David Mattingly, An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman Empire 54BC – AD409 (The Penguin History of Britain)

As always, the Penguin History of Britain lets itself down by hardly mentioning penguins. I will never, ever tire of that joke. A history of Britain at the time of the Romans, rather than Britain, so great effort is made to write about those parts of the isles outside the empire, or the experiences of the colonised within the empire, but there’s just such a lack of sources. A very post-colonial 21^st century perspective on the empire, and makes an interesting point that those parts of Britain in which Christianity and relative order and stability remained after the Romans left were those parts that were not part of the empire or on the fringes: Ireland, the West of Scotland, and Gwynedd. Maybe the origin of the soft southerner sterotype.

Over the past few weeks I appear to have become alarmingly obsessed with Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway engines. Not the Hornby 00 ones, not the diecast ones, not the Take ‘n’ Play ones, just the Wooden Railway ones. Not the wooden railway tracks, not the buildings, just the engines. It’s like collecting Panini stickers, I just lose all self control. I’ve won 33 auctions on eBay, with another 8 winning bids at the moment. It’s just idiotic.

A few nights ago, Freddie wanted to read the story of Diesel, a whiny, sneery engine, not like the noble steamies. Diesel is one of the 33 engines in my stash, so it seemed a good idea for Diesel to come and listen to the story too, as a special guest star, as a treat for him and Fred. Fred seemed thrilled by the idea, and cuddled and looked after Diesel while I read the story. At the end of the story, Diesel, having seen the errors of his snide ways, returns to The Other Railway as a Really Useful Engine, despite the inherent disadvantage of being a dirty diesel engine. As the storybook was closed, I attempted to retrieve Diesel so he could go back to The Other Railway. Freddie wailed like a banshee. I couldn’t give in to the crying, so it took a few minutes to calm him down. When I came downstairs, Helen asked what all the crying was about. Because I’m a coward and didn’t want a confrontation, I told her Fred was just tired (which, to be fair, was true). But the next day, when Freddie woke up and Helen went into see him, his first question concerned the whereabouts of Diesel, who apparently was now Freddie’s best friend and most beloved of all engines. I had a text not long after enquiring into the mystery of Diesel and why Fred was so distraught at the loss of his beloved friend Diesel. So I had to call in at home to get Diesel out of my stash, and take him down to nursery when I went to pick Freddie up. Since then I’ve been checking with Freddie each evening as we read his choice of Thomas book; ‘Freddie, if Cranky/Daisy/Emily/Murdoch was to come over as a special guest from The Other Railway to listen to the story of Cranky/Daisy/Emily/Murdoch, and then went back to The Other Railway afterwards, how would you feel?’

‘Sad.’

‘Sad? Why sad, Fred?’

‘I want to cuddle Cranky/Daisy/Emily/Murdoch’

‘Hmm, ok. Probably best they don’t come then.’

In the meantime the stash is growing. Since I started writing this there’s been a few more eBay auctions won.