I don’t know either of these writers, but I found their articles compelling:
Grokking EULEX, a Heinlein take on Kosovo
“Mademoiselle Corbet, vous êtes trop blonde”, anthropology among the Saharawis.
Whoblogging 2
But then Troughton came back again for The Five Doctors, in which he totally stole the show from the other members of the cast; and on that basis I was prepared to forgive The Two Doctors, a rather odd story which I liked much more on rewatching it this year than I did first time round. The next I heard of him, he had died, appropriately enough while attending a Doctor Who convention.
Some time over the next two decades I managed to see and enjoy Tomb of the Cybermen and watch with some bemusement The Seeds of Death. I also read Invasion of the Cat People, still my only Second Doctor spinoff novel, an early Gary Russell effort which did not impress.
Getting back into Who two years ago, I decided to get the audios of the 1967-68 “monster season”, but started – wisely as it turned out – with Power of the Daleks, one of the strongest opening stories for any Doctor. After I’d got through the first few audios, I also watched The War Games which must be surely the best closing story for any Doctor bar The Caves of Androzani. My scientific judgement is that there are more distinctly bad Second Doctor stories than First Doctor stories, but the high points (most mentioned already, plus also The Mind Robber) are very good indeed. This seems to reflect the circumstances of a talented production team trying their best in straitened circumstances and quite often managing to pull it off.
Troughton’s own performance is quite unusual. One of the unfortunate things about the loss of so many of his stories is that we miss the contrast between his scruffy appearance and his very posh diction – I now regret listening to so many of the “missing” stories first, before I had formed a good mental image of what I was missing. (The Second Doctor has now returned vicariously and invisibly in the Companion Chronicles, which have at least been fun if not always great literature.)
There is a perennial and rather pointless debate about who was the “best” actor ever to play the Doctor. There can be little doubt that Troughton was the most versatile, the one who slipped most easily into the biggest variety of other parts elsewhere (I remember him also from Treasure Island and The Box of Delights, for instance). I think he may also have been the actor who delved least deeply into his own personality for his portrayal of the Doctor. Hartnell, Pertwee and Tom Baker were all pretty clear that their Doctors were extensions of their own personalities. For Troughton it was different – if you have seen the home movie footage of the location filming of The Abominable Snowmen, there’s a strikingly visible difference between his being in character and his being Pat the lead actor, even though the film itself is silent.
His Doctor was also markedly more human than Hartnell, indeed warmer to his companions than any others (except perhaps Davison, who consciously drew from Troughton; and to a lesser extent Tennant, who consciously draws from Davison). He is, I think, the Doctor who we most often see being actually frightened – it is impossible to imagine any of the others ejaculating “Oh, my giddy aunt!” The Second Doctor somehow seems more knowable than most of the others; and though it’s not what I want from the Doctor, I have to admit that Troughton does it well.
Whoblogging index: One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten
Media commentary
One journalist’s comment on President Bush. (Various versions of this floating round, combining to several million views on YouTube so far.)
Whoblogging: 1
Paul Cornell has a wonderful project of his Twelve Blogs of Christmas; I missed out on NaBloPoMo; but I thought that in the run-up to the broadcast of The Next Doctor on Christmas day, I would try to do a series of posts on each of the ten Doctors so far, and rather than do my usual more analytical treatment I would explain what each of them means to me.
It’s still one of my favourite Who stories ever, helped of course by the wonderful Kevin Stoney as Mavic Chen, and also by the grim ploy which sees two and a half companions killed off (Bret Vyon being the half), but also by Hartnell’s sheer energy and conviction in the title role – by this stage he was the only one left of the original team, and I guess he must have felt even more proprietorial than ever about the show and his part in it. If ever you have five hours to spare, invest them in listening to the audio with Peter Purves’ narration, or watching the reconstructions and the three surviving episodes. (I listened to it during a wonderful drive across Cyprus a year ago, appreciating the Mediterranean landscape while listening to the drama on Kembel, Desperus, and other planets.)
And the core of it all is Hartnell himself. Sure, he did fluff the odd line; but he totally commands the scene, in a very visual way – it is striking that so few of the novelisations of his stories really capture his performance (and it is sad that so much of the visual evidence has been lost). The relevant Missing/Past Doctor Adventures, and more recently the Companion Chronicles, do their best but it’s not the real thing. Even his appearance in The Three Doctors, sadly, isn’t the real thing – yet it’s nice that he is enshrined as the authority figure to whom the two junior Doctors must defer. (Richard Hurndall makes a decent effort in The Five Doctors, but the spotlight is elsewhere.)
I’m a child of the Fourth Doctor era, as I shall explain (all being well) on Thursday, so for me the ‘real’ essence of the Doctor’s nature is in the alien benevolence that Tom Baker brought to the role. The only other actors to approach the part in that way were Hartnell and Ecclestone, and it seems to me that Baker restored some of Hartnell’s original magic to the show which the two in between had moved away from.
In a sense, though, it’s unfair to compare Hartnell to the others, because there were no other Doctors to compare him to at the time. Watching his stories, you have to get into the idea that this was a moment on Saturday nights when the surreal was still unusual rather than established; even in the worst moments (and there were several, especially among the more sfnal stories) there’s a feeling that if it doesn’t quite work, it’s because it is new, and different, and unexpected for everyone. I find his performance iconic – in the most literal sense, in that his image graces all of my livejournal posts about Doctor Who.
I wouldn’t subject a non-fan to any of his longer stories, or anything which is incomplete. But most of the surviving four-parters (and Planet of Giants, The Rescue and The Edge of Destruction, which have only two or three parts) are entirely presentable to people who don’t know much about the First Doctor but are willing to give him a try. The only exception is The Space Museum, though even there the first episode is pretty good. I also like treating visitors to the third episode of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, because of the chase across London, though it’s a bit light on the Doctor.
