… if not in the manner intended.
Margaret Beckett interviewed in the New Statesman:
She has no illusion as to how Blair will be remembered. “When he goes, people will say that Iraq’s his only legacy, and that it’s a terrible one. I don’t think it’s true at all.” She has settled on a different epitaph. “I don’t believe Iraq is his legacy. I think climate change will be his legacy.“
So as Canary Wharf disappears beneath the Thames, you can thank Tony Blair.
… are nothing new. From Ely in the early 17th century:
A Matthew Maye was presented to the church court
suspected to lyve in fornication in the house of John Lemon with Dorothye Sutton, & he hathe a wief and children in another place, & she hathe a husband & children alsoe in another place as it is reported, & theise woulde marrye togither.
Dorothye said in her defence “yt in ded she was & is married to another husband wch said husband she saythe was married before to another woman, & yt therefore she is not bound to tarrye with him”.
R. Adair, Courtship, Illegitimacy and Marriage in Early Modern England, Manchester Uni Press, 1996, p. 162-3
A new group blog on Burma, the Burma Review. Apparently the issue might make it to Security Council attention in February or March.
Over on My London Your London I’ve a review of the Chola bronzes exhibition at the Royal Academy which I saw this afternoon – absolutely spectacular. I’d say you have to see it if you can. (It continues until Feb. 25.)
And of course it was the image of the female saint, Karaikkal Ammaiyar – not dissimilar in some respects to the memento mori images in Europe of roughly the same time that I found most fascinating, although for sheer artistic perfection you can’t beat the “dancing” Shivas.
A fascinating excerpt from Aguecheek’s Beef, Belch’s Hiccup, and Other Gastronomic Interjections: literature, culture, and food among the early moderns is online.
It begins with Europe’s “earliest post-Roman cookbook” – written, mostly in Danish, although with Latin headings and smatterings of other languages, in about 1300. Among its recipes is:
About a dish called Chickens Hunter Style
One should roast a hen and cut it apart; and grind garlic, and add hot broth and lard, and wine and salt and well beaten egg yolks, and livers and gizzards. And the hen should be well boiled in this. It is called “Chickens Hunter Style.â€
Which apparently squares with a version of the dish still found in southern Italy.
“The worst case scenario sees temperatures rise by five to eight degrees by 2100, while rainfall will decrease between 15 and 20 per cent,” Mr Marengo said. “This setting will transform the Amazon rainforest into a savanna-like landscape.”
The more optimistic scenario supposes governments take more aggressive action to halt global warming, but would still have temperatures rising in the Amazon region by three to five degrees and rainfall dropping by 5 to 15 per cent, Mr Marengo said.
About