the pundits would have said that between dear dr hashhozheva and myself we had long ago cornered the market in crippling library fines. the pundits would be wrong: apparently our juniors (beastly young reprobates!) are even more iniquitous!

only today miss shi-loh the 学妹-extraordinaire, otherwise known as ‘the young historian’, was fending off angry demands from tokyo university’s Almighty University Librarian with stout denials, in order to purvey to us this snarky little gem from her loan copy of forgotten armies: britain’s asian empire and the war with japan:

“Up in Gauhati, Assam, one enterprising [British] officer actually set up his own brothel serviced by women from the nearby hills. The local authorities turned a blind eye and he amassed a healthy nest egg for his retirement. The British army did not need ‘comfort women’ like the Japanese. Free enterprise did it all for them.”

…(christopher bayly and tim harper, 2005)