Month: July 2020

Top Secret

I haven’t read Samuel Pepys, The Unequalled Self, by Claire Tomalin since it was published eighteen years ago. It is very good. You will be aware that Pepys wrote his diary for only a decade, the 1660s, and wrote in shorthand to keep the contents secret from prying eyes. He had a point.

Temple Bar

Wouldn’t it be grand if Temple Bar is where lawyers go for a slurp but they frequent El Vino instead. May I digress?

Coronavirus Chronicle IX

It’s a strange world in the UK. Covid restrictions, although only guidance, are repressive – with any luck of the virus.

The Battle of Bouvines

The Battle of Bouvines is not one of those famous battles like Agincourt, Crécy, Blenheim, Waterloo, El Alamein. This is simply because, in spite of being in an alliance with the Holy Roman Emperor, Otto IV, and having numerical superiority the English army was given a good beating by King Philip Augustus of France. As… Continue reading The Battle of Bouvines

Alan Brooke’s War

Colville’s Downing Street Diaries have led me on to General, Sir Alan Brooke’s wartime diaries. He later became Field Marshal, Viscount Alanbrooke, slightly confusingly. The diaries are a daily record of his war.

Boohoo

Boohoo, or crying all the way to the bank?