So, this series of posts is starting on a high note. Tomorrow I’ll tell you about the Second Doctor.
Whoblogging index: One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten
Ranty ranty
Belgian MP, SNPM decry preventing Moroccan journalists from attending Polisario conference
Brussels, 12 Dec. 2008 (MAP)- Belgian MP Denis Ducarme questioned the Belgian Interior minister, Patrick Dewael, on the banning of Moroccan journalists and some Belgian civil society activists, Thursday, from attending a press conference, organized by the polisario separatists at the international press center in Brussels.
The organizers had behaved in an aggressive manner against Moroccan journalists, who were unwelcome at what was called “a private meeting between diplomats and the press,” while opening widely the doors to the representatives of the Algerian media.
Other journalists, MP Denis Ducarme, and several civil society actors were also denied access to the room to attend the press conference, that was announced by several media.
In a question filed Friday to the interior minister, Ducarme said he was on the spot and could see for himself that access to the conference venue was strictly regulated and that the Moroccan journalists have been denied entry to the room although they are members of the Association of Professional Journalists of Belgium (AGJPB) and hold press credentials issued by the Belgian interior ministry.
The Belgian parliamentarian made it clear that it is everyone’s duty to “preserve our model of democracy” based on fundamental rights and public freedoms, including the freedom of the press.
He also wondered whether the organizers of the press conference on Belgian soil were not subjected to the principles of the freedom of the press and the free access to accredited journalists.
Morocco’s Press Union “Syndicat National de la Presse Marocaine” (SNPM) decried, in turn, this incident saying it is “grounded on neither legal nor professional bases”.
Such attitude “unveils the organizers’ false claims about their commitment to human rights,” the SNPM said in a press release, documenting similar incidents that took place in Spain, Italy and France.
“Polisario” members have no right to do such things to the Moroccan journalists, who only fulfill their professional duty, the union added.
The SNPM also sent letters on this incident to the Brussels-based Federation of International journalists, the Belgian Union of Journalists, Reporters without borders, and other international bodies, asking them to condemn these acts and issue a solemn protest to the “polisario”.
I love how I am the one who behaved “in an aggressive manner” by simply asking them to leave before we called the police; there’s obviously nothing aggressive at all about turning up with a crowd of ten people including two cameramen and demanding access to a private event.
It is news to me that Belgian law and customs allow anyone with a press card to attend anything that they want, whether or not they have been invited. I do hope that the Minister of the Interior contacts me as a result of Ducarme’s letter to clarify this.
Given what Morocco is doing in the occupied territories and to Saharawis living in Morocco proper, it’s pretty offensive to be accused of human rights violations for keeping a private event private.
I shall be seeing Ducarme on Thursday and look forward to clarifying with him if he is a unwitting stooge in these Moroccan propaganda stunts, which are essentially intimidation tactics, or if he is a willing stooge. I fear that the latter is more likely.
Meanwhile I’m glad to say that the actual meetings which I was organising went pretty well.
Boar, metrified
Here, for reference and my own convenience, is my Christmas dinner recipe, in metric quantities:
ROAST LOIN OF BOAR
WITH JUNIPER BERRIES
(to feed 6 people)
INGREDIENTS :
1.4 kg boned and rolled loin of wild boarMarinade :
200 ml red wine
40 ml vinegar
2 sliced carrots
1 sliced onion
2 shallots roughly chopped
2 crushed cloves of garlic
2 bay leaves
small bunch parsley
few sprigs fresh thyme
few sprigs marjoram
9 whole juniper berries
10 g saltSauce :
400 ml stock
30 g flour
20 ml tbsp lard or olive oil
METHOD
Bring all the marinade ingredients to the boil, and simmer for 3 minutes. Leave to cool. Score the fat on the loin lightly across the top, and place the meat in a deep dish, covering with the marinade. Leave for 2 or 3 days, turning the meat twice a day. Remove the meat and wipe it dry. Place it in an oven-proof braising pan or heavy casserole dish over heat, and add the oil or lard. Brown the meat well and remove it from the pan. Bring the marinade to the boil in a second pan. Mix the fat and the flour into a roux in the pan, and strain over the hot marinade, stirring until smooth. Add enough warm stock to thin the mixture. Put back the meat, cover the pan and cook in a low oven (170° C) for 2 1/2 hours. Place meat in a serving dish. Transfer the sauce into a pan, skim off the fat and bring to the boil.
December Books 6) and 2008 films 7) Much Ado About Nothing
6) Much Ado About Nothing, by William Shakespeare; and film version directed by Kenneth Branagh
I have been unfaithful to Arkangel. I was quite enjoying their presentation, particularly with the excellent Saskia Reeves as Beatrice, but I kept on thinking back to the cinema version of 1993, which I remember with deep nostalgia because it was the year we got married; and eventually I thought, OK, I’ll get hold of the Branagh version and watch it instead. Which was surprisingly easy, and definitely worth it.
The play itself is genuinely funny, not quite as funny as A Comedy of Errors, but a better play – the characters are better rounded, and the drama frankly more believable. Beatrice is surely one of the most memorable female roles in Shakespeare (I think only Portia is in the same league). I see from IMDB that her role was played by Penelope Keith in the 1978 BBC version, and by Maggie Smith in a 1967 version which also starred Caroline “Liz Shaw” John as Hero. But the overall frame is good too, the contrast between the Claudia/Hero and Beatrice/Benedick romances, neither of which is straightforward, but complicated in different ways. The Dogberry bits are, for once, pretty integral to the plot, though I suspect it is difficult to integrate them with satisfactory unity of style. (If I were staging it, I’d have Dogberry’s guards and maybe even Dogberyy himself visible in the background in all the early crowd scenes, so that they don’t appear out of nowhere in Act III.)
