(no subject)
Oct. 16th, 2003 10:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liadnanhttp://www.thechapmagazine.com/
I urge all Chaps and Chapesses in this fair city to join in.
I seem to be in a generalised foul mood at present and I can't work out why.
Where did the week go?
I ended up doing quite a lot of work Saturday, before buggering off to Borough Food Market for my week's shopping. Sometimes I'm such a chattering classes, ethical and organic shopping, wet liberal type I hate myself... Trudged from there right across London to join the others in Chiswick, arriving in a crowded pub just as the football was beginning. Since I hate crowded pubs where I can't actually reach the bar, and have an absolutely pathological loathing of football I promptly went away again, and spent the next couple of hours in Foyles before rejoining them for dinner. I managed to leave without buying anything, which is something of a miracle.
Stayed over at Rob and Steph's, and from there to a frankly rather aimless wander round the National Gallery -spent ages looking at my favourite Salvator Rosa picture again, the most incredibly morbid painting ever, where a Death to whom H.R.Giger clearly owes a lot leans over the shoulder of a nursing mother to guide the new born child's hand as it signs its name in the Book-, the National Portrait Gallery (saw the Scarfe mini-exhibition: the man is an unqualified genius) and the V&A. And finally back home, where I endured about half of Henry VIII, an all-star cast with the Special Attraction of her Bonham-Carterness as Anne Boleyn, sadly let down by an appalling script and a simplistic version of the story.
Monday saw K. for a drink, Tuesday met Sarah for a drink in the Cork and Bottle, an establishment that deserves to be more publicised, though if it is it'll probably be ruined... There seems to be a theme developing here.
Last night was spent arguing with the Sink Demon. Yes, the Spawn of Satan has blocked again. In a fit of pique I removed the U-bend completely and left it off, which works for me.
Bah, humbug.
Speaking, as I was a few thoughts ago, of galleries, there are now three current exhibitions on my list: the Turner and Venice at the Tate; the Lloyd-Webber PRB collection at the RA; and Victorian Gothic at the V&A. Fortunately K. thinks she may be able to use her contacts to blag me comps. for the first two. Hurrah.
Despite the fact I only returned from holiday a month ago, I have itchy feet. Enjoy my job as I do, I feel the urge to pack my bags and vanish for a year, to walk the Inca trail, to visit the Caucasus, to spend whole seasons in Greece and Italy, and to write about it. Sadly, I suspect my bank manager would be unhappy if I did, and my life is currently devoted to keeping my bank manager happy, a full time job I assure you. I did some depressing but sadly undeniably accurate arithmetic on Friday afternoon and the unavoidable conclusion, the final = sign, was that once again this Winter will not see me making my inelegant and rather dangerous way down any Alpine slopes. Balls, bollocks and arse.
I should stop complaining now...
It's now usually dark when I leave work and the way across Lincoln's Inn Fields is locked. This is partly because I'm leaving rather later: I was spectacularly unbusy for much of August and September, save for the occasional rush-jobs, nevertheless it's a sign of the times. It also means I have to go round the square, which in turn means I have to wend my way through the crowds around the Hare Krishna mobile soup kitchen. In fact, that's usually fine but it can be a bit unnerving and on one occasion was slightly more than that.
They hadn't swept the streets the other day, and all around the garden railings were piles of fallen leaves. The sky had been leaden all day, by then the sun had gone and the trees stood out bleakly against the light pollution.
Then I went and had a Tube Journey From Hell. There is nothing in this world I have yet encountered more capable of raising in me the Red Mist than a chain of failures and crowded trains when I'm tired and fed up. The crunch point is usually the discovery on arrival on the Northern Line platform at KingsX that for some unexplained but doubtless not utterly spurious reason the next Edgware train isn't for 10 minutes (and that's a London Underground version of ten minutes, they've discovered the secret of locally stretching out time but they're doing more research on it before releasing the technology for general consumption).
I want to see bonfires. Less than a month to go before I can mourn the fate of the foolish and in my view quite clearly set up plotters of 5th November 1601. (Sorry, but I sometimes find that even in this cynical and deconstructionist age the way in which English history, particularly under the Tudors and Stuarts, is portrayed to and understood by the general public, comes across as alien to me. I may have lived here almost all my life, but this isn't my history. It isn't the way my ancestors perceived what was happening to them. This is what happens when you are brought up in England by Irish parents, go to a Catholic school, and study classical and medieval European history, as opposed to British, to postgraduate level...).
Fromkin's A Peace to End All Peace continues to enthrall and amuse in almost equal measures: I stopped reading it for ages, shortly after Churchill rejoined the Cabinet, but picked it up again last night (I'd just finished Robin Hobb's excellent The Golden Fool, and for some reason I chose that, rather than rejoining the Fellowship, in what must by my calculations be the 21st Annual Re-read, in the flight from Moria; or returning to Quicksilver, which is good, but some things about it bug me).
