Saturday morning and I have already had enough good black coffee to kill a horse and eaten two fresh croissants from the baker next door. Lancaster has one of the finest coffee merchants I have come across, so it is hard not to over indulge. Though nothing tastes as good as a glass of that black sludge from a roadside warung that is real coffee in Indonesia. Except perhaps the chocolate flavoured coffee that drips slowly into your cup in Vietnam. Before opening the shop I was listening to the music of Benjamin Britten on Radio 3 celebrating his centenary. I have never really liked Britten's music but I don't really know why. I would like to be able to say he is too British, but he is not. At least not in the way of the Cowpat School.
Thanks to the miracle of the internet I have discovered that 'The Horror Queen' Elizabeth Lutyens first coined that term.
Nice one Lizzie! as we used to say.
Do read the Liz Lutyens link, she had a fascinating background and career.
Back to Britten. I think perhaps he is too conventionally musical and too technical for my taste, what has been called 'progressive conservatism'. Perhaps some of you can put me right on this.
What else was I going to say before I start to dress (technical term: though it would look good in some of Kit's wilder clothes.) the window.
Can't remember, but it was about utility and the difficulty of pinning it down.
I found the latest China History Podcast very interesting. It deals with Yelü Abaoji who took his people (The Khitan or Ch'i - tan.) to great heights in the early 10th century. His Liao Dynasty in the north of present day China ran concurrently with the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (as well as the Song Dynasty) that resulted after the breakup of the Tang Dynast. It includes a god story about his widow the formidable Empress Dowager Yingtian who should have been buried along with her husband but did a deal with the conservative Khitan tribal chiefs. She offered to have her arm cut off and bury that with her husband. The chiefs thought about it for a while and then said, ' No need to go that far! just a hand will do.' And so it did.
The history of the little known nations that surrounded and shaped the culture of China, and the mass movements West and East across the steppe lands is extraordinary and fascinating.
Now the window.
Thanks to the miracle of the internet I have discovered that 'The Horror Queen' Elizabeth Lutyens first coined that term.
Nice one Lizzie! as we used to say.
Do read the Liz Lutyens link, she had a fascinating background and career.
Back to Britten. I think perhaps he is too conventionally musical and too technical for my taste, what has been called 'progressive conservatism'. Perhaps some of you can put me right on this.
What else was I going to say before I start to dress (technical term: though it would look good in some of Kit's wilder clothes.) the window.
Can't remember, but it was about utility and the difficulty of pinning it down.
I found the latest China History Podcast very interesting. It deals with Yelü Abaoji who took his people (The Khitan or Ch'i - tan.) to great heights in the early 10th century. His Liao Dynasty in the north of present day China ran concurrently with the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (as well as the Song Dynasty) that resulted after the breakup of the Tang Dynast. It includes a god story about his widow the formidable Empress Dowager Yingtian who should have been buried along with her husband but did a deal with the conservative Khitan tribal chiefs. She offered to have her arm cut off and bury that with her husband. The chiefs thought about it for a while and then said, ' No need to go that far! just a hand will do.' And so it did.
The history of the little known nations that surrounded and shaped the culture of China, and the mass movements West and East across the steppe lands is extraordinary and fascinating.
Now the window.