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Loyalty the Tories’ secret weapon? The Conservatives have been knifing one another for over a century
from Peter Wedderburn's blog listings.
on Thursday May 17th, 2012 at 11:14 AM
Steve Richards has an article in The Independent today in which he says that loyalty and unity used to be the Conservative Partys secret weapons. You could have fooled me. As I remember it was David Maxwell Fyfe, Home Secretary in the post-war Churchill government, later, as Lord Kilmuir, Lord Chancellor in the Macmillan one, [...]Collies: A journey from cunning Victorian sheep dog to canine movie star
from TheDogs: NYC's School for The Dogs Training, NYC Pet Events, The Dogs Blog
on Wednesday May 16th, 2012 at 07:35 PM
In the early nineteenthcentury collies considered something the superheroes of dogs: he was guardian of the flock, who performed acts of heroism to keep its charges safe. Perhaps more than any other dog, he (and he was thought of as he) had transcended his primitive animal nature. Instead of trying to kill and eat the sheep, his natural prey, he cared for them tenderly, protecting them from his wild brothers, the wolves.
Stories of his abilities have an awed quality. James Hogg (1770-1835),...
Of course most historical novels are bad – most novels are
from Peter Wedderburn's blog listings.
on Friday May 11th, 2012 at 10:17 AM
Before Hilary Mantel, historical novels were a joke, declares my fellow blogger Guy Stagg. By and large, it seems, they are just pulp fiction with a historical setting. This cuts me to the quick, or alternatively, down to size, having written a few myself. But there it is. You cant please everyone. Guy Stagg admits [...]A view of London that most people have never seen
from Peter Wedderburn's blog listings.
on Thursday May 10th, 2012 at 03:03 PM
I was on the balcony of the Wellington Arch the other evening. Its that neoclassical affair at Hyde Park Corner, on a patch of land that is too much like a traffic roundabout. One sees it a thousand times, but Id never realised that it was possible to go up it without crampons. There used [...]Things might be bad, but there is nothing new under the sun: the flowers will bloom again
from Peter Wedderburn's blog listings.
on Monday May 7th, 2012 at 02:33 PM
There are bad times just around the corner / We can all look forward to despair, chirped Noël Coward, and indeed, once again, times are tough all over. But whats new? Nothing under the sun. Here, once again, is an extract from the Greville Memoirs, to cheer us all up. It is 1842, and Lord [...]As the bombs fall over Fleet Street…
from Peter Wedderburn's blog listings.
on Thursday May 3rd, 2012 at 03:46 PM
This is extraordinary, via the British Council a 1942 documentary film showing how an edition of The Times was put out in 1942, during the Blitz. Its not just the obvious wartime stuff thats fascinating although it is: the night staff working underground, a plane-spotter standing on the roof, Home Guard stationed in [...]The Diamond Jubilee will be much better than the Olympic Games
from Peter Wedderburn's blog listings.
on Thursday May 3rd, 2012 at 10:13 AM
The Jubilee, and not the Olympics, will be the event you remember this summer. The 1,000-ship flotilla down the Thames will be far more spectacular than any opening ceremony. The Jubilee concert line-up Paul McCartney, Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey is ten times better than the Olympics gig. And, although during the Olympic Games [...]Barack Obama should learn from Britain’s 1842 experience in Afghanistan
from Peter Wedderburn's blog listings.
on Wednesday May 2nd, 2012 at 10:19 AM
In bed last night I was dipping into the Greville Memoirs (which are really diaries or a journal). Greville, a scion of the Whig aristocracy and Clerk to the Privy Council, was an acute observer of the political scene; he kept his diary or journal intermittently for forty years from 1821 to 1860. An [...]More kings, fewer Nazis – how to make history less boring
from Peter Wedderburn's blog listings.
on Friday April 27th, 2012 at 02:50 PM
My sister-in-law, a teacher, spent most of the Christmas holidays sitting at a desk in the living room marking papers and filling out reports, while I sat in front of the television, drunk, ranting about immigrants. So I appreciate that teachers probably dont want any bright ideas on how they should do their jobs. But, [...]Of course Shakespeare had co-writers – he was a practical man of the theatre
from Peter Wedderburn's blog listings.
on Friday April 27th, 2012 at 07:52 AM
Bernard Shaw once told Somerset Maugham that his plays did better in Germany than in England because German audiences and German critics were more intelligent than English ones. Maugham politely refrained from telling him that they were better received because German theatre directors cut the plays as they thought fit, something which Shaw forbade in [...]
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