Tee hee (from the Times Books section last week)

The current laureate is Andrew Motion, but as it’s now a decade-long post rather than a life-time position, we’re nearly due another one. There have been calls for the first female laureate, detailed here, but many of the women have said they wouldn’t be interested (see here). Of course, the first female laureate should have been Christina Rossetti, on the death of Tennyson, but Queen Victoria wouldn’t countenance a woman laureate (and probably Rossetti would have declined it anyway) so instead they appointed the truly unmemorable Alfred Austin.