I Do Myself Think That History Is

The Writer I Adore Is Ivy Compton-burnett.i Couldn't Get More Than A Few Pages In When I First Read Her. In Many Ways, She Is Very Clumsy And Her Plots Are Rubbish. But We Don't Read Her For That. There Are Pages And Pages Of Dialogue. What It Requires Is Real Effort And Attention.

Rafe Asks Him, Could The King's Freedom Be Obtained, Sir, With More Economy Of Means? Less Bloodshed? Look, He Says: Once You Have Exhausted The Process Of Negotiation And Compromise, One You Have Fixed On The Destruction Of An Enemy, That Destruction Must Be Swift And It Must Be Perfect. Before You Even Glance In His Direction, You Should Have His Name On A Warrant, The Ports Blocked, His Wife And Friends Bought, His Heir Under Your Protection, His Money In Your Strong Room And His Dog Running To Your Whistle. Before He Wakes In The Morning, You Should Have The Axe In Your Hand.

A Sea-green Sky: Lamps Blossoming White. This Is Marginal Land: Fields Of Strung Wire, Of Treadless Tyres In Ditches, Fridges Dead On Their Backs, And Starving Ponies Cropping The Mud. It Is A Landscape Running With Outcasts And Escapees, With Afghans, Turks And Kurds: With Scapegoats, Scarred With Bottle And Burn Marks, Limping From The Cities With Broken Ribs. The Life Forms Here Are Rejects, Or Anomalies: The Cats Tipped From Speeding Cars, And The Heathrow Sheep, Their Fleece Clotted With The Stench Of Aviation Fuel.

He Turns To The Painting. "i Fear Mark Was Right." "who Is Mark?" "a Silly Little Boy Who Runs After George Boleyn. I Once Heard Him Say I Looked Like A Murderer." Gregory Says, "did You Not Know?

I Think If The Monarchy Were Removed Tomorrow, It Wouldn't Have A Huge Effect On The National Mind-set.