12:17

Reputation

Reputation is a brittle thing. Roger Casement (below) is a good example as is King Canute.

King Canute gets a bad press. He is held up as the epitome of foolish megalomania for trying to prove that he was so powerful that he could hold back the tide. He was actually showing up the sycophancy of his courtiers by demonstrating precisely the opposite.

Reputation can turn on a small action or phrase that was taken out of context, either maliciously, by chance or in the words of a chronicler whose version gains its own immortality. John Major’s reputation never recovered from the assassination by Alastair Campbell when he suggested that Major tucked his shirt into grey Y-fronts. Peter Morrison, Energy Minister under Thatcher and her campaign manager when she was fighting for her political life, will only ever be remembered for the story told by Alan Clark of him peering through the keyhole of Morrison’s office to see him asleep with his feet on the desk – a metaphor for all that was wrong with Thatcher’s campaign.

Cruel indeed.
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12:12

Sir Roger Casement

Sir Roger Casement
I have just finished reading The Dream of the Celt by  MarioVargas Llosa, a fictional biography of Sir Roger Casement, the Irish Nationalist...
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12:12

Eurozone woes

Eurozone woes
The Eurozone is entering yet another moment of truth. Once again the flaws in the original construct are becoming yet more apparent as a ban...
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11:45

The British Summer

The British Summer
Kirk Douglas was filming To Catch a Spy on the West Coast of Scotland in 1970. One day he got so fed up with the rain keeping him indoors th...
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11:10

Gitta Sereny

Gitta Sereny
Gitta Sereny Gitta Sereny died recently. It would probably be true to say that no one has studied evil deeds and those that perpetuated them...
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19:49

Television

Television
A year or more ago I was listening to AA Gill who is, amongst other things,  a television critic. He said how fed up he was with otherwise i...
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19:40

Bird migration

Bird migration
I am reading a wonderful book: Say goodbye to the Cuckoo by Michael McCarthy. It is an elegy to the migrating bird species that, for many re...
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05:21

Crash

Crash
I fly a microlight – though this is not the hang-glider with a chain-saw engine that most people associate with that concept - but a sleek s...
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14:07

Debate

Debate
The Chalke Valley History Festival, Wiltshire. Go to it next year; it's wonderful. We went to a discussion between Michael Gove and Tris...
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13:46

The state we're in

The state we're in
Matthew Parris is always worth reading. Never more so than this: “We have been living beyond our means. We have been paying ourselves more t...
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