A contribution from Lord Willoughby de Broke, via Helen. I'm going to be a little light on the blogging – only two or three short posts a day for a while. I really have to finish the index of the book, and it is proving harder and taking longer than anticipated.
I'm also up against a personal deadline now … a visit to the menders has been booked for the 6th November at the Nuffield Hospital in Leeds, and they open me up the next day, following which there may actually be a short break in blogging. Lots to do between then and now, but one is also gripped by a sort of end of term feeling. Yeah, it will pass.
My publishers, incidentally, have finalised the dust-jacket design (above - click to enlarge) – I’m really pleased with it. The book is now scheduled for publication in the Spring. It'll be something to look forward to, if I ever get that index finshed.
For sure, we do not have Fascist dictatorships astride Europe (yet), or the gathering storm of war, but there is a sense of the old order breaking down. While the Tories piffle away with their half-witted referendum motion, great events are shaping up, the nature of which we know not, but have every reason to fear.
But in change, there is opportunity. As political tectonic plates move, we need to look beyond the current superficialities and decide whether we are going to attempt to shape events, or be shaped by them. History is in the making here, and history will be our judge.
Even though he was shot down like a dog after he had been captured, the BBC nevertheless managed, rather decorously, to report that Gaddafi had "died" today.
There will be no tears shed for him, except perhaps the oil and gas companies which had signed lucrative contracts with his regime. Now we wait to see what the rebels do, and who they favour with their contracts.
One person who, doubtless, will be delighted is The Boy. This was shaping up to be "Europe" weekend in the media, and events in Libya will drive it down the agenda, as indeed it has today.
The media, these days, only seems to be able to deal with a single issue at a time and, suddenly, "Europe" isn't it. With Labour and the Lib-Dims whipping the debate, it's going to be a non-event anyway. And, as we approach the dawn of a new epoch, a dead dictator trumps a dead debate.
There will be no tears shed for him, except perhaps the oil and gas companies which had signed lucrative contracts with his regime. Now we wait to see what the rebels do, and who they favour with their contracts.
One person who, doubtless, will be delighted is The Boy. This was shaping up to be "Europe" weekend in the media, and events in Libya will drive it down the agenda, as indeed it has today.
The media, these days, only seems to be able to deal with a single issue at a time and, suddenly, "Europe" isn't it. With Labour and the Lib-Dims whipping the debate, it's going to be a non-event anyway. And, as we approach the dawn of a new epoch, a dead dictator trumps a dead debate.
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