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Showing posts from January, 2020

The Western Wind, by Samantha Harvey

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The Western Wind is set in the Middle Ages, in an obscure village in Southern England. At first sight it's a murder mystery, told in the first person by its protagonist John Reve the village priest, who is set to unravel the truth about the death of Thomas Newman , the one man in the village with wealth and substance. He has been steadily buying most of the land in the village, largely from Oliver Townshend , the previous man of substance who has had to trim his cloth due to unwise schemes and the general poor fortunes of the village. Their attempts to build a vital bridge across the river have failed yet again, and Newman seems to have disappeared into the river during a spell of torrential rain, while inspecting the latest collapse. As much as the intrigue suggested by Newman's death, the reader's attention is immediately caught by the character of the village and the villagers. The lives of most of these people is one of never ending oppressive toil, and the grindi

About 2019 and 391

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I'm having to scratch my head a bit about any culture I enjoyed in 2019. One overarching factor was British politics which seemed to infect life with more and more depression as the year went on. We've just had an election which seems to have at last broken the parliamentary deadlock, but may prove to be a false dawn, once they get back to talking to Brussels. Me, I voted Green anyway, knowing full well that it doesn't force anybody to do anything. This is a safe Conservative seat. I'm one of those who think climate change is far more important than Brexit. I simply wanted to give a minuscule bump to the Greens' national percentage. I saw four films ! Stan and Ollie , Apollo 11 , Transit and The Irishman . Yes I certainly like going to the cinema but for circumstantial reasons that means organising a day around a train journey into Manchester. Especially because that's where the most prominent arthouse cinema is. All four films were good, and very differe