Anyway, the day before yesterday I went to have my hair cut and coloured at the campus hairdressers, and was very surprised to find out that the woman who had owned and run the salon for fifteen years had sold it last week, and the new owner was doing my hair. While I was in there four different people came in wanting to use the solarium, and to my initial surprise, all were turned away. Because they’d paid in advance for lots of sessions, one or two went off a bit disgruntled, even though the new owner took their details to send them refund cheques. She told me that she’s getting rid of the tanning bed as soon as she can, and she won’t be replacing it with a spray-tan booth either. “I don’t think it sends a good message to the students,” she explained. She went on to say that since the death of Clare Oliver last month a huge grass roots change has begun to take place in the salon industry in Victoria in terms of its attitude to solarium tanning. The small to medium operators are getting out of the business. She thought it would be next to impossible for her to dispose of the salon’s tanning bed by selling it, and she added that even if she’d wanted to continue offering tanning sessions, she wouldn’t have been able to justify paying the massive increase in the salon’s insurance premium which sunbeds are now attracting.

In Victoria, South Australia, and I understand federally, there are indications that bills will soon be put forward to regulate the solarium industry, but, happily, it almost looks as if sunbed numbers and usage might be declining under the more enduring influence of market forces and public opinion anyway.

The conference theme is Jane Austen – specifically, Austen as a comic writer – and even more specifically, what happens to Austen’s comedy when her work is translated into other languages and read in cultures quite distant from the one she wrote her novels in. We’ve put the bulk of our limited funds into bringing out to Australia speakers from developing countries, people who would never normally be able to participate in an event like this simply because of the economic disparities, and they’re going to talk about topics that really will throw fresh light on Austen. For example we have a very distinguished Indian scholar who’s going to talk about how Pride and Prejudice, without doubt the ultimate and original romance novel, goes over in a culture where it’s traditionally asumed that romantic love develops after marriage, not before.

There will be a nice mixture of Australians and international people, of senior types and those of us who are just starting out. And ah yes, there will be bloggers: Sophie C. and Dr. Cat will be on the plenary panel about the overlays and intertwinings of fiction and biography. And further, there are other kinds of reasons to be excited about the people who’ll be speaking: Julia Zemiro is going to be doing a comedy show to kick off the cocktail hour on the first day, and on the opening night, Professor Germaine Greer is giving a public lecture on Jane Austen. I’m biased but I think Professor Greer’s lecture (28 Nov, Capitol Theatre, tickets on sale now) is going to be the event of the year. Fingers crossed that it all goes smoothly….

OK, so if you think you might like to come to the conference, or the lecture, or you perhaps know a Janeite (Austen fan) who would be interested, your first port of call is the conference website at http://austen2007.net. Don’t wait too long to book lecture tickets as there aren’t that many. Here’s a flier with the details.