Just Finished Reading: The Assassination of the Archduke – Sarajevo 1914 and the Murder That Changed the World by Greg King and Sue Woolmans (FP: 2013) [292pp] 

I think it is more than arguable that THE pivotal moment (or most definitely A pivotal moment) in the 20th century occurred on 28th June 1914 when a young Serbian man shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie on the streets of Sarajevo. A little over 4 weeks later Europe and the world was at war – a conflict that accounted for around 20 million deaths. Like most people, in the West at least, I certainly knew OF the event and some of the details behind it. What I didn’t realise, until reading this excellent book, was just how many details I was unaware of. 

The book was essential formatted into two halves – covering the life and (apparently very happy) marriage of the archduke in the first section and the more immediate run-up to the assassination in the second half. Naturally I enjoyed the second half more – being the person that I am – but the first half was FAR from boring. It was interesting that Franz never even entertained the idea of eventually becoming Emperor of Austria-Hungary. He was 4th in line and only an unusual set of circumstances led him to the cusp of that role. I also had no idea just how controversial his marriage was. Apparently by marrying a mere countess – who he was apparently deeply in love with – he ‘shamed the Imperial crown’ and was made to suffer repeated public humiliation because of it. Indeed, he had to sign an agreement that his children would not be allowed to inherit any rights, privileges or position once he became Emperor. [Side note: This is known as a morganatic marriage: relating to or denoting a marriage in which neither the spouse of lower rank, nor any children, have any claim to the possessions or title of the spouse of higher rank. This was obvious a favourite word of the authors who, throughout the book used it repeatedly. Although I wasn’t exactly counting, they must have used it 30 times at a minimum and I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if the use count exceeded 50 times. Although it did start to get irritating after a while I did eventually find it funny.] After YEARS of public abuse for marrying for love I, personally, would have used very undiplomatic language to tell the Empire what it could do, and where it could stick, the crown. Franz (and especially Sophie) were made of sterner stuff. 

The assassination itself was, well, weird. Even at the time there was much speculation that it was the result of a conspiracy. In effect, of course, it was – just (maybe) not the conspiracy some people were thinking of. There was definitely a conspiracy involving the assassins themselves. On top of that there was another conspiracy by members of the Serbian military to train, arm and assist the assassins in their attempt. What is not so clear, despite some very strange goings-on, was if there was any AUSTRIAN complicity in the killing. Franz didn’t want to go to Sarajevo but was essentially ordered to do so by the emperor, the visit and the route was advertised months in advance, the archduke's personal security detail was left at the local rail station because of lack of transport for them, the local governor (despite protestations) failed to arrange additional security for the event or even take normal standard precautions and on... All VERY strange. Was it a set-up? I think there’s a distinct possibility. Austria was certainly looking for an excuse to ‘deal’ with Serbia once and for all and an attempted assassination would provide that very excuse. If the archduke was actually killed....? Well, there was always someone around to take his place on the throne. 

Apart from the mildly irritating ‘morganatic’ on repeat this was a very interesting read. I learnt a lot about the run-up to the event itself as well as the immediate aftermath. Together with a few more upcoming reads I’m now much more aware of why and how Europe and the world ended up fighting one of the most destructive wars in our long and bloody history and why the world remains in such a mess today. All because a car paused at the side of a street in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time. SO many ‘what-ifs’ spring from that day. So many possibilities... Definitely recommended to anyone interested in how the Great War started. More to come – soon. 

Just Finished Reading: The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling (FP: 1894) [256pp] 

As I (shockingly) didn’t spend my childhood years reading – never mind reading children’s classics like this – my ‘knowledge’ of The Jungle Book comes from the classic Disney cartoon version. So, it surprised me more than a little that this book wasn’t the novel I expected, but was instead a series of 7 short stories – only the first 3 covering the exploits of the man-cub Mowgli and the others we know so well from the silver screen.  The stories, ‘Mowgli’s Brothers’, ‘Kaa’s Hunting’ and ‘Tiger! Tiger!’ did follow (roughly) what I was expecting with Mowgli being adopted by wolves when his farther is killed by the tiger Shere Khan, Mowgli learning the ways (and languages) of the jungle and the ultimate battle with Shere Khan. Complete with songs (which I’ve always assumed that Disney added for the movie) this was an interesting insight into the literary foundations of the cartoon classic. 

