The debonair Basil Marigold's

So, my wife went out last night and I had some free time to burn. I burned them with my books, those that I have read from July 2013 to January 2014. The total amount was 32. Which seems a good number for 6 months. Equating too around 60 or so a year, this will always vary depending on the thickness and complexity of the book being read! The results were not particularly surprising. I have been hammering, the Poirot novels of Agatha Christie and this has been borne out by the fact that 31% of my reading time was spent reading Crime; the only other crime book that I read that wasn't Agatha Christie was by, Ian Rankin, the creater of 'Inspector Rebus' character. This bought crime up to the level of history books, my usual number 1. These tend to be thicker and heavier reads, so theoretically the 10 history books I've read, although the same in number with Poirot mysteries, are probably the equivalent of 30 poirot novels in all honesty. A good example of how statis...

Recently I came across a song on the radio, this is a little unusual as the radio station I listen to doesn't play much in the way of music. Sometimes however my radio station also drops out of reception on the way to and from work, so something being better than nothing I have to get hit search, at least for 5 minutes until the signal comes back or i'm not listening to my itunes tracks. Unless I am lucky enough to wander into range of, Kerrang or Planet Rock then most music I hear is not particularly my 'cup of tea'. At this moment in time it was. While continuing to work and trying to remember the artist and song name so I could write it down (which ironically puts me in the minority of drivers who do actually, only drive when they get in the car, as oppose to the majority I pass on motorways, who seem to think they can; use mobiles, add make-up, read, eat pies and train dolphins to catch unicorns.) With the task completed I returned home and 'googled'...

... For those interested (essentially, this is me, I am guessing). My recently discovered obsession with, Agatha Christie's, 'Hercule Poirot'. The most arrogant Belgian, since, the waffle. I deliberately, decided that my next plan of attack, after my experience with, 'The ABC Murders', was to read the entire collection of Poirot (after a beer I seem to remember)... ...when the printer had finished printing the last of the three pages of A4 paper with all the books and collections that, Christie had written involving the Belgian detective! I looked with some trepidation at the task in hand (sobriety does this!). I immediately divorced from my conscious any attempt to do all the novels and all the short stories in chronological order (there are 10 short story collections!). So they were removed which left the novel canon of Poirot. All 34 books, starting in 1920 finishing with, 'Curtain', in 1975 (Yes, pedant, I am aware that, 'Curtain' was written...

I have no wish to blow my own trumpet but I was a remarkable historian in my early twenties. My historical mind was as sharp as any others and sharper than most. That leading edge is perhaps a little blunter through lack of continual use. But that is not the point, the passion for history is the point. That is still and will always be there; that inability to douse the fires for knowledge gathering will never go out.  Many people assume history is 'states and dates'. The present government seems to think so. But it isn't to me. Of course, they are part of the framing structure of history and always will. It is however, and always has been, the people involved that piques my interest, the squiggy bits of flesh and blood that have so impacted our world through sheer force of personality and opportunity to be able to change the streams of nationhood and the very world we live in. Some, mostly now ancient people even somehow managed to alter the course of the very world; The ...

It comes around every three years and has done since, 1882 when they choose Sophocles to be the first tragedian that was acted out for the audience and his play, Ajax. There followed, in triennial periods now, the now named Cambridge Greek Play. To think it has lasted just over 125 years is quite impressive in itself, especially when in 1890, the  Daily Chronicle  stated that 'Greek Plays are a fashion not likely to last'. Yet it has and now flourishes and provides acting talent to the world, most recently; Loki actor Tom Hiddlestone, who played Orestes, in the 2001 Sophocles  Electra.  These are most talented folk. The Prometheus bound (The Tragedy) was as powerful and as searing as you would expect when you are talking about the god who provided skills to man in defiance of Zeus. Prometheus; the fire bringer, now chained to the rocks and being tortured for betraying the olympian gods and withholding the name of the love interest that should Zeus lie with, then th...

I have no finally finished my first Agatha Christie novel, The ABC murders. As discussed earlier, it was driven by an interesting discussion on BBC Radio 4's 'good reads' programme, was it a good read? Yes, it was a very good read. I have thoroughly enjoyed every single page of the 'Hercule Poirot' murder mystery. I particularly loved the almost alien language and writing style, a product of the book being nearly 80 years old itself. Yet, the language was fluid and carried me along with good descriptive passages and the pace is deceptively quick for a character, in Poirot, who is designed to be slow and thoughtful. It carries along at two speeds, a ripping yarn and above that the thought process of the Belgian unfolds above it and they meet simultaneously, in a beautifully written twist at the end that truly blew me away.  Whatever my preconceptions were the one thing I was aware of, was Christie's love of a plot twist in the style of most thriller novels, a...

Over the last few weeks I have found myself pulled back into resharpening my knowledge of ancient Greek (Athenian, really) theatre. Six years after completing my masters degree dissertation, surprisingly for me at least, on the subject of Greek theatre & transgressive women. A lot has been driven by trying to increase my reading time, attending a couple of plays one a few months ago and the triennial ' Cambridge Greek Play ' , this coming month.  It was whilst reading a book on Greek Dramatists by, Prof Alan Sommerstein of Nottingham University (Not so far away from home) that I stumbled upon a fact I had not known. A little curiosity that seemed quite fun and that fact turned out to be that the creation of Opera may well have been by mistake and therefore, arguably one of the greatest misunderstandings that has spawned an expression of high culture and some of the most appealing works of art in the history of mankind. And it was all evidently built on a huge error mad...