I need to find out what other commentators have said about the book, but on the face of it his research is sound and the conclusions he reaches original. It's also a book that brings home to me once more one of those self-evident truths it can be easy to forget: that the First World War, and particularly the Ottoman Front which is the focus of the book, was an End, not a beginning. The thinking of those directing it in London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Moscow, and Constantinopole was clearly marked by the structures of the great 19th century empires. In particular, one point which does surprise me is how far the campaign to defeat the Ottoman Empire, and thus deal a crushing blow to the Axis Powers (Lloyd George considered, and some historians agree, that had the Dardanelles campaign of 1915 been a success the rest of the war might have been done with a year later) was compromised by the manoeverings of Britain, France and Russia, in both its incarnations, to secure their strategic position for the return to the struggle between them that was fully expected once the war was won. Even more bizarre is the way in which Britain's plans for the middle east became a battle ground between, in particular, Simla on the one hand and the British "Office" (for which read unofficial government) in Cairo over which was going to call the shots in the British controlled muslim world after the war. Add to that struggles between the Admiralty, the Army and the Foreign Office in London, and between Kitchener, Lloyd George, Carson, Bonar Law and, above all, Winston Churchill, with Asquith ineffectually attempting to keep the peace between everybody, and it frankly becomes little short of a miracle that we ever won the First World War.
I urge all Chaps and Chapesses in this fair city to join in.
I seem to be in a generalised foul mood at present and I can't work out why.
Where did the week go?
I ended up doing quite a lot of work Saturday, before buggering off to Borough Food Market for my week's shopping. Sometimes I'm such a chattering classes, ethical and organic shopping, wet liberal type I hate myself... Trudged from there right across London to join the others in Chiswick, arriving in a crowded pub just as the football was beginning. Since I hate crowded pubs where I can't actually reach the bar, and have an absolutely pathological loathing of football I promptly went away again, and spent the next couple of hours in Foyles before rejoining them for dinner. I managed to leave without buying anything, which is something of a miracle.
Stayed over at Rob and Steph's, and from there to a frankly rather aimless wander round the National Gallery -spent ages looking at my favourite Salvator Rosa picture again, the most incredibly morbid painting ever, where a Death to whom H.R.Giger clearly owes a lot leans over the shoulder of a nursing mother to guide the new born child's hand as it signs its name in the Book-, the National Portrait Gallery (saw the Scarfe mini-exhibition: the man is an unqualified genius) and the V&A. And finally back home, where I endured about half of Henry VIII, an all-star cast with the Special Attraction of her Bonham-Carterness as Anne Boleyn, sadly let down by an appalling script and a simplistic version of the story.
Monday saw K. for a drink, Tuesday met Sarah for a drink in the Cork and Bottle, an establishment that deserves to be more publicised, though if it is it'll probably be ruined... There seems to be a theme developing here.
Last night was spent arguing with the Sink Demon. Yes, the Spawn of Satan has blocked again. In a fit of pique I removed the U-bend completely and left it off, which works for me.
Bah, humbug.
Speaking, as I was a few thoughts ago, of galleries, there are now three current exhibitions on my list: the Turner and Venice at the Tate; the Lloyd-Webber PRB collection at the RA; and Victorian Gothic at the V&A. Fortunately K. thinks she may be able to use her contacts to blag me comps. for the first two. Hurrah.
Despite the fact I only returned from holiday a month ago, I have itchy feet. Enjoy my job as I do, I feel the urge to pack my bags and vanish for a year, to walk the Inca trail, to visit the Caucasus, to spend whole seasons in Greece and Italy, and to write about it. Sadly, I suspect my bank manager would be unhappy if I did, and my life is currently devoted to keeping my bank manager happy, a full time job I assure you. I did some depressing but sadly undeniably accurate arithmetic on Friday afternoon and the unavoidable conclusion, the final = sign, was that once again this Winter will not see me making my inelegant and rather dangerous way down any Alpine slopes. Balls, bollocks and arse.
I should stop complaining now...
It's now usually dark when I leave work and the way across Lincoln's Inn Fields is locked. This is partly because I'm leaving rather later: I was spectacularly unbusy for much of August and September, save for the occasional rush-jobs, nevertheless it's a sign of the times. It also means I have to go round the square, which in turn means I have to wend my way through the crowds around the Hare Krishna mobile soup kitchen. In fact, that's usually fine but it can be a bit unnerving and on one occasion was slightly more than that.
They hadn't swept the streets the other day, and all around the garden railings were piles of fallen leaves. The sky had been leaden all day, by then the sun had gone and the trees stood out bleakly against the light pollution.
Then I went and had a Tube Journey From Hell. There is nothing in this world I have yet encountered more capable of raising in me the Red Mist than a chain of failures and crowded trains when I'm tired and fed up. The crunch point is usually the discovery on arrival on the Northern Line platform at KingsX that for some unexplained but doubtless not utterly spurious reason the next Edgware train isn't for 10 minutes (and that's a London Underground version of ten minutes, they've discovered the secret of locally stretching out time but they're doing more research on it before releasing the technology for general consumption).