The other 4 stories (with one exception) were new to me. ‘The White Seal’ was an odd one – telling the tale of – unsurprisingly – a white seal, distinct from his grey family who seeks a safer place away from human hunters despite the laughter, incomprehension and bullying from his own generation. ‘Toomai of the Elephants’ was odd in a different way where a younger elephant driver is shown (or stumbles upon) the legendary ‘dance of the elephants’ which changes his life. ‘’His Majesty’s Servants’ is probably the blandest and least interesting of the bunch taking place on a stormy night on a parade ground and is mostly conversations between various draught animals. 

My favourite of the bunch – and the exception of the 4 – was ‘Rikki-Tikki-Tavi' about the famous adopted mongoose who protects his human ‘family’ from a pair of cobras. I must have come across this story – possibly in my early years of school – a LONG time ago as I couldn’t remember many of the details but I thought it was very well told, had bags of tension and would’ve thrilled any child it was read to before they nodded off to sleep. It was the highlight of the book. An interesting read overall and recommended to those who, like me, missed this classic growing up.       

Well... They did TRY, a few times actually.....

...and now EVERYTHING changes..... (as about an hour ago).

Happy Birthday: Gregor Johann Mendel (20 July 1822 – 6 January 1884) was an Austrian-Czech biologist, meteorologist, mathematician, Augustinian friar and abbot of St. Thomas' Abbey in Brno (Brünn), Margraviate of Moravia. Mendel was born in a German-speaking family in the Silesian part of the Austrian Empire (today's Czech Republic) and gained posthumous recognition as the founder of the modern science of genetics. Though farmers had known for millennia that crossbreeding of animals and plants could favour certain desirable traits, Mendel's pea plant experiments conducted between 1856 and 1863 established many of the rules of heredity, now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance.

Mendel worked with seven characteristics of pea plants: plant height, pod shape and colour, seed shape and colour, and flower position and colour. Taking seed colour as an example, Mendel showed that when a true-breeding yellow pea and a true-breeding green pea were cross-bred their offspring always produced yellow seeds. However, in the next generation, the green peas reappeared at a ratio of 1 green to 3 yellow. To explain this phenomenon, Mendel coined the terms "recessive" and "dominant" in reference to certain traits. In the preceding example, the green trait, which seems to have vanished in the first filial generation, is recessive and the yellow is dominant. He published his work in 1866, demonstrating the actions of invisible "factors"—now called genes—in predictably determining the traits of an organism.

The profound significance of Mendel's work was not recognized until the turn of the 20th century (more than three decades later) with the rediscovery of his laws. Erich von Tschermak, Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns independently verified several of Mendel's experimental findings in 1900, ushering in the modern age of genetics.

Just Finished Reading: How to Make the World Add Up – Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers by Tim Harford (FP: 2020) [296pp] 

Numbers are everywhere. We are bombarded with them from media outlets, on the Internet and from politicians. But what, exactly, are we supposed to DO with them? When you’re told that inflation is down by 2% what exactly does that mean? When a government department has made a £5 billion deal is that a lot of money? When we’re told that migration is up by 15% since this time last year how are we supposed to react to that? 

Facts and figures thrown at us from every news programme or every tweet [side note: If tweets were part of Twitter, what do we call individual posts on ‘X’?] could simply be ignored as either lies, misinformation or just too complicated to think about (and do ‘they’ want you to feel that way about them?) but it doesn’t have to be that way. One thing you can, and the author suggests that you should, do is the pause a moment and think of how the number/statistic being presented makes you feel. Is it anger? Shock? Dismay? Elation? Or confusion? Now ask yourself: Was that emotional response the point of the figure you’ve just seen? If it is, it's time to dig deeper and start asking questions. 

Take the (made-up) figure I mentioned earlier – that migration was up by 15% since this time last year. If true (which it might not be), what does it mean? Is 15% a lot? In raw numbers does that mean hundreds, thousands or millions? If it's say, 10K what kind of percentage is that of the population? Does that number seem large to you or insignificant? So, was the 15% figure – given without context – designed to make you afraid/angry. If it was, maybe you shouldn’t trust that source about other figures. Then, of course, there’s the question of what constitutes a ‘migrant’ (a term I particularly loathe)? Does it include those studying here on 3–5-year visas who will be leaving on graduation? Does it include those who have been recruited to fill vital job vacancies in critical industries? Does it include seasonal farm labourers who will be gone in a few months? Or does it only include so-called ‘illegal immigrants’ many of which might legitimately claim refugee status?  

