13°C, heavy rain. CK:36miles
Rain delayed enough for a decent ride this morning. I’ve missed riding that bike.
BBC Radio 4: they make good plays that are worth listening to on long motorway drives. Saturday. Howard Neal is the story of a US bloke on death row. The story wasn’t especially surprising, nor were the details, but the interest for me was the voice. Radio is entirely dependant on voice in plays like this. His accent was a mixture of deep south (US) and effects from his deprived background. Except not always; he seemed a little too articulate to me, his phrasing was rather conventional and it shouldn’t have been. Okay the whole play would have been more difficult, but surely, more rewarding.
Today was the story of Richard II– Plantagenet: And All Our Dreams Will End in Death. Okay, it’s not really fiction, well, no more than history is usually. Very good I thought, sadly, I missed the end. I did get the feeling that our past monarchs were largely a bunch of despotic gangsters. His relationship with Queen Anne was interesting, and touching. There are interesting parallels in the peasants’ revolt with The Tsars in Moscow in 1918 too. Both groups wanted an end to serfdom (slavery by another name) and concessions were given but even more asked for. Then the monarch backed off in fear. That, it seems is a pattern that has repeated a number of times in history. You can tell I have been following the BBC R4 series on Russia‘s history can’t you?
Spirit of Turpentine 