Category: History

My Father’s House

I expected a tense thriller set in Rome in 1943 but I got something much better. You may know the story; I didn’t.

Clarissa

  Pamela (Samuel Richardson, 1740) was a best seller and an early English novel. I have not read it. Nor have I read Shamela, Henry Fielding’s satire on same; he rushed it out in 1741. Both authors have gone out of fashion, fortunately for Hugo Vickers, as a request for Clarissa today is more likely… Continue reading Clarissa

Farewell, Prime Minister

Foreign Office mandarins today must be highly pleased with events. Ambiguity is often their preferred avenue and this week the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has been in China on a mission to encourage closer economic ties. Tomorrow Tom Tugendhat, no friend of China, arrives in Taiwan to demonstrate the UK’s commitment there.

Overlap

I have almost finished the biography of Churchill by Roy Jenkins. In a way I wish it were shorter, in a way I find it engrossing and in another way I find it induces post-prandial somnolence.

Welsh Rabbit

Churchill was appointed Home Secretary in 1910. Aged thirty-five he was the youngest since Robert Peel.

Lamentation

Feeling a little under the weather I have postponed reading Sonia Purnell’s biography of Clementine Churchill and turned to lighter fare more suited to my mood.

Limping Lady

C.C.’s comment “what about Carrie?” made me think but maybe one day she will be worth a biography although she is more likely to make a pre-emptive strike by writing a memoir about the red wine stains on her upholstery.

It Begins with C

I would only quite like to read Cherie Blair’s 2008 memoir but I haven’t. I wait for a biography of a Prime Minister’s wife (beginning with C) and then two come along.