Once you start asking these sorts of questions several things happen – firstly you should expect to lose some of the emotional heat and then you start to LEARN things, like how things work, what figures really mean and that definitions (often unstated, sometimes on purpose) matter. After a while you stop being afraid of figures, stop being befuddled by statistics and stop being manipulated by those who suspect (rightly too often) that people tend to ‘switch off’ when they’re presented with a math problem. That, in a nutshell, is what this excellent book is all about – providing the intellectual tool-set that’s handy and easy to use when presented with facts and figures. Personally, I’m a sceptic by nature and probably always have been. This doesn’t mean I dismiss everything I see or hear. It does mean that I TEST things for logic, reason and, even sometimes, whether it makes mathematical sense. With this book I think I just got a whole lot better at the last bit. MUCH more from this author to come (I’ve already bought two of his other books). This was highly readable, fun (and often funny) and a much-needed aid for modern life. One of the highlights of the year. Highly recommended.   

Just Finished Reading: The Testimony of Alys Twist by Suzannah Dunn (FP: 2020) [273pp] 

England, circa 1554. It was the very pinnacle of achievement; she was a laundress to royalty itself. It was, even if she said so herself, a strange kind of royalty – a Queen, ruling alone, without a man, a King, to guide her. Alys thought it both disturbing and oddly exhilarating. Even so, a Queen needed a King to produce heirs and Queen Mary wasn’t getting any younger. More worryingly though was the fact that the new monarch still clung to the old religion and was, it seemed, dedicated to bringing it back to prominence with all the dangers that such an idea entailed. One of those dangers was the Queen’s younger half-sister the Lady Elizabeth. As an adherent to the new religion of Protestantism she was likely to be a lightning rod for any conspiracy against the rightful crown. But Miss Twist thankfully realised, this was none of her concern – until it was. The Lady Elizabeth needed staff and elements within the Queens orbit needed information. As Alys had only just arrived at court, she was the ideal subject to be transferred to look after Elizabeth’s laundry. Now at the very heart of things, Alys begins to wonder which side she was on and whether being on any side in such an endeavour wasn’t just a quick road to an execution. 

As usual I picked this up years ago because it looked interesting and different. It also focused on a particularly interesting period of English/Tudor history – the countries (brief) return to Catholicism following Henry’s establishment of the Church of England and the reign of ‘Bloody Mary’ so revealed in later centuries. Although both monarchs are only very briefly ‘on the page’ they have very distinct and well-known characters – Elizabeth is young, intelligent, crafty and lucky whilst Mary is wracked with doubt, pious to a fault, paranoid (especially about Elizabeth) and delusional if not actually mad. The main thrust of this often-excellent novel is, as the title suggests, the life of Alys Twist herself. Alys is a great character, maybe a little too modern for the period but I can understand why this is the case. Like updating the language to a more modern parlance – I'm not sure if more authentic ‘Shakespearian English’ would work with most readers! - a more modern mindset/personality is more palatable to a modern reader as long as things aren’t TOO modern that is. This is where the author come in for my only criticism, if I can use that word. The world the author creates and the characters she populates it with are very good indeed. The author's style is, likewise, very good indeed and I thoroughly enjoyed my reading experience. But, sometimes, I paused and thought to myself – did people REALLY say such things in the mid 16th century? Would someone in 1544 even find that particular thought even possible? I’ll explain... 

Metaphors or styles of speech have their time and place. Words, meanings and common usage are born, live and, sometimes, die. Phrases have historical roots. For example, a Roman would never have said that something was ‘a flash in the pan’ or that everything had been taken ‘lock, stock, and barrel’ - because both phrases date from the age of gunpowder flintlocks. In this novel nothing ‘quite’ like that happened, but on more than one occasion the author used a phrase that knocked me out of the narrative because it made me wonder – without any actual knowledge to back it up – if such a phrase COULD be used at the time. It certainly didn’t ruin things for me – nowhere near – but it was more than a little irritating at times. This was, however, my only quibble with the book which, apart from that, I thought very good and edging towards excellent. It’s from a very interesting period of British history, its chocked full of interesting characters and has a real sense of place which I enjoyed. There are some minor (non-conventional) non-explicit romantic elements which shouldn’t bother anyone but is worth a mention. Overall, a fun intriguing read. Definitely recommended to all history, and especially Tudor history, buffs.                

