Doppelganger alert, #6 and #7

This isn’t me either.  But this Penny Richards, senior programme officer of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and co-editor of AIDS Sutra:  Untold Stories from India seems to be the same Penny Richards who used to be minister at the Australian Embassy in Japan.  But I don’t think she’s the same Penny Richards who was/is Singapore bureau editor for the BBC, and head of BBC Asia bureau.   Must be two different women.  Some formidable doppelgangers working in Asia!

Doppelganger alert, #5

I am also not the New Zealand artist named Penny Richards. She used to work as a zoological illustrator–that sounds pretty cool. Her diary at the site linked includes such sage wisdom as “big paintings are cool–but don’t make them so big that they don’t fit in the car.” From the samples of her work, it looks like New Zealand is an excellent place to find landscapes and seascapes worth painting.

Doppelganger alert, #4

I am also not the Penny Richards who serves as “National Blackberry Coordinator” for the Department of Primary Industries in Australia. “Her role is to coordinate implementation of the National Blackberry Strategy (2001) and to oversee cooperative approaches to blackberry management across Australia. She provides support to the National Blackberry Taskforce (NBT) as Executive Officer.”

Why does Australia have a National Blackberry Strategy to implement? Well, as the links above explain, some varieties of blackberries aren’t native to Australia, and are in fact classed as a weed (a delicious weed, but nonetheless). Cultivated, gardened exotic blackberries are nice, but when they grow wild, they’re a serious problem. “Blackberry thickets provide good homes to destructive feral pests such as wild pigs and foxes.”

But it’s a lovely job title, right?

Doppelganger alert, #3

I am also not this Penny Richards, a watercolor artist and teacher in Keynsham, England. From her chronology, I suspect we’re about the same age, though. I’d probably go check out her exhibits if I found myself in the neighborhood between Bath and Bristol. And the “sketching and painting walks” she leads–those sound quite nice.

Doppelganger alert, #2

This is not me, either. Aren’t you shocked to learn that I’m not a romance writer? 😉

Doppelganger alert #1

The name “Penny Richards” is surprisingly common. This, for example, is not me:

Penny Richards, Review of Laurence Lux-Sterritt, Redefining Female Religious Life: French Ursulines and English Ladies in Seventeenth-Century Catholicism (Ashgate 2005), in French History 22(2008): 241-242.

That book review was written by an English historian named Penny Richards; because of her, I use my middle initial in most academic contexts. But it still catches me by surprise when I see new publications by her, listed in journal tables of contents.