Branagh’s version is generally beautiful to watch and listen to. The good points include the general sense of movement on screen; the quite gorgeous Kate Beckinsale, who dropped out of Oxford to make this (and who can dispute that she made the right decision); the brilliance of most of the cast (especially the elders, Richard Briers, Brian Blessed, and, where she is allowed, Phyllida Law); and above all the sparkling chemistry between Branagh himself and Thompson (indeed, they almost seem to like each other too much at the beginning). The most serious misfire is with Keanu Reeves, who doesn’t quite seem to understand what he is doing there except being Bad. I didn’t object as much to Michael Keaton as Dogberry, perhaps because he kept inflicting senseless violence on Ben Elton, which is never a bad thing. I did, however, feel that the darker passages of Act IV hit the tone unduly; most of Branagh’s cuts to the script are from the funny bits earlier in the play, and I think that unbalances Shakespeare’s original plot dynamic, and results in a darker piece perhaps than was intended perhaps by Branagh and certainly by Shakespeare.
Henry VI, Part I | Henry VI, Part II | Henry VI, Part III | Richard III / Richard III | Comedy of Errors | Titus Andronicus | Taming of the Shrew | Two Gentlemen of Verona | Love’s Labour’s Lost | Romeo and Juliet | Richard II / Richard II | A Midsummer Night’s Dream | King John | The Merchant of Venice | Henry IV, Part 1 / Henry IV, Part I | Henry IV, Part II | Henry V | Julius Caesar | Much Ado About Nothing | As You Like It | Merry Wives of Windsor | Hamlet / Hamlet | Twelfth Night | Troilus and Cressida | All’s Well That Ends Well | Measure for Measure | Othello | King Lear | Macbeth | Antony and Cleopatra | Coriolanus / Coriolanus | Timon of Athens | Pericles | Cymbeline | The Winter’s Tale / The Winter’s Tale | The Tempest | Henry VIII | The Two Noble Kinsmen | Edward III | Sir Thomas More (fragment) | Double Falshood/Cardenio
Another Who in Belgium reference
From this month’s comic in DWM, part one of The Stockbridge Child (by Dan McDaid, art by Mike Collins with David Roach, James Offredi and Roger Langridge):
Shakespeare: second quarter
Halfway through (if you don’t count Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen), and this remains an excellent project, though I have slowed down a bit. My normal practice is to read the script of each act, and then listen to the Arkangel performance while holding the script in front of me. For the two plays I knew particularly well, Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar, I skipped the first bit and just got on with listening.
My favourite play of these nine was A Midsummer Night’s Dream, though I very much liked the other non-historicals, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice and Julius Caesar. I was less engaged by the historicals. King John is interesting but a bit confused in its message; Henry IV Part I was engaging enough as long as I ignored the irritations of one of the lead performers. But I found Richard II really hard going, and Henry IV Part II and Henry V were thoroughly spoiled for me by the weakness of Jamie Glover’s portrayal of Prince Hal/King Henry.
Anyway, onwards and upwards.
Aggravation
Story from today’s Maghreb Arab Press:
Moroccan journalists, civil society actors prevented from attending Polisario press conference Brussels, 11 Dec. 2008 (MAP) – Moroccan journalists and some Belgian civil society actors were banned, Thursday, from attending a press conference, organized by the Polisario separatists at the international press center in Brussels.
The organizers behaved in an aggressive manner against Moroccan journalists, who were unwelcome at this “private meeting between diplomats and the press,” while opening widely the doors to the representatives of the Algerian media.
Other journalists, Belgian MP, Denis Ducarme, and civil society actors were also denied access to the room to attend the press conference, announced by several media.
In a statement to the press, Ducarme denounced the attitude of organizers to ban journalists from attending a public meeting organized “close to the European Commission, a symbol of European democracy.”
“I think there are a number of things we can not accept on a territory such as Belgium, a country that is committed to freedom of the press,” the Belgian MP said.
As it happens, I am the fiendish organiser of the press conference who ‘behaved in an aggressive manner’ by telling the uninvited people to leave. It was not a public meeting; my guests were holding a series of briefings for selected journalists. The Moroccans turned up purely as a publicity stunt, and the hapless Ducarme (who was slapped down at a UN meeting in 2006 by the Cuban ambassador for talking bollocks) was foolish to allow himself to be dragged into it. I will see him next week to discover if he is just stupid or in fact malicious.
Protect your brain – don’t buy anything from Omega Pharma
Small favour
I will be very grateful to anyone on the western side of the Atlantic who can let me know if this article appears in the print edition of today’s New York Times:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/12/11/europe/EU-EU-Western-Sahara.php
December Books 5) Julius Caesar
5) Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare
I probably know this best of all the Shakespeare plays – I’m pretty sure it was the one I did for O-level. It is very good. It is unusual in that the title character is killed off before the halfway point; the play is really about the fall of Brutus, and his relations with his ally Cassius, his enemy Antony, his wife Portia and of course his victim Caesar.
The dramatic climax is very early, in Act 3, with the murder of Caesar and then Mark Antony’s funeral oration. The rest of the play is really mopping up the aftermath. Brutus’ sense of honour is insufficient to see him through, as he bickers with Cassius and makes a series of strategic and tactical blunders; meanwhile, Antony swallows his dislike of Octavian in order to take power.
Like Henry V, it’s difficult not to read this in the context of what was happening in 1599; in which case this is the more Essex-sceptic play, of people grasping for power and not quite making it (while the righteous dynastic heir, off in the fringes, takes the power which is his due when the time is right). The character of Mark Antony doesn’t fit terribly well into that analysis – which perhaps means that it is not terribly well founded!
Having whined about the Arkangel productions of the last three plays, I was glad to see a return to form here, especially from the three leads – Adrian Lester as Antony, John Bowe as Brutus and Michael Feast as a rather young-sounding Caesar. It’s also good to hear, for once in this series, a black actor cast in a part that is usually “white”. This is solid stuff, and very enjoyable.