Happy Birthday: Sir Patrick Stewart OBE (born 13 July 1940) is an English actor. With a career spanning over seven decades of stage and screen, he has received various accolades, including two Laurence Olivier Awards and a Grammy Award, as well as nominations for a Tony Award, three Golden Globe Awards, four Emmy Awards, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1996 and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to drama in 2010.

In 1966, Stewart became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He made his Broadway theatre debut in 1971 in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. In 1979, he received the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance in Antony and Cleopatra in the West End. His first television role was in Coronation Street in 1967. His first major screen roles were in Fall of Eagles (1974), I, Claudius (1976) and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979). In 2008 he reprised his role as King Claudius in Hamlet and received his second Olivier Award and his first Tony Award nomination for respectively the West End and Broadway theatre productions.

Stewart gained international stardom for his leading role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994), its subsequent films and Star Trek: Picard (2020–23). He starred as Captain Ahab in the USA miniseries Moby Dick (1998), Ebenezer Scrooge in TNT television film A Christmas Carol (1999) and King Henry II in the Showtime made-for-television film The Lion in Winter (2003). He also became known for his comedic appearances on sitcoms Frasier and Extras for which he received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series nomination. He also starred as the lead of Blunt Talk (2015–2016). He currently voices Avery Bullock on American Dad!.

Ooooh... I LIKE that...... 

Just Finished Reading: Iceland Defrosted by Edward Hancox (FP: 2013) [279pp] 

It was an obsession, freely admitted. Iceland, the landscape, the people, the food and especially the music fascinated him beyond anything else. Travelling to, and around, the country at every opportunity mostly alone, sometimes with local friends, sometimes with his wife and, more recently, with their new born the author made new friends, experienced the strangeness of the land (and more often than not the people too!), stayed in small hotels or bed & breakfast places – complete with interesting, often delicious, food – enjoyed concerts and other concert goers, and generally had a LOT of fun. 

Almost any way you look at it, Iceland is a pretty amazing place. The scenery alone, seen in various Lord of the Rings movies as well as more than a few others over the years, would make it a holiday destination for anyone jaded by the regular destinations we’ve all heard so much about (and often been too far too often). But it has SO much more going for it than awesome lava fields, active volcanoes (as the world, and especially western Europe has found out to its inconvenience more than once) and world class waterfalls. One thing I can definitely agree with is the music. I’ve been a BIG fan of Bjork for a long time and love her vocal style. After hearing her as a solo artist I starting picking up her earlier work with the Sugarcubes and even have a jazz album by her – in Icelandic! - which is probably the strangest CD I own (at the moment). As a sometimes music journalist, the author kindly lists some of his favourite bands/singers in the back and I’m working my way through them (on YouTube) to see if I like them. Throughout the book as he travels around the country, he also interviews many of the singers he’s long admired from a distance, which is pretty cool. 

As a veggie (coming up to 25 years now) I’ll have to take the authors word on the superb fish meals he had and wrote about with great gusto. One thing I was intrigued by though was Icelandic yoghurt – specifically Skyr yoghurt. He enthused over it more than once and lamented (while in New York of all places whilst enjoying a pot there) that it was a great pity that it wasn’t on sale in the UK. Now this book was published in 2013 so, I thought, I wonder if things had changed. I’m delighted to say that it has and picked up a BIG tub of Skyr strawberry yoghurt from my local big supermarket. It’s YUMMY and deserves the praise the author heaped on it. It is fast becoming a staple part of my weekly diet. 

Needless to say, I really enjoyed this book. Not only is it simply a fun read in itself but the authors love of that island shines through in the prose. Iceland is a fascinating (if rather expensive!) place with a seriously unique history and culture – and I don’t just mean the yoghurt. If you’re thinking of trying it out as a potential holiday destination you could do a lot worse than reading this excellent travelogue first. Recommended.

Officially BLOWN away....

Ok, this is going to sound a little weird. I've just started a book and I think this is quite possibly the BEST single sentence I've ever read. Check THIS out:

"There are many shades in the danger of adventures and gales, and it is only now and then that there appears on the face of facts a sinister violence of intention - that indefinable something which forces upon the mind and heart of a man, that this complication of accidents or these elemental furies are coming at him with a purpose of malice, with a strength beyond control, with an unbridled cruelty that means to tear out of him his hope and his fear, the pain of his fatigue and his longing for rest: which means to smash, to destroy, to annihilate all he had seen, known, loved, enjoyed, or hated; all that is priceless and necessary - the sunshine, the memories, the future - which means to sweep the whole precious world utterly away from his sight by the simple and appalling act of taking his life."

Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim, page 7. 

Just Finished Reading: Fracture – Life and Culture in the West 1918-1938 by Philipp Blom (FP: 2015) [411pp] 

When I was young and ignorant (or at least more ignorant) I used to think that the period between the 20th centuries World Wars was a time of peace. I have long been disabused of this notion. As a French delegate to the Versailles conference said with great prescience, they had not just signed a peace treaty but rather a 20-year armistice. He was not wrong. The supposed ‘War to End Wars’ had instead shattered the world system, fracturing most of the last Empires in Europe as well as fatally damaging the globe spanning British Empire. The ramifications of this passed over the planet like an earthquake with regular aftershocks changing the world forever. Yet, even as the quake echoed around the world tensions still built beneath the surface and, unknown to the vast millions hoping for a better future a greater, even more devastating, quake was building. 

But, as with all times of social and political unrest, the West saw an outpouring of creativity both remarkable in its breadth and staying power. Works of art, literature, poetry, music, dance, and theatre since recognised as ground-breaking, indeed epoch defining, arose during this time. Not always recognised instantly (or quickly) with the regard later generations placed on them, they shocked, enthralled or dismayed the public often in equal measure. With the breaking of the international system anything, it seemed, was possible. One of the great epicentres of this new found freedom of expression was Berlin where an explosion of avant-garde art, music and lifestyles both appalled locals and attracted international visitors (who much later would be called the ‘jet set’). Briefly overshadowing Paris as the European city of culture, Berlin was THE melting pot of new ideas in a new world. 

Covering this and much else besides – including the emergence of Surrealism, Art Deco and the Jazz explosion, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, the bizarre findings of Quantum Mechanics, the Charleston dance craze and psychoanalysis – this was an epic tale of the Wests reaction (or maybe over-reaction) to the devastation of total war on a scale not seen before as individuals, major groupings and whole nations struggled to come to terms (or at least try to) what had just happened and to try to square the discontinuity between what they had been told (or promised) in 1914 and what had resulted by 1918. Chocked full of interesting observations, personalities and ideas this was one of the best books of the year so far for me. I do find the ‘between the wars’ era quite fascinating for a whole host of reasons (personally I’m kind of obsessed about periods of rapid or fundamental change – probably because we’re living through one) and this did nothing to diminish that interest, quite the contrary in fact. If you’re after a detailed look at the era in a single volume I’d definitely recommend this as a very good place to start. Highly recommended as is all of this author’s works. 

[Highest page count of the year so far: 411pp][+14pp]

Some interesting (OK, to me) Political Stats.

I've just been watching an early review of the recent UK election and a number of interesting (as I said, to me at least) numbers came up. 

Keir Starmer is only the 7th Labour PM - EVER.

Labour have 209 new MPs as part of the 335 total new MPs

The Conservatives recorded their lowest result EVER at 121 seats - that's since their founding in 1835

The Labour party victory was on the smallest proportion of the vote in British political history

The turnout was the lowest since 2001 and the 2nd lowest since 1885.

So, this election has been quite one for the History books!!

Happy Birthday: Eva Gaëlle Green (born 6 July 1980) is a French actress. The daughter of actress Marlène Jobert, she began her career in theatre before making her film debut in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers (2003). She portrayed Sibylla, Queen of Jerusalem in Ridley Scott's historical epic Kingdom of Heaven (2005). The following year, she played Bond girl Vesper Lynd in the James Bond film Casino Royale (2006), for which she received the BAFTA Rising Star Award.

Green has since starred in numerous independent films, including Cracks (2009), Womb (2010), and Perfect Sense (2011). In 2014, she played Artemisia in the 300 sequel 300: Rise of an Empire and Ava Lord in Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez's Sin City sequel Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. Green is also known for her collaborations with director Tim Burton, starring as Angelique Bouchard in the horror comedy film Dark Shadows (2012), the titular character of the fantasy film Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016), and Colette Marchant in the fantasy film Dumbo (2019). For her role as an astronaut mother in the drama film Proxima (2019), she earned a nomination for the César Award for Best Actress.

Green starred as Morgan Pendragon in the Starz historical fantasy series Camelot (2011). She also starred as Vanessa Ives in the Showtime horror drama series Penny Dreadful (2014–2016), earning critical acclaim and a nomination for Best Actress in a Television Series – Drama at the 73rd Golden Globe Awards.

Late... But I blame lack of sleep yesterday..... [grin]