV. Specifically, for that soap opera meets 'Risk' in space, Deep Space Nine. I long to have whole universes to explore, even if some of them are populated with Cardassians. We've got Kardashians, so how bad can it get? But the notion of whiling away one's time in holodecks, in living in a world where the concept of travel is essentially limitless? Sign me up, and hand me a phaser. F1 Kate
2. I want to be able to go into novels. And meet the characters. And send other people messages using the footnote phone. I don't really care if it's not physically possible, I want to live in Thursday Next's universe! Squeamish Louise
3. I am a big fan of supernatural television, be it Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X Files or (dare I say it?) Sabrina the Teenage Witch. I like my books how I like my 90s TV and my fictional feat would be just as supernatural but more Russian! I would like to be transformed in to a witch like Margarita in Bulgakov's The Master and the Margarita. She is wild and she can fly! Did I mention she does all this naked and then she attends a big old party with a whole load of people from Hell and Satan himself! Everyone knows hanging out with the bad boys is way more fun and it just sounds like the best party ever! I'd like to do it all except meet the same fate as Margarita at the end of the book which is neither here nor there. Squeamish Nicola
4. My first two ideas were scenes of the romantic persuasion. I'll keep thinking... Becky Shepherd
5. When I told my sister this week’s theme she listed all the fictional things she would like to do, control objects with her eyes like Matilda, attend Hogwart’s like Harry Potter and form her own band of mystery solvers like the Famous 5. Of the 3 I suppose the last is the most possible. And I think we should be going for plausible fictional feat. I solve mysteries concerning salty sea captains all the time though. I would like to climb a mountain in my petticoat, like Heidi. Heidi was a big contender in my childhood, alongside Emma Apple (I’d also like to bathe in mud) for favourite fictional character. I’d also like to spend some time making like Marmalade Atkins and telling everyone exactly what I think and going out for a night on the tiles with a scruffy donkey. That’s living, fictional or otherwise. Squeamish Kate
2. I want to be able to go into novels. And meet the characters. And send other people messages using the footnote phone. I don't really care if it's not physically possible, I want to live in Thursday Next's universe! Squeamish Louise
3. I am a big fan of supernatural television, be it Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X Files or (dare I say it?) Sabrina the Teenage Witch. I like my books how I like my 90s TV and my fictional feat would be just as supernatural but more Russian! I would like to be transformed in to a witch like Margarita in Bulgakov's The Master and the Margarita. She is wild and she can fly! Did I mention she does all this naked and then she attends a big old party with a whole load of people from Hell and Satan himself! Everyone knows hanging out with the bad boys is way more fun and it just sounds like the best party ever! I'd like to do it all except meet the same fate as Margarita at the end of the book which is neither here nor there. Squeamish Nicola
4. My first two ideas were scenes of the romantic persuasion. I'll keep thinking... Becky Shepherd
5. When I told my sister this week’s theme she listed all the fictional things she would like to do, control objects with her eyes like Matilda, attend Hogwart’s like Harry Potter and form her own band of mystery solvers like the Famous 5. Of the 3 I suppose the last is the most possible. And I think we should be going for plausible fictional feat. I solve mysteries concerning salty sea captains all the time though. I would like to climb a mountain in my petticoat, like Heidi. Heidi was a big contender in my childhood, alongside Emma Apple (I’d also like to bathe in mud) for favourite fictional character. I’d also like to spend some time making like Marmalade Atkins and telling everyone exactly what I think and going out for a night on the tiles with a scruffy donkey. That’s living, fictional or otherwise. Squeamish Kate
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