Henry VI, Part I | Henry VI, Part II | Henry VI, Part III | Richard III / Richard III | Comedy of Errors | Titus Andronicus | Taming of the Shrew | Two Gentlemen of Verona | Love’s Labour’s Lost | Romeo and Juliet | Richard II / Richard II | A Midsummer Night’s Dream | King John | The Merchant of Venice | Henry IV, Part 1 / Henry IV, Part I | Henry IV, Part II | Henry V | Julius Caesar | Much Ado About Nothing | As You Like It | Merry Wives of Windsor | Hamlet / Hamlet | Twelfth Night | Troilus and Cressida | All’s Well That Ends Well | Measure for Measure | Othello | King Lear | Macbeth | Antony and Cleopatra | Coriolanus / Coriolanus | Timon of Athens | Pericles | Cymbeline | The Winter’s Tale / The Winter’s Tale | The Tempest | Henry VIII | The Two Noble Kinsmen | Edward III | Sir Thomas More (fragment) | Double Falshood/Cardenio
Work weirdness
I work with two small countries, call them Ruritania and Borduria, and both of their presidents are visiting Brussels today and tomorrow. I had mentally allotted today as my day with the Ruritanian president and tomorrow as my day with the Bordurian president. We have a nice meeting room in our building which I have booked for a series of Bordurian presidential press conferences tomorrow with journalists from various countries.
Then the Ruritanians called (again – I had had breakfast and lunch with them and am off for the Ruritanian presidential dinner shortly). Their president has arranged to meet the foreign minister of a smallish EU country at lunchtime tomorrow. But the Ruritanians have no suitable premises near here, and the EU foreign minister’s embassy is filled to the gills with an in-house training day (and they won’t make space for their own minister, and anyway it is also not terribly conveniently located). All the hotels and public meeting spaces are booked up because of the summit. So the Ruritanians wondered if they could use our meeting room for their president to meet the EU minister?
Unfortunately, of course, the Bordurian president has first dibs on the meeting room, and I couldn’t really ask him to give it to the Ruritanians even for half an hour, especially since no EU minister will meet with the Bordurians (but most will meet with the Ruritanians). Borduria and Ruritania do not have diplomatic relations with each other (indeed, I don’t think that either has really heard of the other) and this would probably not have been the best way to start. Also the presidents have no language in common with each other, so a joint meeting is completely out of the question.
So instead the Ruritanians are meeting with the EU minister here, in my office, tomorrow afternoon. We are frantically clearing all the working surfaces of anything that looks even slightly untidy or unprofessional. That includes my TARDIS-shaped multiple USB port. Beautiful though it is.
December Books 4) Henry V
4) The History of Henry the Fifth, by William Shakespeare
This is the end of the sequence of history plays starting with Richard II and continuing through the two parts of Henry IV. Here young Henry, having inherited the throne on his father’s death at the end of the last play, leads the army to war and victory in France. The most interesting thing in the play is the role of the Chorus, which breaks the fourth wall by addressing the audience directly at the start of each act (and again at the end of the play) and points out that the whole thing is a stage representation of what had really happened, as well as offering the odd bit of political commentary.
I found Henry V actually a rather uninteresting character here, now that he has overcome his dissipated youthful habits; he is jingoistic and vicious, though with a gift for oratory. He never loses a battle or an argument; his threats to rape the women of Harfleur, and his summary execution of his French prisoners, aren’t subjected to any serious scrutiny. Agincourt is of course his moment of triumph, but I found I cared more about the soldiers’ fates than that of the King. Even then, the play doesn’t really work as a human drama of the ordinary fighting chap, and the business with the leeks and the gloves is just nasty (which is a shame because that particular scene starts very well, with Gower and Fluellen reacting to the French slaughter of the noncombatants).
I am not sure how rescuable this would be with a different cast. Jamie Glover, in the title role of the Arkangel production, is dreadful at blank verse, which certainly didn’t help. I certainly missed both Julian Glover as Henry IV and Richard Griffiths as Falstaff from the previous two plays. I saw the Kenneth Branagh version of this one when it came out almost (aargh!) twenty years ago, but very little of it has stuck in my memory.
As I’ve been reading up on my Elizabethan history, the parallels between Henry V of the play and the real-life Earl of Essex are pretty clear: playboy youths promoted to senior military command and heading overseas to fight for England. The chorus before Act IV makes this explicit (helpfully dating the play to 1599). Essex completely screwed up his Irish campaign, but I guess this was written before that had happened. It’s difficult not to see the play as an attempt to whip up (or, more generously, reflect) public support for the Irish war and the gamorous commander. I must go and read Shapiro again.
Henry VI, Part I | Henry VI, Part II | Henry VI, Part III | Richard III / Richard III | Comedy of Errors | Titus Andronicus | Taming of the Shrew | Two Gentlemen of Verona | Love’s Labour’s Lost | Romeo and Juliet | Richard II / Richard II | A Midsummer Night’s Dream | King John | The Merchant of Venice | Henry IV, Part 1 / Henry IV, Part I | Henry IV, Part II | Henry V | Julius Caesar | Much Ado About Nothing | As You Like It | Merry Wives of Windsor | Hamlet / Hamlet | Twelfth Night | Troilus and Cressida | All’s Well That Ends Well | Measure for Measure | Othello | King Lear | Macbeth | Antony and Cleopatra | Coriolanus / Coriolanus | Timon of Athens | Pericles | Cymbeline | The Winter’s Tale / The Winter’s Tale | The Tempest | Henry VIII | The Two Noble Kinsmen | Edward III | Sir Thomas More (fragment) | Double Falshood/Cardenio
Oliver Postgate, 1925-2008
Like many on my f-list, I am very sorry to hear of the death of Oliver Postgate, creator of the Clangers, Noggin the Nog, Ivor the Engine and Bagpuss. He was also the grandson of George Lansbury, the pacifist leader of the Labour Party, and managed to grasp the Web as a platform for his own personal political views.
