IMAGE HOSTING AT FLICKR. Nick bought the DVDs of the History Channel's "History of Britain," written and presented by Simon Schama. You know, I'm no big fan of history shows, but these shows are really entrancing. First of all, Schama himself is a master storyteller. Second, the film itself is really beautiful and there is a kickass soundtrack. It is strangely stirring and educational too!
Schama tells the stories in that hypnotic tone story telling tone that somehow manages to make you see much more than the ancient pictures and photographs of churches by themselves could ever convey. The stories are interspersed by beautiful and impressive live footage, but these are dreamlike snippets that merely underline the story that you are hearing. It's really quite amazing.
Tonight was of particular interest to me, since it concerns my old nemesis, "Norman the Conqueror." I say Norman because that's how I inadvertently referred to William of Normandy throughout a college exam. And Nick was so overjoyed to hear this, that in this family William will forever be known as Norman.
You know those moments from long ago that can still make you blush? The recollection of my history teacher commenting upon this in a college history course can still bring up the old fixed red-faced grin. In consequence, I've always hated the bastard. I was quite pleased to learn from Simon Schama that he was actually called "William the Bastard." I hate him.
But hearing the story told with clips from the Bayeus tapestry (did you know that the Normans shaved the backs of their head and therefore were "the scary half skinheads" of the Middle Ages?) and with the story of poor Harold, I am coming to terms with this hatred of William/Norman. It's well justified by the facts, it seems.
And I will never look at pictures of the Bayeux tapestry the same way again. (I say pictures, but Nick saw the Bayeux tapestry live and in person in Bayeux). It's very narrow, but about 75 yards long, he says.
The famous encounter at Hastings comes alive under his retelling. He really makes you feel the apprehesiveness of a Norman soldier seeing, for the first time, that Saxon battle technology. "You've never seen an axe used in battle before." The Saxons used axes; the Normans, swords and "set about slicing them to pieces." The Bayeux tapestry is "shockingly explicit" in showing the extent of the carnage, the mutilation." Then, of course, as my English teacher once put it, poor Harold---on whose side I will always be---got something in his eye. Schama and I both believe this, it appears. "Harold Rex," he points out, appears below the arrow-struck figure. He would have been "cut down" and "disembowelled" after pulling the arrow out of his eye. Man.
There are legends, he tells us, of his lover, "Edith Swan Neck," walking through the grisly battlefield to identify poor Harold by marks known only to her. Curse you, Norman! I was hoping it would come out differently this time. Simon Schama and I see the conquest as a vicious and cruel act of aggression. We are supported in this conclusion by the historical accounts by the monk Orderic Vitalis, who came over with Norman. "I rather think it was a big deal. Imagine the county gentry of England all wiped out overnight...replaced by an alien class. They speak differently, they look different....they take what they want...and rubber stamp their decisions in the court." Yes, that would suck all right.
But at least the Normans gave us surnames. They named themselves after the lands that they owned. And "William the Conqueror was the first data base king." He put together the Domesday book, a massive inventory of property everywhere. "The king sent his men all over England into every shire." He wanted to know what he owned, down to the last pig. But according to Schama, it was only because of the governmental machinery left in place by the Anglo-Saxons that he was able to do it "at lightning speed" within six months. "It was called the Domesday Book because it was said that its decisions were as final as the last judgment.... Now nobody could hold back anything... The book ultimately was England."
I highly recommend these DVDs to teachers of history everywhere---you know, for those days when it seems like a good idea to have a film. It's a good idea to have a film when the students are saturated with facts and statistics.
You do have to hand it to those medieaval kings. When they sent their people to war, they led the way. Norman died in a priory at Rouen. The monk Orderic Vitalis "puts in his mouth an extraordinary deathbed confession." At the end of his life, he acknowledged that he was a brutal adventurer. He said---according to Vitalis----that he had persecuted the people and made his way to the kingdom by so many crimes that he dared not leave the crown to anyone but God.
After he died, his followers paid their last respects by rushing off to secure their land and property, leaving his corpse on the monastery floor naked, bloated, and beginning to putrefy" (cut to live reenactment of naked, bloated etc. corpse, lying on a monastery floor). Nick tells me that William's body burst open when they tried to bury him.
Subsequently, Harold's women had him buried at Waltham Abbey: the last Anglo-Saxon king. Nick says that every year on the anniversary of the battle of Hastings, some unknown person used to put an ad in The Times saying "Remember King Harold, who died bravely at Hastings, fighting the invader."
I have to say, I never enjoyed history courses. I found the textbooks to be virtually unreadable. If you're stuck with that sort of text, and you're teaching English history (or teaching English literature), show these DVDs to give some context to the recitation of facts.
I just saw the most amazing and beautiful shot of the cliffs of Dover, shining eerily in the sun. There are many scenes of crashing waves.
The Jekyll thing was exciting in that sick adrenaline-fueled way that leaves you feeling exhausted and a bit in need of a good brain bleaching afterward, but my real 
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Next on the list of 
RAMSAY'S KITCHEN NIGHTMARES. 
This episode featured Ramsay's mother, Joan Collins, and a turkey being treated for bumblefoot. It's the cooking show that reminds you of all the things that go into the preparation of food. There was a lot of discussion about Ramsay's campaign to get women back into the kitchen which: whatever. There's something so transparent about the whole PR machine at work for this particular television personality that it's actually sort of enthralling.
Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, kindly offered up by BBC American, reeled me into the enormous fanbase of Master Chef Gordon Ramsay; while intrigued by the glimpses yielded here and there of a more complex character in Hell's Kitchen, I had reservations. If it weren't for the Kitchen Nightmares series, I honestly don't think I'd have been interested in The F Word which is---among many, many other things---a weird, complicated cooking show. 
