Strictly Come Dancing Premiere

There we were, all feeling a bit flat after all the glitz and glamour of the Olympics and Paralympics, when along comes Strictly Come Dancing in a flurry of sequins, spangles, frocks and jocks to perk us all up again.  Yes, it's that time of the year when there's a chill in the air, the leaves are tinged with gold and the nights are drawing in - time to snuggle down on the sofa, order in the pizzas and settle down with Brucie and Tess and all the gang for our weekly  dose of Saturday Night Fever.  Last night we were treated to a taste of what's to come in the Premiere - the ultimate in shiny floor entertainment - all teeth and lights and swingy skirts with plenty of flesh on view.  The couples have been chosen and we were treated to a young singer Mika (is that how you spell it?) singing 'Let's celebrate', a catchy number which will undoubtedly be our accompaniment to the up-coming party season. Darcy Bussell demonstrated why she is well-qualified to be a judge by sticking her foot behind her ear and doing the splits.  Well done girl!  I bet Arlene is furious and Alesha, eat your heart out!  Brucie repeated all his favourite gags - in anyone else his age this would look like the symptoms of dementia - but we loved it.  The competition proper doesn't start for another three weeks on October 5th.  Can't wait!

Looking forward to...

Next Thursday 20th September 2012: In Our Time presented by Melvyn Bragg discussion the truth about druids on  BBC Radio 4 9:00 am and 9:30 p.m.  For my interest in the subject see previous posts on The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone and post-Roman archaeology.

A Classical Approach to Deficit Reduction

Last night I was reading Suetonius' history The Twelve Caesers and was intrigued by the story of the Emperor Vespasian. When Vespasian came to the throne he declared that at his accession he needed 400 million gold pieces to put the country on its feet again.  The emptiness of the Treasury and the Privy Purse, Suetonius tells us, forced him into heavy taxation and unethical business dealings.  (He cornered the market in certain commodities and then sold them on at inflated prices - an early example of trading in derivatives and insider dealing which, it is interesting to note, was regarded as unethical even in ancient Rome which was used to eye-watering levels of corruption).  He exacted fees from candidates for public office (sold honours!) and sold pardons to guilty and innocent alike. 

None of these solutions to the deficit problem would wash today apart from the heavy taxation which we are all braced to expect. However, when we look at the argument against cuts in public spending Vespasian provides us with some useful ammunition and, instead of voicing a visceral objection to cuts per se, perhaps allows those who advise against cuts and heavy taxation alone as the solution with some sound economic examples.

 

Vespasian initiated a building programme on a grand scale and invested heavily in the arts and sciences and education.  He paid teachers of Latin and Greek rhetoric (who supplied a good general education) an annual salary of 1,000 gold pieces from the Privy Purse.  He encouraged musical theatre (which is very labour intensive) by investing in the theatre and offering high rewards to its principal stars and attempted to revive the vitualling trade through giving lavish informal dinners.  Despite his encouragement of innovation he was practical enough to discourage it where it clashed with his programme of job creation.  When an engineer offered to employ a mechanical device to haul huge columns up to the Capitol as part of the rebuilding programme Vespasian declined his services insisting "I must always ensure that the working classes earn enough money to buy themselves food." To compensate him for his disappointment but reward his initiative he paid the engineer a handsome fee.

 

Over the past two decades we have concentrated on investing in technology that, as a downside, has made many jobs redundant.  Perhaps we should start taking a leaf out of Vespasian's book and initiate a new 'Arts and Crafts' movement, putting on hold technological developments which reduce the labour force, and concentrate on making fashionable labour intensive industries.  Film and theatre are a good example relying heavily on a wide range of subsidiary crafts which explains Vespasian's sudden interest in producing musicals.  There is not much sense in handing production over to robots if the end result is that people go hungry. We can at least say that Vespasian's policies worked.  There is a lot to be learned from old books.

Richard III - No hunchback

The archaeologists of Leicester University have now revealed some more details about their finds beneath the Leicester car park.  The remains they have uncovered are of a man who has clearly died in battle. He has an arrow in his back and a severe head wound.  Given the position of the burial in prime position in front of the altar of the friary church and the documentary evidence suggesting this is the burial site of Richard III, they are pretty confident that they have found the grave of the king who died in battle at Bosworth Field, a short distance from Leicester, although they are awaiting the result of confirmation via tests on DNA of one of his maternal ancestors. 

