Second paragraph of third chapter of Setting the Truth Free: The Inside Story of the Bloody Sunday Campaign, by Julieann Campbell: Coinciding with the twentieth anniversary was the launch of Eamonn McCann’s book, Bloody Sunday: What Happened in Derry, commissioned … Continue reading
Extraordinary.
The tenth and last volume of the Blood Sunday Report is lengthy (541 numbered pages) but doen’t really add much substance. The first 36 pages are a two-part appendix, a longish memo about how and to a lesser extent why … Continue reading
Now that the main story and conclusions are done, Volume IX looks at some issues of evidence and legality, a couple of which struck me as important enough that they should really have been included in the main findings of … Continue reading
We’re in the final stages now, and as with the previous volume, this is a bit of a grab-bag of disparate topics. More than half of this volume is taken up with an overall assessment of the activities of paramilitary … Continue reading
This is the last volume detailing the main series of events on Bloody Sunday, and the longest so far (just slightly ahead of Vol. V by 656 pages to 654). It is divided into three rather different sections. The first … Continue reading
At 625 numbered pages, this is another very long volume of the Bloody Sunday report – not really because of the number of casualties (eight, compared to seven from each of the previous two volumes) let alone the number of … Continue reading
At 654 numbered pages, this is the longest volume of the ten so far (and also, incidentally, marks more than a halfway point in the whole report, as Volume X is largely taken up with legal appendices). Whereas Volumes III … Continue reading
As will be evident, I’m finding this a grimly compelling read. This volume finishes off the story of Volume III, looking at the civilian casualties and, carefully dissecting truth from lies, establishes precisely which soldier fired each shot, usually to … Continue reading
This is the first of what I imagine will be six or seven intensely detailed volumes, detailing every available account of events remembered by the participants in Bloody Sunday. It covers [22.1] what happened in the area of the Rossville … Continue reading
This second volume is mercifully shorter than the first, a mere 348 numbered pages. It takes us right up to the point where Support Company have been deployed into the Bogside, contrary to the orders given to Colonel Wilford; and … Continue reading
The admirable decision to post the whole of the report of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry online (first volume in PDF available here) may not actually spur a lot of people to read it, but it has gripped me, and over … Continue reading
You are left in no doubt about what side Terry Pratchett was on. Continue reading
The best books that I read this year. Continue reading
Two trips out of Belgium that month, one to London where I also took in the Science Museum’s (somewhat disappointing) exhibit about science fiction, and a spontaneous excursion to Amsterdam with F to meet up with my brother and his … Continue reading
F expressed the desire to see a bit more of Ireland than he has previously managed, so at the weekend we went on an expedition to the north west, starting with a loop round the southern end of Lough Neagh … Continue reading
I started the month still recovering from COVID, and did not venture far, except for exploring another of Jan Christiaan Hansche’s ceilings, at Perk, and also an expedition to find the Goddess Nehalennia in Brussels. (This was the famous occasion … Continue reading
Non-fiction: 6
Fiction (non-sf): 4
sf (non-Who): 2
Doctor Who, etc: 5
Comics: 6
5,000 pages Continue reading
August 2019 for me personally was dominated by my usual family trip to Northern Ireland, which itself was punctuated by the Dublin Worldcon and the Hugo Awards, which I wrote up here and here. Back in Belgium, I visited the … Continue reading
I read 298 books in 2022, two more than in 2021, the fourth highest of the nineteen years that I have been keeping track, and the highest since 2011. Page count for the year: 76,500, ninth highest of the nineteen … Continue reading
Second paragraph of third chapter: Officers and men were so fully occupied making good their new billet, that few of them were aware of our arrival, and we waited some little time before the Adjutant came to us, who, to … Continue reading
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and … Continue reading
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and … Continue reading
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and … Continue reading
Sun, 15:06: The stucco ceilings of Jan-Christian Hansche, part 6: the Charles Borromeo sacristy in Antwerp https://t.co/dKcDmyZL1n Sun, 17:09: The Bloody Sunday report: https://t.co/RrrSQ2o6Fz https://t.co/0osV90odAs https://t.co/Mix3tw1FVS https://t.co/FhVJeQOK6u https://t.co/XoCj0nxb77 https://t.co/lfCZXp63CF https://t.co/1vklrqaVmg https://t.co/rdJzAIk52z https://t.co/9H8wjTg0MV https://t.co/SF0BLrMrb7 https://t.co/DrpJG11HpC Sun, 18:27: Embers, by S�ndor M�rai … Continue reading
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I've been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and … Continue reading
I read 296 books in 2021, the fourth highest of the eighteen years that I have been keeping track, and the highest since 2011. I was less distracted by real-life politics and by Hugos this year, and also I admit … Continue reading
Second paragraph of third chapter: Martial law was restricted to the south-west to keep Dublin open for those, in Sturgis’s jokey phrase, ‘as wants to negotiate’. A few on both sides seem to have wanted to. They found a new … Continue reading
Since 2014, more or less, I've been including the second paragraph of the third chapter (C3P2's, for short) of books that I have read as part of my reviews here (If there are no chapters, I look for the second paragraph … Continue reading
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I've been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and … Continue reading