I want to see bonfires. Less than a month to go before I can mourn the fate of the foolish and in my view quite clearly set up plotters of 5th November 1601. (Sorry, but I sometimes find that even in this cynical and deconstructionist age the way in which English history, particularly under the Tudors and Stuarts, is portrayed to and understood by the general public, comes across as alien to me. I may have lived here almost all my life, but this isn't my history. It isn't the way my ancestors perceived what was happening to them. This is what happens when you are brought up in England by Irish parents, go to a Catholic school, and study classical and medieval European history, as opposed to British, to postgraduate level...).
Fromkin's A Peace to End All Peace continues to enthrall and amuse in almost equal measures: I stopped reading it for ages, shortly after Churchill rejoined the Cabinet, but picked it up again last night (I'd just finished Robin Hobb's excellent The Golden Fool, and for some reason I chose that, rather than rejoining the Fellowship, in what must by my calculations be the 21st Annual Re-read, in the flight from Moria; or returning to Quicksilver, which is good, but some things about it bug me).
I need to find out what other commentators have said about the book, but on the face of it his research is sound and the conclusions he reaches original. It's also a book that brings home to me once more one of those self-evident truths it can be easy to forget: that the First World War, and particularly the Ottoman Front which is the focus of the book, was an End, not a beginning. The thinking of those directing it in London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Moscow, and Constantinopole was clearly marked by the structures of the great 19th century empires. In particular, one point which does surprise me is how far the campaign to defeat the Ottoman Empire, and thus deal a crushing blow to the Axis Powers (Lloyd George considered, and some historians agree, that had the Dardanelles campaign of 1915 been a success the rest of the war might have been done with a year later) was compromised by the manoeverings of Britain, France and Russia, in both its incarnations, to secure their strategic position for the return to the struggle between them that was fully expected once the war was won. Even more bizarre is the way in which Britain's plans for the middle east became a battle ground between, in particular, Simla on the one hand and the British "Office" (for which read unofficial government) in Cairo over which was going to call the shots in the British controlled muslim world after the war. Add to that struggles between the Admiralty, the Army and the Foreign Office in London, and between Kitchener, Lloyd George, Carson, Bonar Law and, above all, Winston Churchill, with Asquith ineffectually attempting to keep the peace between everybody, and it frankly becomes little short of a miracle that we ever won the First World War.
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no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 03:00 am (UTC)Marcus, that is an delightfully charming site.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 04:40 am (UTC)Shame I'm not going to be able to visit London for, well, years, at this rate (Irish bank managers also need appeasement).
Have you read Kim Stanley Robinson's book of short stories 'Vinland'? Some very good stories about history and memory and warfare in there, including one about a historian trying to write a history of twentieth century Europe, while sliding off the edge of sanity.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 04:59 am (UTC)And how was Arthur the King, by the way? I'm sadly too in love with Arthurian legend, no matter what the cliche ...
"it can be a bit unnerving and on one occasion was slightly more than that."
Date: 2003-10-16 04:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 05:32 am (UTC)And, funny that you like that Rosa painting - I was at a lecture about it (and Rosa), last night at the Ashmolean. I think I prefer his self-portrait at age 28 (I think). You know; the one where he's very romantic, and glaring and away from the crowd.
Mind if I add you to my friends' list?
no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 05:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 05:51 am (UTC)I almost hate to do this to you, and can only do so because I happen to be reading a book about it right now, but don't you mean the entirely more famous and more villified plotters of 5th November 1605?
no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 06:04 am (UTC)Like I said, I'm a European medieval historian.... and tired much of the time.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 06:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 06:09 am (UTC)Arthur the King.. ok. Went off a bit towards the end. I grew up on hundreds of variants on the Arthurian mythos, but this one is actually the middle of a trilogy, The Evening of the World in which Massie is trying to do Literary Things with the so-called Dark Ages. History as such doesn't really come into it, while the various incarnations of the myth are all in play with the usual ironic post-modern twist blah. Making the Green Knight a kind of Eton, Oxford and Guards bluff rugby player, that kind of thing (which is actually quite fun and well done).
no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 06:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 06:11 am (UTC)I *think* I know the portrait you mean, but I'm not sure.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 06:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 06:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 06:18 am (UTC)okay, gimme another variant ... assume i'm a silly american and i wouldn't've heard of any of 'em. it's autumn and i'm feeling welsh ...
no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 06:23 am (UTC)Don't you mean James VI? He wasn't crowned James I of England until 1603.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 06:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 06:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 07:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 07:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 08:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 08:39 am (UTC)According to Adrian Hon there's an official website with annotations where he identifies where he's played fast and loose with history, and I haven't checked that yet, but I can't see why you'd change someone's name. Unless as a pointer that the novel takes place in a very slightly alternate history I suppose...
no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 08:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 10:23 am (UTC)Never heard of Rosemary Sutcliff, tho'. And I adore reading things I've never heard of. So that might just be the ticket.
Thanks ever so much. I love book recommendations.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-17 02:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-17 04:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-17 09:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-17 10:15 am (UTC)And balls to that, indeed. I'm a big fan of children's lit and I don't care what it says about me.
Takes place in a slightly alternate history...
Date: 2003-10-20 07:49 am (UTC)