6773/19693
The rowing machine cost is now less than £200 a go and I am really enjoying doing the workouts. Thirty minutes is enough to get me sweating (though not smelling today) and I am hopeful that this will not become an expensive clothes rack. I am getting stronger and thinner (though weight has plateaued this week).
I didn’t get anywhere with the sitcom today, choosing instead to try and knock out a bit more of the book I am writing (that has to be finished by the end of the month). But I guess the sitcom is percolating in the back of my mind. I am listening to Charles Spencer’s book, “The White Ship†on dog walks, but my mind wandered away from medieval to family politics a few times today. If Relativity ends up about people trying to murder their dads with concealed crossbows or the Snell family are caught up in a terrible maritime disaster, you will now know where the cross fertilisation comes from.
It’s all very Game of Thrones. But that’s probably because Game of Thrones is based on medieval history. Can’t wait for the white walkers to get on the attack. I am guessing from the title of the book that there’s a ship of them.
Charles Spencer is a decent popular historian and it seems that I have got back into reading (or at least listening) to history books again. I should know about this period of English history as I was supposed to have studied it at University, but it’s full of people I’ve never heard of. Best so far is Hugh the Fat who I can’t help thinking was born 900 years too early as he could have done a great podcast called Chew the Fat with Hugh the Fat.
But I didn’t know anything about Robert Curthose (he had short legs so I am really siding with him) who as Henry I’s older brother you would think would have been king before him, but nope. Ultimately he lost the tussle with his younger brother and ended up under house arrest until he was in his 80s. Being locked in a castle might have been the safest thing in these days though. There was a lot of killing and poisoning and hunting accidents going on.
The sinking of the White Ship is a big Sliding Doors moment for the history of the world. Like every moment in history really. But what would history have been like if this ship hadn’t been sailed on to the rocks? Certainly none of us would be here, so I am delighted it happened.
You may not agree with Geoff’s politics, but this podcast and his book do help to explain why traditional Labour supporters have moved to the Tories - and it turns out it’s not because they’re all racists or evil (not all of them). I had some interesting discussions on Twitter with some people who objected to Geoff being a guest, who seemed to believe that Tories were all driven by hate, whilst simultaneously seeming to hate all Tories. But getting angry about not people thinking the same as you turns out not to be the way to get people to think the same as you. I agreed with a lot of what the Twitter people were saying and yet still found their way of saying it extremely off putting. Ultimately if you want to get the Tories out you have to convince the Tory voters (or be prepared to overthrow democracy). But anyway. No more correspondence will be entered into.
No video version for the next couple of months I am afraid as we didn’t get enough interest in the live stream to make it practical. That kind of thing doesn’t matter to us too much, but I didn’t want the theatre to end up losing money by kindly opening its doors to us and hoped we might make them some money.
You can watch the video for up to three days after broadcast.
