What Does Your Browser History Say About You?

Okay, so I clear my browser history every day. Mostly because my nine-year-old nephew often uses my computer, and there are things there that I don't want him to see. I'm already known as the relative who taught him the f-word at age three. Which, to be fair, was absolutely not my fault. I'd forgotten he was strapped into his kiddy seat in the back of my car. My invisible car, apparently, since a truck came out of a side street, completely didn't see me, and I had to brake and swerve off the road to avoid becoming a statistic. 

Then, while I was sitting there with my hands shaking on the steering wheel and my heart trying to break out from behind my ribs, a little voice piped up from the back seat: "Aunty Lisa, what's a fuck?" 

If I'd been able to think straight, I might have told him I said truck. 

So, six years down the track, and Tom uses my computer a lot. And, after one (fortunately closely monitored) incident where he wanted Google, typed "g" in the search bar and it defaulted to gaytube, I've learned to cover my tracks. 

But it did get me thinking about what my browser history says about me. 

Because, as a writer, I go off on whatever interesting tangent my imagination tells me to. A lot of the time this is porn. Which I can totally excuse as research, so there's that. But sometimes it's actual research, and I wonder what red flags are being raised when I spend a whole night searching "yellowcake" "armament factories" and "nuclear weapons". 

Surprisingly difficult to get information on the subject, to be honest. Unless you're a terrorist, I suppose, but maybe they don't use Google. Because I really want my guy to work in a factory that makes missiles, and even though I've found some great pictures, I'm pretty certain I need to know what those awesome-looking machines actually do before I write about them. I mean, it's only peripheral information, but I don't want to screw it up. 

Also, I don't want to get put on a no-fly list, so I don't know... 

Back to porn, I guess. 

Now, if you'll excuse me I need to delete my browser history before I get, "Aunty Lisa, what's an emergency twink?" 

History Nerd

Today I'm outing myself as a total history nerd. And why not? What is history except the biggest library of stories you could ever imagine? Want intrigue? Romance? Adventure? Want danger and death defying stunts? Want comedy or tragedy, or both? History has it all. 

Ancient history has always been my favourite. Roman history, in particular.  If ever a submissions call was written for me, it was Riptide's Warriors of Rome. And that's how He is Worthy was born. Hot guys, check. Ancient Rome, hell to the yes. 

My sister and I have an ongoing argument about this. We're both history majors. She thinks Victorian England is the best: 

Ban Barnes as Dorian Gray

To which I offer this: 

James Purefoy as Mark Antony in Rome

And here he is having a bath: 

Despite my overwhelming evidence, my sister and I have agreed to disagree. Meanwhile, she said the other day, just imagine what you could do with revolutionary France. 

Jamie Dornan in Marie Antoinette

Oh god yes. 

Burberry and Byron

The other day when I was researching instead of writing (please note that researching involves no actual research, it's just a word that makes me feel better about wasting hours on the internet), I fixated on the idea of modern fashion with a Regency twist. This is what I found: 

Source

This was from the Burberry 2010 / 2011 collection, and I've got to say, this works for me big time. The clothes are beautiful, the model is more beautiful, and there is a whole scruffy Byronic hero thing going on. 

Bad boys are great. 

Bad boys in cravats are better. 

I personally think you can't go wrong with hot guys in Regency fashion. What about you? What historical period presses your buttons?