Valeria Messalina

 I have in the past compared the goings on at 10 Downing Street with scenes from 'I, Claudius' (see here and here). I am going to do it again.

Messalina was Claudius' empress and he was ignorant of, or turned a blind eye to, her ruthless ambition, rampant promiscuity and the fact that her selfish political machinations had caused the deaths of many innocent people. Eventually her faults became so obvious that the Praetorian Guard were sent to instruct her to commit suicide. She couldn't summon the courage and so in the end they did it for her (*).

The bumbling Claudius, elevated far above the level for which his talents and competence befitted him, is represented in this analogy by the Conservative Parliamentary Party. 

* Sorry about the lack of spoiler alert, but if you watch the 1976 BBC series - which you certainly should - then it's best not to get too attached to any of the characters.

Britannia AD 43

 So, the fact that the world won't stand still is restricting my ability to indulge in those few things that remain legal in Leeds, sitting all alone at home painting figures for example, but oddly enough I can read books without any problem (computer screens are more difficult) and I have been looking through a recently published book in the Osprey Campaign series: 'Britannia AD 43: The Claudian Invasion' by Nic Fields.

I hope I'm not damning with faint praise when I say it's OK. Two obvious problems that the author has are a lack of sources plus the significant changes in the geography of both the Kent coast and the course of the rivers Medway and Thames during the intervening two millennia. He copes with both as well as could be expected, although he does tend to repeat himself a tad. It's copiously illustrated with both paintings (by Steve Noon) and photographs of subjects ranging across museum exhibits, re-enactors, Roman remains from well after the invasion, much later buildings which happen to be where something may or may not have happened at the time etc. One of the photo credits is given to Neddy Seagoon, so one can't complain that the publishers have not looked in every possible place that they could think of.

Everyone will come to the book with a different level of prior knowledge, and most will be greater than mine. When Fields says that many people's impression of Claudius himself comes from Robert Graves via Derek Jacobi, he might have been describing me. Personally, I found the description of the difference between the alae and the cohortes equitatae to be very helpful, although I can't imagine it will make any difference to how I classify my Roman cavalry in 'To the Stongest!'. Also interesting was the contrast between the tribesman using local knowledge to finding their way through estuary marshes and the Batavian auxiliaries' ability to swim across rivers and move directly into combat. The text further prodded me towards thinking that the way chariot rules work in 'Infamy, Infamy' is more likely to reflect how they were used than those in TtS!; still, the latter shouldn't be hard to change. Lastly, but by no means least, I am very tempted to model (when vestibular stability has been restored) the illustration of Claudius parading towards Colchester on an elephant. And why not?

Still remembered

Lucius Aelius Sejanus

If any of the players in the current shenanigans had any knowledge of the classics, they may have been considering what, if any, lessons could be learned from the story of Sejanus.

In the 1976 BBC production of Robert Graves 'I, Claudius' - which I recommend most highly - Sejanus was played by the wonderful Patrick Stewart. I confess that I have been staring at the above photo for a while trying to work out if that's a wig or whether Captain Picard did at one point have blonde, curly hair.

Baldness hasn't done Stewart any harm though, as he is married to the somewhat younger Sunny Ozell. Here's a song of hers that might also have a message for the PM. It's called 'Git Gone':

Books unreviewed

"Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking." - Einstein

I have been doing some background reading on trench warfare during the second half of the First World War, starting with the relevant Osprey and with Paddy Griffith's 'Battle Tactics of the Western Front'. The first thing to note is that both the author of the Osprey and that of 'Through The Mud and the Blood' are, how can we put this, very familiar with Griffith's work. I've always understood there to be some controversy over his somewhat revisionist view of the performance of the B.E.F. and of the infantry in particular, but presumably the others are on his side.

I myself bring no prior knowledge whatsoever to the table. Griffith's book wasn't really what I had envisaged - not being particularly polemical - but was very interesting nonetheless. I've worked in a lot of large organisations and his description of a blend of front-line operational kaizen coupled with layers of highly political management of varying degrees of competence rings very true. I shall keep reading (anything to avoid thinking about basing) and have moved on to Wyndham Lewis' autobiography. I have obviously already read the relevant works by Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon, but have retrieved them from the old marital home for a second look. My ex-wife is familiar enough with my pretentiousness not to be taken aback by urgent requests for books by long dead poets.

Speaking of which, lets have a poem by Graves that has nothing to do with the war:

Love is universal migraine,
A bright stain on the vision
Blotting out reason.

Symptoms of true love
Are leanness, jealousy,
Laggard dawns;

Are omens and nightmares -
Listening for a knock,
Waiting for a sign:

For a touch of her fingers
In a darkened room,
For a searching look.

Take courage, lover!
Could you endure such pain
At any hand but hers?

          - Robert Graves

And through thick woods one finds a stream astray

Call it a good marriage -
For no one ever questioned
Her warmth, his masculinity,
Their interlocking views;
Except one stray graphologist
Who frowned in speculation
At her h's and her s's,
His p's and w's.

Though few would still subscribe
To the monogamic axiom
That strife below the hip-bones
Need not estrange the heart,
Call it a good marriage:
More drew those two together,
Despite a lack of children,
Than pulled them apart.

Call it a good marriage:
They never fought in public,
They acted circumspectly
And faced the world with pride;
Thus the hazards of their love-bed
Were none of our damned business -
Till as jurymen we sat on
Two deaths by suicide.

          - Robert Graves