Not Very Medieval | Summer of Blood

Archive for the ‘Not very medieval’ Category

September 5th, 2011

Soldiers: Army Lives and Loyalties from Redcoats to Dusty Warriors, by Richard Holmes

Click here to read my review of Richard Holmes’ last book. The review was published in the Telegraph this weekend.

Excerpt:

The British soldier represents many different and contradictory strands of our national identity and character. We see and, what is more, we desire from our soldiers a blend of godless savagery and selfless heroism that is not demanded of anyone else in society. And more often than not, our soldiers oblige.

Richard Holmes’s social history of the soldier is a book of majestic, heart-rending humanity: a deeply affectionate portrait of British soldiers as they have existed for more than 350 years[...]

It is obvious that much has changed since the days when British soldiers served at Blenheim, but Holmes traces a strong tribalism that has bound together the Army throughout its ranks and divisions across the ages.

Source: The Telegraph

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April 21st, 2011

Music for rebellion

The Brixton riots of 1981 followed the Great Revolt of 1381 by precisely 600 years. Which was a neat anniversary, I suppose. And it gives me a tenuous hook on which to peg a recommendation for one of the best albums I’ve heard for years: Ghost Notes, by Hiatus. The new single from the album is called Insurrection, and features the poet Linton Kwesi Johnson evoking the spirit of ‘81. You can check it out here. I would also urge you to get the album, which is a shade or two lighter. More UNKLE than Burial, if that makes sense. (If it doesn’t, you might want to move along - nothing to see here.)

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March 3rd, 2011

America is not the world…

…as someone once said.

Click here (£) to read my cover story from this week’s Spectator, on why the Special Relationship is strengthening in 2011.

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October 20th, 2010

The wrong sort of history

This is a thought-provoking, and quite an amusing read…

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April 8th, 2010

Moonlighting

Not at all medieval alert: One for those medievalists who also enjoy the fine world of sport. I am now writing a regular column for the London Evening Standard. You can read it online or pick up a copy of the paper outside any London Tube station of an afternoon.

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March 26th, 2010

HBO's The Pacific

Not medieval alert: I’m off to a screening today of the first two episodes of ‘The Pacific’. This is the Hanks/Spielberg follow-up to the peerless ‘Band of Brothers’, which followed Easy Company, (part of the American 101st Airborne Division ) from the Normandy landings in June 1944 to the fall of Berlin. I confess I am unnaturally excited. The Pacific shifts the story to the eastern theatre. This part of the war doesn’t get taught or talked about half as much as events in Europe, perhaps because conditions were even more dreadful, the fighting perhaps more barbaric and the human cruelty at least as grotesque. Will this translate into good television? Spielberg, Hanks and HBO have form, so I suspect it will. Will it be easy viewing? I doubt it.

Here’s the trailer:

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March 18th, 2010

Churchilliana

Winston Churchill

Here’s a link to my lead review from this week’s Spectator. I discuss three recent books about Sir Winston Churchill, attempting to get to grips with his views on Empire (’I have not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire’) and race (’I hate people with slit eyes and pig-tails’), as well as his attitudes towards standing up (best avoided) and his mother’s predilection for ‘dinner or tea or sex’ with members of the royal family.

Enjoy.

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March 5th, 2010

Lux Aeterna Project

I had the pleasure last night of attending the first concert presented by the Lux Aeterna Project at King’s College Chapel in London. It was a showcase for some rather beautiful contemporary classical music, both well known and original. The medieval link? There’s not one, really, although the opening rendition of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ ‘Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis’ had obvious roots in the sixteenth century. Still not very medieval, but wonderful all the same, and I heartily implore you to check out the Lux Aeterna web site, here.

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February 26th, 2010