I had a couple of glasses of wine and decided to review a Victorian Things are just crazy in my house sometimes. Anyway here is the video – there is no script as I was extemporising like the hell raiser that I am.
Some time ago I decided to stop following the news on the grounds that I would be better informed if I didn’t. This has worked very well and now even though I have only the vaguest notion of what is going on I feel I have a better grip on current affairs than I did
While the east was in the hands of the scoundrel Rufinus, in the west a very different man came to prominence. This was Stilicho. Stilicho’s father was a Vandal, but his mother was a Roman and he lived his entire life in the empire and in service to it. Neither he nor his contemporaries seem
I was born in Eastbourne on the south coast of England, which is the location of a Napoleonic fortifcation called the Redoubt. When I was growing up it was the home of an exceptionally kitsch model village and a rather charming aquarium called the Blue Grotto. This was an eccentric use for an historic monument,
Theodosius was both a good soldier, and just the kind of soldier the empire needed at the time. He was decisive when the need arose, but was cautious generally. He was basically fighting defensively – the game plan was survival not conquest. Typical of his initiatives was improving the defences of Constantinople, adding the Golden Gate
“The ruin of Paganism, in the age of Theodosius, is perhaps the only example of the total extirpation of any ancient and popular superstition; and may therefore deserve to be considered as a singular event in the history of the human mind.”