Ben > Recent Status Updates

Really enjoying being back in Lyra’s alternative Oxford world of daemons and alethiometers. Looking forward tonight to the BBC’s adaptation of Northern Lights.

I’m enjoying this novel which is set in the not too distant future where climate change has led the British authorities to build an enormous coastal wall to keep out The Others and where just about every citizen has to spend two years of their lives as a Defender.

I’m enjoying this novel which is written in the form of a diary by an Amish farmer after an apocalyptic event has wiped out government and communications. The Amish with their way of life are well disposed to cope with this calamity but are less able to defend their way of life when the desperate English begin to encroach onto their holdings.

Having a break from writing to start on this and the author states that “Joyce Carol Oates once described how running enables her writing, positing that it helps ‘as the mind flies with the body’”.

A very sobering reminder of how a nation can be seduced and manipulated through extremist propaganda and violence into supporting a demagogue who promises to make his country great again but by the time the populace realise what they have legitimately voted for it is too late.

A very sobering reminder of how a nation can be seduced and manipulated through extremist propaganda and violence into supporting a demagogue who promises to make his country great again but by the time the populace realise what they have legitimately voted for it is too late.

A very sobering reminder of how a nation can be seduced and manipulated through extremist propaganda and violence into supporting a demagogue who promises to make his country great again but by the time the populace realise what they have legitimately voted for it is too late.

‘The really interesting thing about the history of any play, is the astonishing remarks and rejections which it receives before it goes on. The only plays which get unanimous praise and which get on with the greatest ease, are those that sink like stones’.

I’ve just finished reading the section covering the letters she wrote to Alan Ayckbourn (the book is arranged alphabetically with whom she corresponded) and having spent much of her early years in South Africa she doesn’t hold back from giving her opinion when he is approached on more than one occasion to let his plays be staged there.

Another thrilling historical page turner from the pen of Robert Harris.

There’s a good mention of Roy Williams 2002 play ‘Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads’ which was first performed in the National’s newly converted Loft Theatre above the Cottesloe before eventually transferring back down to that space. Paul Moriarty was an excellent as a senior figure in a BNP type movement.

I’ve now reached the chapter on the 1980s which Billington opens with a diatribe on what he views as the pernicious rise and dominance of musicals on British theatre arguing that in many ways the financing structures of them mirrored Thatcherite principles. It is with some singular ire that he criticises long term effects of the RSCs collaboration with Cameron Macintosh with ‘Les Miserables’.

Just read the opening chapter covering the immediate post war years of 1945-50 and it’s fascinating how theatre perhaps more so than film or literature reflected Britain’s changing political, social and cultural landscape.

A magnificent final volume in the Cicero trilogy that vividly brings Ancient Rome and her brutal politics to life as the Republic collapses.

Interesting speech by Cato but no doubt Harris had modern parallels in mind.

‘No,’ said Cato, shaking his head, ‘no you are wrong. Pompey has subjugated peoples with whom we had no quarrel, he had entered lands in which we have no business, and he has brought home wealth we have not earned. He is going to ruin us. It is my duty to oppose him.’

Cicero grimaced at the name. Sura was a former consul, a man of great ambition and boundless stupidity, two qualities which in politics often go together.

I've almost finished this first book in Robert Harris' Cicero trilogy and I'm not sure how it passed me by when it wax first published as it's a fascinating portrayal of power politics in a much blood thirstier era but with intriguing contemporary parallels. Corruption, extortion, intimidation, flattery, cronyism, deception, self interest all still exist in the political sphere.

I've almost finished this first book in Robert Harris' Cicero trilogy and I'm not sure how it passed me by when it wax first published as it's a fascinating portrayal of power politics in a much blood thirstier era but with intriguing contemporary parallels. Corruption, extortion, intimidation, flattery, cronyism, deception, self interest all still exist in the political sphere.

I'm really enjoying this so far but it's a fascinating period of history anyway and Harris has hit on a great idea of having Cicero's secretary narrate the novel. One of the best non fiction books I've read on the fall of the Roman republic is Tom Holland's 'Rubicon' and I'm also having fun rewatching 'Rome' on Netflix which covers the same events.