Entry #26
- Listening to:
- Mozart, string quartet in B flat major, K458
- Just read:
- (Incidentally, I embrace
and welcome the ambiguity of the two meanings of "read";
consider "reed" and "red".) Elton,
England under the Tudors. I've learnt all
about Elizabeth I, the ridiculous end of Essex, Drake's
circumnavigation of the world (only the second ever), and a
whole panoply of other bits and pieces.
Perhaps one of the most interesting bits was the discussion of
the English wars with Spain. Elton points out that English
successes against a declining empire (Spain was in the middle of
losing its Dutch territories) didn't necessarily mean that Spain
was an easy target. In fact, after initial successes by the
likes of Drake in the New World, the English really only had the
success of repelling the Spanish Armada. Their own attempts to
do something similar failed miserably. Elton thinks that the
English were too ready to believe that Spain was a spent force,
when it was in fact still the strongest European power.
- To read:
- Terry Pratchett's
Hogfather. Just in case you thought I only read
serious stuff. Pratchett is a good writer. I've come to dislike
Granny Weatherwax a little; she seems too perfect and too
powerful. She may be shown up in Carpe Jugulum,
which I've started, but which is now on the official
back-burner. I disliked the way in which she had to come
out on top at the end of Witches Abroad. I think
Pratchett could have just as easily allowed the witch native to
the New Orleans setting to triumph.
Heard on the radio this morning that the film
American
Beauty (which I wrote about on the 16th
last month) has won
five Oscars.
Talking of Oscar-winning films, I've been amused recently by two
humorous references to
The
English Patient. (Just got to love the way Miramax's
web-site index of film names treats initial pronouns "an", "the" and
the like as significant.)
Anyway, one reference is a scathing reference to George W. Bush's way
with words in
Doonesbury.
The other is the alleged use of the term by BMW executives to refer to
the parlous state of their (English) ex-subsidiary
Rover. If the state of their
web-site is anything to go by, it's no surprise that BMW wanted to get
rid of them.
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