The Franco-Prussian War took place between 19 July 1870 and 28 January 1871. At the beginning, it was a conflict between the Second French Empire led by Emperor Napoleon III and the North German Confederation led by the King of Bavaria. However, following early defeat of French forces at Sedan, Napoleon resigned and the Second Republic was created and then, as the war eventually ended, the four southern German states joined the Confederation to create the German Empire.
German territory was barely touched, but nearly a third of French territory was occupied and the capital Paris was under brutal siege for over four months. Altogether some two million soldiers took part and more than 180,000 died. Chrastil, professor of history at Xavier University in Cincinnati, highlights that “it was the largest war in Europe between Waterloo and the Great War” and calls it “one of the most dramatic and one-sided defeats of any modern European army”.
In over 400 pages of smallish text, she provides a meticulous account of the military engagements and civilian hardships of that horrific six months, drawing upon many sources, including contemporary letters and diaries. Yet, this otherwise impressive work of historical scholarship is seriously lacking in both context and politics.
There is no history to the conflict (the account opens with the French declaration of war); there is minimal explanation of the cause of the war (the French objected to attempted German influence over the succession to the Spanish throne); there is only very brief reference to the Paris Commune (for socialists, this is an iconic event); there is too little material on developments after the war (yet the subtitle of the book refers to “the making of modern Europe”); and there is inadequate explanation for the book’s title (was it really Bismarck’s war?).
Last year, I had a fascinating trip to spectacular Namibia, but I’ve only just got around to pulling all my blog postings on the journey into a single narrative. You can access my story here.
It is reported that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has convened a meeting of Cobra in order to plan a response to the far Right rioting around the country that has followed the terrible stabbings in Southport.
Cobra sounds really exciting. It evokes images of a venomous snake or – if you’re a movie fan like me – the 1986 Sylvester Stallone action film of that name.
In fact, the truth is much more prosaic. Cobra is simply an acronym.
It stands for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A. Cobra meetings are held in Downing Street, within Cabinet Office buildings. In most cases, Cobra is convened as part of the Civil Contingencies Committee which plans government responses in times of emergency.
“Roger is a superb storyteller and his warm, empathic voice shines through each story, as indeed does his thorough attention to getting the facts, and setting the context for each story.
The concept behind this book is inspiring – so many anonymous blocks of flats in London, so much disconnection and, possibly, loneliness. What this book does is bring the whole two blocks of flats to life, vibrant with stories of suffering, hopes, losses and triumphs, courage and endurance, each unique, ordinary or extraordinary, each exquisite in its own unique way.
Can you imagine, if each block of flats in a city had a story teller who took the care to bring the flats to life, to uncover the richness that lies behind the concrete, connecting the lives. One story brought me to tears, another to smiles, each story valuable.
I hope this book finds a big publisher to give it the wide readership it deserves. Roger has created something very original and special in Rennie and River. It’s a joy to read.”
The idea of a multiverse has dominated superhero movies of late and, in storytelling terms, it does allow for considerable flexibility and fun. In this film, the home universe – ours, if you accept that it’s full of Avengers, X-Men and the like – is Earth-10005.
Apparently, the multiverse and The Sacred Timeline (you’ve never heard of it?) are managed by the Time Variance Authority (who knew?) where a renegade called Mr Paradox (English actor Matthew Macfadyen) plans to eliminate our universe and, when Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds, back for a third titular role as this foul-mouthed, campy character) and Wolverine (Hugh Jackson, back as a older and grumpier version of the laconic, retractable-clawed fighter) attempt to thwart this dastardly plan, they are cast into The Void, which is presided over by the bald, multi-powered Cassandra Nova (non-binary and also English Emma Corrin). Are you still with me?
Well, it has to be said that coherent narrative and meaningful characterisation are sorely lacking in this 34th element in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), not helped by no less than seven writers being involved, but this is often the case in superhero movies.
Instead, we have an absolute blast of frenetic action, gory violence and rude dialogue which will delight MCU fans – that includes me – who will thrill to the succession of returning characters from previous “Deadpool” outings and other MCU movies (no spoilers here) and laugh at the multitude of iterations of “Deadpool” himself.
The work is replete with visual and verbal gags – what aficionados (aka obsessives) call Easter eggs. The more MCU films you’ve seen and the better you remember them, the greater will be your enjoyment of this ridiculously, but joyfully, over-the top spectacle.
When I went on a two-week trip to Pakistan in April, I posted reports on my blog every couple of days. I’ve now pulled all these postings together into a single narrative with a bit of extra material. You can read it here.