For those who want to indulge in nostalgia, the BBC’s Clangers website has much of interest, including the moment when they appeared on Doctor Who (also on Youtube here). Also, rather movingly,
Namesakes
It’s been a busy few weeks.
Last month my wife Sally was telling a journalist about how we met while working on a cruise ship in the Bahamas.
Then I launched a Christmas gift appeal in the supermarket which I run.
Unfortunately I then got busted for benefit fraud.
And now I’m on trial for stabbing someone who stole my heroin.
It’s a tough old life.
Three more from Big Finish
December Books 3) Daughters of Britannia
3) Daughters of Britannia: the Lives and Times of Diplomatic Wives, by Katie Hickman
I’m probably being rather unfair to this book, but I’m giving up on it not quite half-way through. Hickman, herself a diplomat’s daughter, has pulled together an engaging collection of correspondence from the wives (and occasionally other female relatives) of British diplomats posted abroad throughout the last four centuries. The material is amusing and sometimes moving. But I felt that the book lacked a substantial intellectual framework, such as any serious interrogation of the concepts of Britishness, diplomacy, or wives. And I think Hickman did intend it to be that kind of book, but it isn’t.
I must say also that having lived abroad in three countries in the last twelve years, and having myself set up from scratch two local offices (and overseen the setting up of a third) for my various employers, I did find myself rather unsympathetic to some of the accounts of hardship reported by people whose government-funded bureaucracies weren’t always able to guarantee them a perfect quality of life. In the non-profit sector things are a bit different.
In fairness, some of the hardships are very real. Hickman’s father was deputy head of the British embassy in Dublin in 1976 when the ambassador, Christopher Ewart-Biggs, was killed by the IRA: perhaps the most moving section in the book (and one of the longest single extracts) is her mother’s description of the aftermath for the Ewart-Biggs family. It is the more vivid for me because I worked with Jane Ewart-Biggs many years later, administering the book prize established in her husband’s memory.
I’m inclined to put this up on Bookmooch, but I know that some on my friends list have a personal interest in this topic, so you folks get first shout.
The first of the end-of-the-year memes
The first sentence of the first lj entry for each month:
January: A lot of people on
February: …which Torchwood character are you?, from The Guardian. I will not say who I turned out to be. (I have forgotten by now.)
March: I read with great interest this review of Kate Fisher’s Birth Control, Sex and Marriage in Britain 1918-1960 – so much so that I didn’t even spot the name of the reviewer. The reviewer was one Harry Cocks.
April: Just received an exciting message from WAYN.com (“the worlds’ largest travel and lifestyle community”, WAYN standing for “Where Are You Now”). Yet another crap social network.
May: I must admit I wouldn’t normally read a book like this; it came free with the Palm T|X back in November 2005, and I had pretty much laid that gadget aside since I got a Blackberry with my new job last year. Review of Pat Conroy’s novel, The Prince of Tides.
June: I know this is a heretical view, given that this is such a popular and well-loved book, but I found it terrifically tough going. Review of Little, Big, by John Crowley.
July: I have never been all that convinced by Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem, which “proves” that there is no perfect voting system and made its author the youngest ever winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics. My views on why Arrow got it wrong.
August: So, did anyone else see it? The partial solar eclipse on 1 August.
September: Picked this up on a friend’s recommendation of the author last month, and I must say I was really impressed. Review of Mystic River, by Dennis Lehane. (Can’t remember who recommended him to me now.)
October: What name is missing? First names of US Presidents. (Second post of the month, as first was locked.)
November: I got this after reading Vanity Fair, and reflecting that it’s a while since I last went down to the battle site, which is only half an hour’s drive from us. Review of Andrew Roberts’ book on the Battle of Waterloo.
December: I picked this up in Paris a few weeks back, and was inspired to re-read it – of course, I had first read it as a teenager – by young F picking up Zlata’s Diary to read at the weekend. Review of the Diary of Anne Frank.
Who do you share your birthday with?
Picking, say, 2 September 1972, and browsing through Wikipedia:
Nicolette “Coco” Krebitz, German actress and director (shown to the right on the cover of the New Order album Get Ready)
Bakhtawar Murad, better known as Sonam, Bollywood actress (this was her big hit).
Vincent De Paul, American actor
Marcus Nigsch, better known as Marque, Austrian musician
Sergej Trifunović, Bosnian Serb actor
Yoshiaki Takahashi, Japanese actor (killed in a road accident in 1989)
Erika Narumi, Japanese voice-over actor
Kobun Shizuno, Japanese anime director
Syleena Johnson, American musician. (Though some sources give her birthdate as 1976.)
Alberto Rionda, Spanish musician.
Maurto Denigris, Italian journalist.
Atsushi Kawashima, Japanese TV announcer
Pat Watkins, baseball player
Søren Colding, Danish footballer
Maksim Nizovtsev, Kazakh footballer
James Willis, American football player
Silvia Gemignani, Italian athlete
Katarína Studeníková, Slovakian tennis player
Leon Cameron, Australian rules footballer
Garfield Gonsalves, Antiguan footballer
Mefin Davies, Welsh rugby player
Betty Lise, French athlete
Thomas Schertwitis, Kazakh/German water polo player
Jermaine Guice, American basketball player
Elżbieta Trześniewska, Polish basketball player
Takaharu Murahama, Japanese mixed martial art fighter
Which all goes to show that the birthdates of people in showbiz and sports tend to be fairly well known.
I had originally planned to take last Thursday and Friday and Friday off work, so as to do research on the Nicholas White/William Cecil correspondence in the National Archives and British Library, and also take in the Tun on Thursday night. But alas, events gradually conspired against me; an important meeting in Brussels was scheduled for Thursday morning, the National Archives are closed, and I have two VIP visitors coming next week whose agendas need preparation, so in the end I settled for buying two books about William Cecil second-hand off the internets. I will probably try this trip early next year though, so possibly see some of you in the Melton Mowbray on 5 February.
