Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes…
Well I’ve had a cold for a couple of days now.. find it interesting to see how such a little virus can affect my states of mind. Last night we watched a film I’ve had for ages but had never got round to watching before - Ian McKellen as Richard III, a spectacularly unethical individual (well, as portrayed by Shakespeare anyway). Very strong visually, fantastically menacing from the shocking opening scene to the very end. I was reflecting that a lot of my views of this period of history are probably shaped by repeated readings as a child of the Ladybird Book of Kings and Queens (Vol 1). This contained uncompromising character summaries such as "Richard was a weak and vain man" (actually I think this might have been Richard II) (or possibly some other unfortunate monarch altogether..), accompanied by slightly lurid pictures of some historical event or facet of life at that time. For some reason it was totally fascinating. It would be interesting to have our more recent monarchs written about in the same cursory style…..or what about ourselves ?? Now there’s a scary thought… my life summed up in one page of the Ladybird Book of Brecon Buddhists…
