Thursday, 14 January 2016

Peter Frankopan, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa, The Leopard, Philip Cowley & Denis Kavanagh, The British General Election of 2015


'The Silk Roads' wasn't quite what I was expecting; I was hoping for a history of medieval Central Asia, but it was actually a geopolitical history of the world emphasising the role of the region as a key point. Very ambitious and readable, but I was just after a narrative and was required to think. The Leopard has passed me by; not sure I appreciated quite why it's considered one of the most important works of literature in the 20th Century (maybe something was lost in translation), but it made me smile in places and just want to visit the never-changing Sicily all the more.
The latest Nuffield study was devoured on a business trip to Germany. Very pessimistic reading of course, and right now it's difficult to see how Labour will get back into power for generations. Scotland is lost to the SNP, voters in the north don’t see the Labour Party as representing them any more and are edging in enough quantity to UKIP and in the south, 'Tory Lite' doesn’t convince when the real thing is available. And now Corbyn is in power (whose policies I agree with and for whom I voted), we're moving further and further away from being seen as a centrist party capable of governing.

I'm calling Bibs' first word; it's 'banana'. He's definitely saying 'nana' when I point at one, and while Nana may claim he's saying 'Nana', it's 'banana' alright.

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