‘The dead shall look me through and through’ Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H. As a boy, I read excitedly about the Egyptian Rooms at the British Museum, where night watchmen reported unexplained drops in temperature, feelings of being watched, and, on at least one occasion, a terrifying apparition of a bandage-clad mummy with contorted… Continue reading
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The very human history of Holy Writ
The History of The Bible John Barton, Allen Lane, 2020, 622 pages, £9.99 Western civilization is inconceivable without The Bible. Its assumptions, language and metaphors resound through our activities and imaginations, even if we think we have rejected religion as superstition. But how did the Bible develop from folkloric Near Eastern origins to today’s omnipresence?… Continue reading
Call of the wild
Losing Eden – Why Our Minds Need the Wild Lucy Jones, Allen Lane, 2020, 272 pages, £14 Since the start of civilization, jaded townspeople have dreamed of escaping from the city and reconnecting with nature. In this highly personal but also well-informed study, Lucy Jones demonstrates that this is not just a sentimental yearning, but… Continue reading
Corona Humours VII – Paracelsus – from alchemy to chymistry
I am not intrinsically interested in health. It is part selfish complacency, but I have always felt that a society morbidly interested in healthcare is one lacking an essential confidence – one that is half-hypochondrical, self-pitying, querulously conscious of growing old while sorely missing old religious consolations. So to me the ongoing Corona saga is… Continue reading
Flows of history
Rivers of Power – How a Natural Force Raised Kingdoms, Destroyed Civilisations, and Shapes Our World Laurence C Smith, Allen Lane, 356 pages, £20 Geography can be history, and history geography – and sometimes the most obvious things are overlooked. Rivers of Power seeks to make us see beneath the surfaces of arterial waters, and… Continue reading
Corona Humours, Part VI
Reflections on mirrors, reflections in mirrors ‘A look of glass stops you And you walk on shaken: was I the perceived?’ John Ashbery, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror Lockdown limps into months, and the mirrors in our home-prisons reflect much more than outside’s taunting sunlight, or the last few days’ huge moon. Every time we… Continue reading
Corona Humours – Part V
20th April, 2020 One of the hardest working words of the moment is ‘unprecedented’. The economic toll levied by Corona can certainly be seen as unprecedented. But the disease itself has had all too many predecessors. Over tragic millennia, waves of anthrax, bubonic plague, diphtheria, dysentery, malaria, measles, scarlet fever, smallpox, typhoid, typhus, whooping cough,… Continue reading
Corona Humours – Part IV
15th April 2020 “The firmament is blue forever, and the Earth Will long stand firm, and bloom in spring. But, man, how long will you live?” Li Bai, The Chinese Flute: Drinking Song of the Sorrow of the Earth Classical music fans may recognize the 8th century poet’s words as forming part of the lyric… Continue reading
Corona Humours – Part III
10th April 2020 An estimated 24 million Britons – 80% of the TV audience – watched the Queen deliver a four-minute special message on the 5th of April. This is even though what she was going to say could have been predicted almost literally. The Queen’s speeches are noted for bland carefulness; when you have… Continue reading
Corona Humours II
2nd April 2020 ‘He that hath ears to hear, let him hear’ Matthew, 11: 15 The lockdown and consequent grounding of aircraft, lessening of traffic, and closure of factories has made people much more conscious of the daily noises they do hear. Many of these are commonplace – cattle, trees, rain, movements in water, house… Continue reading