( Read more... )

And as it's 31 August, and even the Grauniad has completely lost its marbles with Dianolatry, anniversary-wise, I'm wearing a t-shirt and locket bearing the image of an excessively pretty 36-year-old who died bloodily in the middle of Paris some years ago.
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His name's Maximilien.

Je m'appelle MarianneVive ( Read more... )

From Mark Steel, Vive la Révolution:
None of the above is to deny that Marie Antoinette was indeed one of the great figures of the revolution. She was specially selected, as a virgin of noble stock, to marry the heir to the throne, had an illicit affair with an army officer, fell out with the royal family she'd married into, spent unfeasible ( Read more... )

My Dad died on Max's birthday.

Here's a favourite song, one of my own party pieces: a love-song from 1867 sung on the barricades in 1871. And the wonderful Juliette.

Click to view

Family members:

Private Stephen Flinn (1889-1916), Green Howards, killed Miraumont (in the land of his Flin/Fluyon/LeFlan - however they spell it - ancestors).

Lance Corporal James H. Melton Todd (1893-1918), 'Hull Pals', East Yorkshire Regt., died of wounds, Battle of Arras.

Private Thomas Miskin (1891-1918), East Yorkshire Regt., killed

2 great-uncles killed; a grandfather (teenaged merchant seaman) torpedoed twice and survived; a great-grandfather with PTSD because, as a regimental farrier, his job was to use his axe to put mangled mules and horses out of their misery. Some political friends are talking about protesting against the public commemorations because they see them as ' ( Read more... )

And this is for the feast day on Saturday (as I shall be travelling on it, so not posting):

Click to view

( Some end-of-year musings… )

Joel Emmanuel Hägglund (aka Hill), b. 1879.

Pattie Ferguson, d. 1780.

Both endearing, occasionally infuriating, and highly gifted. Both died in a hail of bullets at 36.

My friends in the Julian Society alerted me to this excellent piece in La Stampa (in Italian) on the forthcoming beanfeast for Constantine on the 1700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan: "Costantino simbolo della tolleranza religiosa? Una truffa, vero il contrario". Rabbi Di Segni praises instead another Emperor: "l'ottimo imperatore Giuliano ( Read more... )