From my point of view an interesting detail is that the skeleton indicates that the man suffered from advanced scoliosis, a severe curvature of the spine which would have made one shoulder appear higher than the other, which contemporary accounts indicate was a feature of Richard III, but he does not have a hunchback.  My identification of Richard with the portrait of St Ivo must therefore be wrong - one cannot argue with archaeology - and my portrait of the King in Master Merryman is therefore out on this one detail (not significant for the plot it must be said). However I am not too downcast because I think I am right in other respects.

 

Some people now think it's a bit infradig for an English King, the last of the Plantagenets, to be buried underneath a car park, although it wasn't a car park at the time.  It is interesting to note that his body was not flung in a ditch, or the river, as previously claimed, but decently if quietly interred in a nearby friary, a respectful and prudent move on the part of Henry VII since he wished to marry his niece who might have taken umbrage at the desecration of her uncle's body.  The plan is to re-inter the remains in Leicester Cathedral although since Richard was a passionate Yorkshireman hailing from Middleham perhaps he would prefer one of the beautiful Yorkshire cathedrals like York or Ripon but I dare say Leicester, which does not have a great many claims to fame, would like to hang on to him as a tourist attraction.

Richard III - Portrait of a King

Archaeologists have announced that they believe they may have found the remains of the 15th century King, Richard III, beneath a car-park in Leicester which was once the site of a mediaeval friary.  Documentary evidence suggested that the King's remains were laid to rest within the friary church and they identified the foundations of the church beneath the modern car-park. 

This is of great interest to me because I portrayed the King as a character in Master Merryman so I am looking forward to hearing what identifying characteristics they have found.  I used two portraits for my characterisation of the king, the well-known portrait of him as King, but also a portrait I came across in the National Gallery which purports to be of St Ivo but which I thought might be really of Richard when Duke of Gloucester as a young man in his late twenties. 

The portrait, which is an extremely good one and would therefore have been very expensive, shows a dark-haired man of about that age with similar features to those in the portrait of the older King.  He is very well but plainly dressed in a high status tunic edged with fur.  It was illegal in the Low Countries for anyone but an aristocrat to wear fur.  Shakespeare tells us - gleaning his information from older people of his day who might have seen the King in his lifetime - that Richard dressed well but plainly. He was not given to the extravagant fashions of the day. 

Most significant however is the fact that the man in the picture has clearly got a hunched back.  It is very pronounced and although the sitter makes an attempt to lessen its impact somewhat by throwing his hat over his shoulder to cover it, he makes no attempt to disguise it - indeed he is leaning forward so that the painter has to include it in the portrait.  Yet if he were sitting up - as Richard is in the King portrait - you would not notice it at all.  The painting of 'St Ivo' is dated around 1475 two years after Richard had spent some time in exile in Flanders with his sister, the Duchess of Burgundy, who might well have commissioned such a portrait of her youngest brother.  The quality of the painting is such that it must have been a very high status purchaser.  The sketches for the painting could easily have been done in 1473 and the portrait finished later. 

The million dollar question is did Richard really have a hunchback - a question that a study of his remains will surely answer.  If he didn't, of course I'm wrong, so I'm waiting with bated breath for the results of the dig.

Books around the world

Further news on ever expanding markets.  I have just heard that Kindle editions of my books will soon be available from the Kindle Store in India. The books available will be:

For readers aged 10 - 15
The Ghostrider - an adventure story of highwaymen and bodysnatchers
The Serpent's Cove - an historical adventure involving Cornish smugglers and  the Regency theatre
Master Merryman - an historical adventure of swashbuckling hero, English playwright Henry Medwall set in the late 15th century

For grown-ups
The Lady in Grey - a biographical novel based on the life story of French novelist Guy de Maupassant
The Devil and the Bag of Nails - a comic novella set in the early eighteenth century

Educational
The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone - a modern English translation of the 5th century book that is at the heart of Malory's Mort D'Arthur with explanatory notes
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness: the Life of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester - a biography of the 17th century playwright and his fight for representative government

Books finding new markets

All my books are now being distributed by Amazon Europe as well as amazon.com and amazon.co.uk.  List available to date

The Ghostrider
The Lady in Grey
The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone
The Serpent's Cove
Master Merryman
The Devil and the Bag of Nails

Life, Liberty and The Pursuit of Happiness:the Life of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (biography) is currently still only available in a Kindle Edition - I am a bit slow on getting this one ready for a paperback edition, apologies to anyone still waiting.

Columbanus: Poet, Preacher, Statesman, Saint (biography) is available in paperback from Imprint Academic and all good bookstores.

That's your lot for now!  As regular readers of this blog will know I am currently working on a history of post-roman Britain which is proving very surprising.