Monthly Archives: November 2023

2024, by Robert Durward

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Second paragraph of third chapter:

Fools often think that they can get something for nothing. Unfortunately a large number of our politicians agreed and decided to make their fantasy come true with public money. They thought all that was required was to harness the infinite power of wind, water and plant life. A concept so simple you have to wonder why it had not been done before. But of course it had and many centuries ago at that. The first recognisable windmill was produced two thousand years ago by a Greek known as Heron the Engineer; water power is even more ancient and goes back to the sixth millennium BC and the first patent for wave power was filed by a father-and-son team in Paris in 1799. The history of tidal power goes back as far as 900 AD.

Robert Durward was a Scottish businessman who had made a fortune in pink gravel. He had firm political beliefs, including that the traditional UK political parties are running out of steam and failing to connect with citizens as once they did (incontrovertible) and that he had the answer to reshape society (more questionable). Fate threw us together for a while in 2017, and we met in person once and had a number of conversations by phone and email. Unexpectedly, he died early in 2018 and our association came to a end.

This brief book, published early in 2017 before I got to know him, is a projection of how British and indeed global society will, in the next seven years, inevitably overthrow the current institutions of government, especially the existence of political parties, and create a utopia of a new world order. I have to be honest: it’s not terribly good. Wells did it better in The World Set Free. I’ve argued with idealists on both the left and the right about the role of political parties in any governance system (whether or not they are democratic) and I tend to think of them as a cultural universal.

So I think 2024 in our timeline is unlikely to work out as Robert Durward predicted (and in fairness, he was offering a vision, not a road map). But you can get it here.

This was the non-fiction book that had lingered longest unread on my shelves. Next on that pile is Many Grains of Sand, by Liz Castro.

Living with the Gods, by Neil MacGregor

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Second paragraph of third chapter (and the quote it introduces):

There is great significance in having water at the entrance to this cathedral [Salisbury], for in Christian theology the water of baptism serves as the door through which every Christian enters not just the faith but the whole Christian community, past, present and future. For the Bishop of Salisbury, Nicholas Holtam, the baptismal waters are the very ‘water of life’ itself:

“They purify us. It’s about the journey to the Promised Land, passing through the waters of the Red Sea. We come out the other side of the font, as it were, and into the nave of the cathedral, where the community gathers to celebrate the Eucharist. We’re called individually, but we gather together. And this is about the whole church, not just this cathedral. Becoming a Christian, you are baptised into the worldwide church so that, belonging here, you belong in all times and all places.”

A lovely book, based on a BBC Radio series of the same name, lavishly illustrated (as the radio cannot be) with photographs of art and architecture, and enriched by quotes from commentators who know what they are talking about. Some people like to simply dismiss religion as at best a distraction and at worst a force for conflict and division; MacGregor doesn’t shy away from that side of things, but he goes deep into what religious people are actually doing – symbolism, practice, history, politics. He draws some very interesting parallels between religions separated by continents and centuries.

I found it a very healthy perspective on what is and isn’t unique to each of the main strands of world belief. It’s also a surprisingly light read, despite its length and weight, perhaps because of its origin as radio scripts. Recommended. You can get it here.

This was top of my pile of books acquired in 2018. Next there is The Hidden Lives of Tudor Women, by Elizabeth Norton.