>LRB | Jenny Diski : It's so beautifulLRB | Vol. 25 No. 22 dated 20 November
>2003 | Jenny Diski
>
>It's so beautiful
>Jenny Diski
>The Story of V: Opening Pandora's Box by Catherine Blackledge | Weidenfeld,
>322 pp, £18.99
>
>For many women in the 1970s, the response to the exhortation 'Know thyself'
>took the form of specula, hand mirrors, torches and a group of comrades who
>would angle the looking glass and beam just right so that, reclining on your
>elbows, you could look down through your bent legs and see what really lay
>between them.
>
>
I know "torch" means "flashlight" over in Britain. But for a moment, I
had this ghastly image of women examining themselves with welders'
oxycetylene torches going full blast.
I'll let someone else work up the _Flashdance_ jokes.