If today were to have an entry in the Great Ledger of Life it would not, I suspect, be totally positive.
I had several interesting and reflective conversations with wife, which would be a positive.
Bacon and black pudding cobs for breakfast would be in the “iffy” column. They are definitely nice for a leisurely breakfast, but from a health point of view are almost certainly frowned on by thin people within the NHS.
Slept through and hour and a half of dull TV before spending a couple of hours awake in front of dull TV programmes. That would definitely be bed, and a waste of life.
“Read a Kindle book on the Vikings” should be a positive but as the entry continues “written with a 21st Century slant” you can probably guess what my thoughts are. The Vikings, it seems, are bad. I can go along with that, as it’s a point of view I’ve heard before. However, when I am informed that they are bad on the grounds that they had slaves and influenced British Imperial thinking, I begin to recognise a touch of fashionable bias. Bias is OK in historical writing as we all have it, but I do dislike the taint of fashion or opportunism.
These are not, I confess, traits found only in this book, as virtually any TV historian you watch these days seems to be contractually obliged to mention the evils of slavery and Imperialism in relation to British history.
It’s very much like the popular view of the Great War – Lions led by Donkeys and all that, plus Blackadder Goes Forth and the famous drinks cabinet line. “Field Marshal Haig is about to make yet another gargantuan effort to move his drinks cabinet six inches closer to Berlin.” It’s a view that has been popular for around 60 years now, to the point where schools are showing Blackadder as a history resource, despite it being a comedy programme. You may as well rely on Oh! What a Lovely War as a source. However, if you say something often enough it becomes the accepted view, and is often accepted as fact, as you can see when reading many WP blogs.
That’s it for today. I’m going to look for some photos and go to bed now. I would say that I’ll see you tomorrow, but at my age you can’t always be certain of that. This is the problem with writing about unhealthy breakfasts and warfare – it encourages thoughts of mortality.
Olympic Breakfast
Our species as a whole is capable of great good, and great harm, not only to to itself, but to others. I agree, a good balancing of was is taught seems like it would be a good thing.
Balance is good, but TV historians forcing their agenda on us is fashion, not balance.
I will probably have to return to this subject at greater length than a reply to a comment.
The human pendulum tends to swing.
When I was but a lad, I was taught that the empire was a great blessing to those whose good fortune it was to live under our benign rule. I was taught that the British always fought fair and the other side always cheated. That Clive was a great hero badly put upon by ungrateful savages etc etc. There are those who would still like this to be taught in our schools so I don’t mind a little weight on the other side of the scales.
I don’t mind an examination of the facts, and I don’t mind a balanced approach, but I do object to everyone jumping on the bandwagon.
To address the question of Clive, for instance, he didn’t amass his great wealth by mugging individual peasants, he replaced the people who were already robbing the peasants. I doubt if the peasants really noticed any difference.
I think that you may be taking an unduly kind view of a psychopath. But I didn’t know the man personally.
When charges were brought against him he was tried by Parliament and they held that he had done nothing wrong. If you can’t trust Parliament, what is the world coming to?
I have seen neither of those authorities on the Great War but I do like that breakfast
It w a fine breakfast and a great comfort to travellers – before the forces of darkness closed the Little Chefs