A star is born and his name is Glen Powell. After a series of small parts in both television and film, he had a break-out appearance in “Top Gun: Maverick” but, in Hit Man”, he takes the eponymous role, where he is rarely off the screen and has to adopt a variety of personas, and he both co-wrote and co-produced the well-received movie, setting him up nicely for a higher profile in the business.
The story is loosely inspired by the recently-deceased Gary Johnson, who remarkably combined a career as a philosophy teacher with a side-line posing as a hit man for the local police force. Of course, the plot is embellished and it is sugared with both humour and romance, but the twists and turns make it appealing viewing.
The director is Richard Linklater who made three of my favourite films, the “Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight” trilogy. The supporting actress is newcomer, Puerto Rican-Guatemalan Adria Arjona, who shows real promise, reminding me of Marisa Tomei’s break-out role in “My Cousin Vinny”. I think you’ll be seeing more of her. Unfortunately, “Hit Man” received a very short run in cinemas and you’ll have to find it on Netflix.
If we were starting from scratch, I would have liked to see a variety of possible Democratic presidential candidates in action and I’m particularly interested on Gavin Newsom, the Governor of California. But already it’s looking as if Kamala Harris will replace Joe Biden as the Democrat candidate to face Donald Trump on 5 November.
She has the massive advantages of being the incumbent Vice-President and the recipient of Biden’s endorsement. She will appeal to women voters who are more likely to vote Democrat. She will be attractive to black voters who are substantially Democrat. She is the most likely unity candidate.
Above all, she’ll have the money – and American elections are hugely expensive. She will inherit Biden’s war chest and already has connections with and support from many Democratic funders.
She has not risen to the occasion as Vice-President, but it is a difficult role. She now has to rise to this awesome challenge and save the US and the world from a second Trump presidency. The stakes are massive.
Eight days ago, I did a blog posting arguing that Joe Biden needed to step down as the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. He has now – after much pressure and delay – agreed to go.
The selection of a new candidate is uncharted territory. I would like to see a contest rather than a coronation. Kamala Harris might be the person to beat Donald Trump, but I’m not sure of that. At this stage, I would back Gavin Newsom, the Governor of California.
We’ll see. The stakes are massive – for the United States and for the world.
This book was recommended to me by my Canadian theatre buddy who teaches English literature in a high school in the United States. It was originally published in 2003 and became a classic guide, before it was thoroughly revised and updated for a new edition in 2014. It is written by an American (Foster was a professor of English at the University of Michigan-Flint) for American students (most of the references are to work by American authors), but it is immensely illuminating for any reader of English-language works.
It is primarily about literature, but the techniques he espouses work just as well for poetry, plays or – my favourite format for storytelling – films. The book has justifiably achieved long-term popularity because it is so informative and written in such an accessible style.
Foster suggests that essentially “there’s only one story”: the quest. This consists of five elements: a quester, a place to go, a stated reason to go there, challenges and trials en route, and the real reason to go there. He insists that the real reason for a quest is always self-knowledge. He argues that what separates the discerning reader from the casual one is memory (of other stories and works) and the recognition of symbol and pattern (devices for metaphor and analogy). He thinks that “we want strangeness in our stories but we want familiarity too”.
So he points out – in separate chapters – how many stories are inspired by, or allude to, Greek and Roman mythology, the Bible, fairy tales and Shakespeare and he underlines how all the choices of the writer are meaningful whether it is – again there are chapters for each topic – the location, the geography, the weather, the season, nature, animals, any disability, disfigurement or illness, eating and drinking together, travelling together, fighting together.
It seems that, in good literature, nothing is simply what it looks on the surface: “it is never just rain”, “ghosts and vampires are never only about ghosts and vampires”, “violence in literature while it is literal, is usually also about something else”, and “even when they write about sex, they’re really writing about something else”.
Foster explains that, “if we except lyric poetry, nearly all literature is character-based”, that “plot is character revealed in action”. and that “the most important thing that characters can do is change – grow, develop, learn, mature”. So we need to know: who is the hero (noting that he or she is often marked physically in some way), who is the hero’s best friend (noting that this character is often destined to die), what is the motivation of the protagonist, and what is the intention (both literal and metaphorical)?
There are many ways of interpreting literature and Foster looks especially – again in different chapters – at religious, political and sexual interpretations. Ultimately, though, he wants to reader to bring his or her own interpretation and be able to explain or justify it: “you need to take ownership of your reading”.
In the course of some 350 pages, we learn so many rules or conventions, or at least tropes or themes, but sometimes the writer breaks the rule or inverts the convention and Foster insists that “irony trumps everything”. So, as Americans would say, go figure.