Meantime, have a couple of links:
Monitoring your MEP – Real Soon Now.
Anagrams: Howl hesitancy. Welsh China toy. I watch shy Noel.
December Books 2) Ancient Wine
2) Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture, by Patrick E. McGowan
An impulse purchase while in the Fitzwilliam Museum the other week, this is a survey of recent findings in archaeology about early wine-making. McGowan concludes that grapes were first domesticated for wine-making in eastern Turkey or the south Caucasus (certainly my Georgian friends would agree, and would be a bit more specific). We wander around Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, the Levant and the eastern Mediterranean, using the latest analytical techniques to try and pin down places of production and trade routes. The extent of the wine trade into ancient Egypt in particular was pretty remarkable, and the Mesopotamian sacred barmaids rather intriguing.
I wasn’t completely satisfied by the book, however. It seemed a bit of an artificial distinction to relegate beer and mead to mere details, when it would seem that beer was at least as widespread. And while the argument about the extent of ancient international trade in wine was well developed, I would have liked more comparison with trade in other luxury goods, or indeed other goods at all. I have to say also that the style is at times an uncomfortable mix of the anecdotal and the jargon-ridden. I couldn’t really recommend this book to people who are not already somewhat interested in the archaeology and culture of the period.
A bunch of things
I have been working Very Hard today, so haven’t fully kept up with Livejournal. I will say this: at one point in the evening twilight I saw a glowing neon sign on a Brussels building which appeared to say PIJE, which means "drinks" in Albanian and also Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian. When I looked a bit closer I realised it was a sign saying PUB with a shadow over the middle of the U and another over the right-hand side of the B. But the basic concept is similar. I suppose.
Anyway.
Terry Pratchett on his illness.
Harry Brighouse on Kenneth Morgan on Michael Foot.
Various Canadians are traumatised at the thought of a coalition government, for the first time since 1917. Oh dear, poor diddums.
December Books 1) The Diary of a Young Girl
1) The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition, by Anne Frank
I picked this up in Paris a few weeks back, and was inspired to re-read it – of course, I had first read it as a teenager – by young F picking up Zlata’s Diary to read at the weekend.
Gosh.
I had forgotten just how gripping the story actually is – eight people stuck in hiding, with the inevitable personality clashes between two married couples with three children and an older, not-quite-confirmed bachelor; the story told by the youngest (but, by her own account, smartest) of the crew; the desperate grasping for hope as the news of the war starts gradually to turn to the possibility of a German defeat; Anne’s fifteen-year-old love for the seventeen-year-old Peter; and the final, crushing, end of the narrative in mid-stream as the Franks and their fellow fugitives are taken from the back-streets of Amsterdam, never (with one exception) to return. I cried on the train tonight reading the final pages of the book, and I challenge anyone to read it and remain unmoved.
A number of points seemed very fresh to me (perhaps also they were not so visible in the edition I would have read 25 years ago). The Franks and their fellow fugitives were from Germany; Anne and her sister actually teach the others Dutch at various points, and she expresses her desire to become a full Dutch citizen after the war. I don’t remember previously reading of, for instance, the extent of Anne’s problems relating to her mother, or of the difficulties of the lavatory arrangements; I think the new version of the account is stronger for including them.
I have a minor concern about the translation. In the very first entry – the only one in this edition given in the original Dutch – Anne, addressing “Kitty”, her new diary, says ik hoop dat je een grote steun aan me zult zijn. The English translation is “I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support”. Well, frankly, it’s a bit of a stretch from the single noun steun to “source of comfort and support” – normally it would just mean “support”, and having spotted the translator over-egging the meaning here, I wonder where else it may have happened. This may be a minor quibble (I’ll get a Dutch edition for young F, and decide for myself). The major point is that Anne Frank beats out the most impressive teenage livejournaller by a factor of ten or a hundred.
And she died. She ded horribly and painfully and unnecessarily, along with millions of other people, as a result of evil decisions made by evil men. And her story is the more vivid because she wrote about it; but there were six million other Jews killed because they were Jewish, and millions of others killed for similar reasons of state policy. Those incredible figures become more real to us from reading her account; but she was only one among millions.
November Books 31 and 32) Two books about Elizabeth I
31) Elizabeth I, by David Starkey
32) The Life of Elizabeth I, by Alison Weir
This was a fortuitously good paired reading of biographies: Starkey concentrates on Elizabeth’s life from her conception and birth in 1533 to her accession to the throne in 1558, while Weir concentrates on her reign from then to 1603. I read these as part of my larger 16th-century project, but both are good books in their own right – Starkey’s marginally the better, as he is telling a less familiar story and also challenges received wisdom (for instance he unhesitatingly puts the dying Edward VI at the heart of the Lady Jane Grey affair, where traditionally it has been seen as Northumberland’s doing). Both biographies concentrate on the personality of the queen – Weir makes the point that her private life was very much lived in public, and I would add that it was clearly very political.
Starkey’s approach is somewhat psychological. He has three main sets of conclusions: that Elizabeth learned important lessons of statecraft from the bitter failures of her sister Mary’s reign, that her attitude to religion was a sincere adherence to what evolved into High Church Anglicanism, and that her attitudes to both marriage and religion were perhaps crucially formed during her residence with her father’s last wife and her second husband, Thomas Seymour. Indeed, Seymour’s appallingly intimate behaviour with his teenage stepdaughter would surely be characterised today as sexual abuse (my assessment, not Starkey’s), and that must have left its traces in Elizabeth’s attitude to men (and indeed women – it’s noticeable from Weir’s account how often she became unreasonable about sexual relationships among members of her own household).
