With some things you just need to read the label.  As its name suggests, this is a book about monarchs presented in the form of heroic rhyming couplets.  Specifically it is about the kings of England.  I don’t make a habit of reviewing books when I haven’t completely read them, but I have to confess

The launch of one of my videos on YouTube is always accompanied by a flurry of PR activity.  Well actually, I just tweet it a couple of times in the hope that somebody somewhere will notice.   From time to time I even get some responses.  My most recent one on the death of Alaric

Alaric died suddenly after a short fever.  He was somewhere around forty years old. For all his urbane sophistication and his desire to become a Roman, he was given a truly barbarian funeral.  The course of the river Busento was diverted and his body buried under its bed.  Then the river was restored to its

I get a steady stream of offers of books to review, most of which I turn down.  I don’t have enough time to read the books I already have on my list without adding more to them.  But this one looked interesting.  It is Sibyls by Jorge Guillermo of whom I haven’t heard before.   I

I woke up this morning to the news that Tony Benn had died. I am in my mid-Fifties now and I suspect I will never again have the feeling of witnessing history I had one day in 1981 when I listened to the result of the deputy leadership election between Benn and Denis Healey. My

In its day the Club of Rome was a very influential book.  I was around in its day and bought a copy.  The woman I was later to marry bought a copy too, so for many years we had two copies.  It seemed particularly inappropriate given that one of its messages was that we are