The Monday Papers: Part Three

Lady reading the paper with her cat 

 woodblock print, ca. 1800s 

 Utagawa Kuniyoshi

Portrait of the YouTuber in a very fetching hat

I've been reading Nikolas Lloyd for simply years, almost ten years now that I think of it. He first came to my attention because of his website devoted to the wargame Crossfire, which I don't play anymore. But if I came for the wargaming, I stayed for everything else. Lloyd is a chap whose heart is definitely in the wrong place and I disagree with him almost as often as I agree, but he writes well and maintains a YouTube channel on such varied subjects as Ancient & Medieval Weapons, Swing Dancing, Film, Psychology and general observations on life.  His videos are brief, entertaining and well worth watching, I urge you to pay him some attention. 

You'll find his website here. 

Some of my favourites from his YouTube channel. 

We hate the them that are almost us. 
Some points about arrows. 

Collated by theme.

Weapons & Armour
General Chat
Dance Videos

Really rather good

To be honest, I don't know much about Melvyn Bragg except that he wrote "The Hired Man", a musical of which Mrs. Kinch is exceedingly fond.  I am less fond it, though it's not without it's charms.  However, when he is not visiting the terpsichorean muse upon an unsuspecting public, he presents a show on BBC Radio 4 called "In our Time".  

I must confess that Uber brought this to my attention and I've been absolutely hooked ever since. It's billed as a discussion of the history of ideas, but each episode is essentially a team of experts holding forth on a topic for forty minutes, with Mr. Bragg playing the part of an educated layman who asks a series of questions to draw out the boffins.

I haven't listened to a bad one yet and I was going to write some recommendations, but actually - I recommend the lot unreservedly. If you fancy spending forty minutes (and they are all forty minutes long, brevity is the soul of wit) learning about something about which you know nothing, this is the place to go. Top notch.

The Choir of Ely Cathedral sing "Now the Green Blade riseth". 

For a variety of reasons, things at Chateau Kinch have not been exactly plain sailing of late, Mrs Kinch's health being a major concern amongst other things.  However, we had the very great pleasure of attending the christening on Saturday of Clare, the sister of Kathryn, the little girl whose death inspired the Boyne Walk that Du Gourmand and I embarked upon.  The turn out was great and we had a wonderful time enjoying the hospitality afterwards, I only regret that an impending night shift preventing me from staying longer. 

Mrs Kinch levered me out of bed this afternoon after the night shift in question and we trooped off to evensong where we heard the above hymn, which neither of us were familiar with. It's a beautiful piece about life, resurrection and imperishable quality of love. 

I hope you enjoy it, it brought all the joyful, hopeful and uplifting feelings of the previous day flooding back.  Apparently the melody is an old French peasant song, but as that arch cynic Noel Coward wrote in Private Lives. 

"Extraordinary how potent cheap music is."