Weir concentrates essentially on the internal politics of Elizabeth’s court, which is great as a means of studying her statecraft, but does mean we miss out on some of the other important policy areas – notably, from my point of view, Ireland, which figures only as the scene of the death of the elder Earl of Essex and the catastrophic military failure of his son. Weir is anyway much more interested in the personal dramas of Elizabeth’s relationships with the younger Essex, Leicester, and Mary Queen of Scots, which are all in fairness rather good stories. She is particularly good on using appropriate contemporary quotes (though misattributes Nicholas White’s letter to the Earl of Shrewsbury).
Anyway, good reading both.
Inspired by somebody else
Is Stephanie Meyer’s book Twilight worth reading?
Is the film worth seeing?
More primary source material leading to a biography
Another one of my ancestor’s letters to William Cecil, later Lord Burghley, this time describing his visit to the captive Mary Queen of Scots – one of the few relatively neutral accounts of her lifestyle. I can’t get a precise date for this visit but the letter was written on 26 February 1569. At the time Mary Queen of Scots was 26 and had been in exile for not quite a year; she had been moved to Tutbury Castle only a few weeks before White’s visit. By his own account, White goaded Mary rather nastily on several issues – about the recent death of Catherine Knollys, a close friend of Elizabeth I’s whose husband had been one of Mary’s custodians; on Scottish intervention in Ireland; and about the dubious morality of painting. Not surprisingly she cut off the conversation abruptly. Despite this White found her rather fascinating – “she hath withall an alluring grace, a prety Scottishe accente, and a searching wit, clouded with myldnes” – and recommended that she should not be allowed contact with too many people in case they might succumb to her charms. Of course, nobody at this stage could have known that Mary’s captivity would continue for another 18 years, ending only with her execution in 1587.
when I came to Colsell, a town in Chester way, I understood that Tutbury Castell was not above half a day’s journey out of my way. Finding the wind contrary, and having somewhat to say to my Lord Shrewsbury touching the county of Wexford, I tooke post-horses and came thither about five of the clocke in the evening, where I was very friendly received by the Earle.
The Quene of Scotts, understanding by his Lordship that a servant of the Quene’s Majesty of some credit was come to the house, semed desyrous to speak with me, and thereupon came forth of her privy chamber into the presence chamber where I was, and in very curteise manner bade me welcome, and asked of me how her good syster did. I told her Grace that the Quene’s Majestie (God be praised) did very well, saving that all her felicities gave place to some natural passions of grief, which she conceaved for the deathe of her kinswoman and goode servant the Lady Knollys, and how by that occasion her Highnes fell for a while from a prince wanting nothing in this world to private mourning, in which solitary estate being forgettfull of her owne helthe, she tooke colde, wherwith she was much troubled, and wherof she was well delivered.
This much paste, she hearde the Englishe service with a booke of the psalmes in Englishe in her hand, which she showed me after. When service was done, her Grace fell in talke with me of sundry matters, from six to seven of the clocke, beginning first to excuse her ill Englishe, declaring herself more willing than apt to lerne that language ; how she used translations as a meane to attayne it ; and that Mr. Vice-Chamberlayne was her good schole-master. From this she returned back agayne to talk of my Lady Knollys. And after many speeches past to and fro of that gentilwoman, I, perceyving her to harpe much upon her departure, sayd, that the long absence of her husband (and specially in that article) together with the fervency of her fever, did greatly further her end, wanting nothing els that either art or man’s helpe could devise for her recovery, lying in a prince’s court nere her person, where every houre her carefull eare understoode of her estate, and where also she was very often visited by her Majestie’s owne comfortable presence; and sayd merely that, although her Grace were not culpable of this accident, yet she was the cause without which their being asunder had not hapned. She sayd she was very sory for her deathe, because she hoped well to have bene acquainted with her. “I perceyve by my Lord of Shrewesbury,” sayd she, ” that ye go into Irlande, which is a troublesome cuntry, to serve my sister there.” “I do so, madame; and the chiefest trouble of Irland proceeds from the north of Scotland, through the Earle of Argile‘s supportation.” Whereunto she litle answered.
I asked her how she liked her change of ayre. She sayd if it might have pleased her good syster to let her remayn where she was, she would not have removed for change of ayre this tyme of the yere; but she was the better contented therwith, because she was come so much the nerer to her good syster, whom she desyred to see above all things, if it might please her to graunte the same. I told her grace that although she had not the actuall, yet she had always the effectual presence of the Quene’s Majestie by her greate bounty and kindnes, who, in the opinion of us abrode in the world, did ever performe towards her the office of a gracious prince, a naturall kinswoman, a loving syster, and a faithefull frend; and howe much she had to thanke God, that, after the passing of so many perills she was safely arrived into such a realme, as where all we of the common sort demed she had good cause, through the goodnes of the Quene’s Majestie, to thinke herself rather princelike entertayned, then hardly restrayned of any thing that was fit for her Grace’s estate; and for my owne parte did wishe her Grace mekely to bow her mynde to God, who hath put her into this schole to learne to know him to be above kings and princes of this world; with such other lyke speeches as time and occasion then served, which she very gentilly accepted, and confessed that indede she had great cause to thanke God for sparing of her, and great cause likewise to thanke her good syster for this kindly using of her. As for contentation in this her present estate, she would not require it at God’s hands, but only pacience, which she humbly prayd him to give her.
I asked her Grace, since the weather did cut of all exercises abrode, how she passed the tyme within. She sayd that all the day she wrought with her needil, and that the diversitie of the colors made the worke seme lesse tedious, and continued so long at it till very payn did make her to give over; and with that layd her hand upon her left syde and complayned of an old grief newely increased there. Upon this occasion she entered into a prety disputable comparison betwene karving, painting, and working with the needil, affirming painting in her owne opinion for the most commendable qualitie. I answered her Grace, I could skill of neither of them, but that I have read Pictura to be veritas falsa. With this she closed up her talke, and bidding me farewell, retyred into her privy chamber.
She sayd nothing directly of yourself to me. Nevertheles, I have found that which at my first entrance into her presence chamber I imagined, which was, that her servant Betun had given her some privye note of me; for as sone as he espied me, he forsake our acquayntance at courte, and repaired straight into her privye chamber, and from that forthe we could never see him. But after supper, Mr. Harry Knollys and I fell into close conference, and he, among other things, told me how loathe the Quene was to leave Bolton Castell, not sparing to give forthe in speeche that the Secretary was her enemy, and that she mistrusted by this removing he would cause her to be made away ; and that her danger was so much the more, because there was one dwelling very nere Tutbery, which pretended title in succession to the crowne of England, meaning the Erle of Huntingdon. But when her passion was past, as he told me, she sayd that tho the Secretary were not her frend, yet she must say that he was an experte wise man, a mayntayner of all good lawes for the governement of this realme, and a faithful servant to his mistres, wishing it might be her luck to get the frendship of so wise a man.
Sir, I durst take upon my deathe to justifie, what manner of man Sir William Cecill is, but I knowe not whence this opinion procedes. The living of God preserve her life long, whom you serve in singlenes of heart, and make all her desyred successors to become her predecessors.
But, if I, which in the sight of God beare the Quene’s Majestie a naturall love besyde my bounden dutie, might give advise, there should be very few subjects in this land have accesse to or conference with this lady. For beside that she is a goodly personage, and yet in truth not comparable to our soverain, she hath withall an alluring grace, a prety Scottishe accente, and a searching wit, clouded with myldnes. Fame might move some to relieve her, and glory joyned to gayn might stir others to adventure much for her sake. Then joy is a lively infective sense, and carieth many persuasions to the heart, which ruleth all the reste. Myne owne affection by seeing the Quene’s Majestic our soverain is doubled, and thereby I guess what sight might worke in others. Her hair of itself is black, and yet Mr. Knollys told me that she wears hair of sundry colors.
In loking upon her cloth of estate, I noted this sentence embrodred, En ma fin est mon commencement, which is a ryddil I understande not. The greatest personage in house about her is the Lord of Levenston and the Lady his wyfe, which is a fayre gentilwoman, and it was told me both Protestants. She hath nine women more, fiftie persons in house hold, with ten horses. The Bisshope of Rosse lay then thre myles off in a towne called Burton-upon-Trent, with another Scottishe lorde, whose name I have forgotten. My Lord of Shrewesbury is very carefull of his charge, but the Quene over-watches them all, for it is one of the clocke at least every night ere she go to bed.
The next morning I was up timely, and viewing the scite of the house, which in myne opinion standes much like Windesor, I espied two halbard men without the castell wall searching underneathe the Quene’s bed-chamber windowe.
Thus have I troubled your Honor with rehersall of this long colloquy hapned betweene the Quene of Scotts and me, and yet had I rather in my owne fancy adventure thus to encomber you, then leave it unreported, as near as my memory could serve me, though the greatest part of our communication was in the presence of my Lord of Shrewesbury and Mr. Harry Knollys; praying you to beare with me therein, among the number of those that load you with long frivolous letters.
And so I humbly take my leave, awaiting an easterly winde. From West Chester, the 26th of February.
All these cuntreys which I have past from London to the sea bank lie in great welthe and quietness; each man increaseth his owne, and no degree dare offend the law. They pray for the Quene with an universall voyce, and that peace may continue. Here is a faction in Chesshire betwene Sir Hughe Chamley and Sir Edward Fitten: which hath made some division. I would have written to my Lord of Leycester, but that this messenger could not stay.
Your Honor’s assuredly to command,
N. WHITE.
November Books 30) Henry IV Part 2
30) The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth, by William Shakespeare
I seem to have lost a bit of pace with my Shakespeare project – this is only my third one this month, and I’m not rushing to tick off Henry V this weekend. But at least progress is in a forward direction – I am 40% of the way through.
It’s a curious play, with a lot of good scenes (and some very famous quotes) which are not tied together particularly well. The plot is essentially the hubris and fall of Falstaff, against a background of high politics where King Henry IV dies and passes on not just the office but the role of kingship to his son Henry V. Falstaff’s story is much more interesting than the warring aristocrats, and the young prince Henry seems much less in the action than in the previous play, though he gets the killer line “I know you not, old man” in the last scene. Henry IV himself does get some good lines, especially in his dying scenes, but we had a lot of faffing around with rebellious Archbishops and Welshmen before we got there.
Richard Griffiths as Falstaff and Julian Glover as Henry IV carry the Arkangel production. Jamie Glover as Prince Hal has a disastrous concept of blank verse, and perhaps I would have liked the play more with a different actor in that role. Ex-Catweazle (and alternate Doctor) Geoffrey Bayldon is good as Shallow.
Henry VI, Part I | Henry VI, Part II | Henry VI, Part III | Richard III / Richard III | Comedy of Errors | Titus Andronicus | Taming of the Shrew | Two Gentlemen of Verona | Love’s Labour’s Lost | Romeo and Juliet | Richard II / Richard II | A Midsummer Night’s Dream | King John | The Merchant of Venice | Henry IV, Part 1 / Henry IV, Part I | Henry IV, Part II | Henry V | Julius Caesar | Much Ado About Nothing | As You Like It | Merry Wives of Windsor | Hamlet / Hamlet | Twelfth Night | Troilus and Cressida | All’s Well That Ends Well | Measure for Measure | Othello | King Lear | Macbeth | Antony and Cleopatra | Coriolanus / Coriolanus | Timon of Athens | Pericles | Cymbeline | The Winter’s Tale / The Winter’s Tale | The Tempest | Henry VIII | The Two Noble Kinsmen | Edward III | Sir Thomas More (fragment) | Double Falshood/Cardenio
Four Big Finish releases