"You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour and you will have war."
-Winston Churchill to Neville Chamberlain.

I've just finished watching Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years, picked up in HMV last week for a rather bargainous ten of your English. It's a television series originally filmed in 1981 dramatising the events of Winston's decade long political exile in the 30s. What is striking about the show is how much Churchill, even starved of position, achieved during this time. Having studied history I knew about the period but having an excellent and well acted dramatisation really makes it sink in how vital what Churchill achieved in the pre-war years was. Without his constant and committed work to make people aware of the Nazi threat and the need for defences Britain would not have been able to go to war when we did; we were under-prepared in 1939 but left to his own devices Chamberlain would have had us so far down the path of disarmament and appeasement that it could have been irreversible.

I think what really summed up the events of the series is when Chamberlain is told towards the outbreak of war that he needs to bring back Winston Churchill and he refuses and says that Churchill has his own cabinet in exile. It's pretty accurate; Winston worked ceaselessly with all those who were like minded about the threat of Hitler and had a wide reaching network of sources and allies in the military, intelligence and political worlds that kept him in the know. There were even things that did not make the film itself; such as his work with Claude Dansey's Z organisation which gathered intelligence for Churchill from all over Europe in the 30s. Churchill knew war was coming and he was certain that, even if he had to do it single-handedly, Britain would not be left at the mercy of Hitler.

Robert Hardy, he of Seigfried Farnon in All Creatures Great and Small, played Churchill excellently. It is rare that an actor can play a well known character so well that you forget you're watching an actor but Hardy does it here. His diction and accent are superb and he takes on the character in it's completeness. The whole cast was brilliant but particular mention should also go to Siân Phillips whose Clementine worked as a convincing and believable foil to Hardy's Churchill. 

For the duration of this series - compromising eight fifty minute episodes - you see the political giants of another age and the hard work of the widely acclaimed greatest Briton. What makes this show so watchable is that the story of what happened is both powerful and real. It's worth it just for the sheer, stirring, stubborn nature of Churchill who refuses to relent but stands by what he believes destiny has called him to do.

"Who’s your favorite author that other people are NOT reading? The one you want to evangelize for, the one you would run popularity campaigns for? The author that, so far as you’re concerned, everyone should be reading–but that nobody seems to have heard of. You know, not JK Rowling, not Jane Austen, not Hemingway–everybody’s heard of them. The author that you think should be that famous and can’t understand why they’re not…"

Booking Through Thursday 

Good question. I tend to be a little contrary; if everyone is reading someone it's usually a good reason not to bother with the exception of classics which not everyone is reading and even if they were they've mainly stood the test of time for a reason. I think that of modern authors who are less well known I really have enjoyed what I've read of Arturo Perez-Reverte and Boris Akunin who seem to tell tales with a bit of swagger and verve. When reading Turkish Gambit by Akunin I was convinced I knew who was the traitor. Only there was a myriad of plot twists that you genuinely could not see coming and kept you guessing again and again and of course I turned out to be very wrong.  He wrote a book that seemed so convincingly predictable and then defied every prediction with it's twists. It's good story-telling, the writing is enjoyable - it's intelligent but not too clever or too self-concious and it flows very well.

I don't suppose that either of those two count as unknown but I don't think they're hugely popular either; they're in the nice area of the market where people sell a good volume but don't get silly amounts of publicity and hype that detracts from the work itself. I guess I'm very middle of the road with books, I rarely read anything by a real unknown - how would I find out about them? - but won't touch Dan Brown or James Pattison either. (I will confess to the odd Jack Higgins as a guilty pleasure though!)

BBC News | Pupils forced to listen to Mozart

I should have known from the headline that I'd object to this story and, if that wasn't enough, the photo of the headteacher should have given it away too. He looks like the type. An ideas man. Thinks he can reinvent the wheel and change the world of education while gaining the adulation of his peers. I'll bet he starts the day with a  soy latte and a brief dive into some Steven R. Covey before turning his attention to the task at hand; revolutionising something that worked far better before everyone started to revolutionise it. It was probably on one such day that he had his eureka moment and, like Archimedes leaping from his tub, danced a little at the force of his own genius: "I know how to enforce discipline; if they cross the line we'll play Mozart at them, that'll learn them." See, I told you, revolutionary. I bet Stalin wishes he'd have thought of that. There would have been no gulags, just large open air concert arenas where political prisoners were exposed to Mozart day and night.

The only problem is, well, it's not really punishment, is it? I mean, I'm sure some of the obstreperous little tykes will find it punishing but that's a reflection on them not Wolfgang. I can't help but think that Mr. Walker hasn't quite thought this through. He's effectively taken a whole aspect of culture and loaded it with a hugely negative connotation. He is sending the message to all of those young people that listening to classical music is a punishment, that if they do wrong they will be trapped in a room together and forced to listen to it. I doubt my fifteen year old self would have wanted to listen to it either but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to teach the next generation that it's a punishment.

Now Mr. Walker, naturally, says it's not even meant to be a punishment - this detention is a window of opportunity to "help them see they are part of something bigger that will enhance their life chances if they become a net contributor".  He goes on to tell us that "when it's finished, there's no anger or resentment, because it's not a punishment, but pointing out the consequences of their behaviour". I want to look at this from a starkly logical angle. He claims that it is an opportunity and a good thing, he also claims that it is the consequence of their bad behaviour, ergo is he not sending out the message that if you are bad then good things will happen to you? I'm getting a mixed message here it's like he's saying it's great and awesome and then still using it as a punishment and then denying it's even a punishment. For goodness sake, we wonder why the education system is a mess? It's all wishy-woshy rubbish. Be a man, Walker, if it's a punishment call it a punishment and if it's a good thing then why do you feel you should reward bad behaviour? Is there a sliding scale? If you're a little naughty you get Bach, if you're pretty bad you get Verdi but don't really hack the fellow off or he'll go Wolfgang-Amadeus on your hieny?

Yes, it may be effective in the short term - though I must say that if the young rebels of today are so tame that the prospect of having to hear a bit of Bach stops them from raising carnage at school then they're not worth a jot as rebels - but in the long term it's another example of society taking something that was once valued and making it into a negative thing. Classical music isn't for everyone, that's cool, why would it be? Nor is pop, rock, hip-hop or anything else. I have about as much desire to watch thirty-three and a half pence (dashed exchange rate!) rap about his lady friends' posteriors as I do to watch paint dry but I'm assured that some of the youngsters find it a regular wheeze. Music is broad enough for there to be something for everyone but what can't be argued is that, like them or not, the classical composers were geniuses. They were unbelievable. Beethoven went deaf but it's fair to say that on musical merit Ode' to Joy knocks the socks off Lady blooming GaGa. To reduce Classical music to being used as a cheap punishment is stupid, our schools should be teaching about the merit of such things not making it into a negative bogeyman to stop thirteen year-olds blowing raspberries behind the teachers back.

"Troy, by our standards, is a tiny village near the Dardanelles. What made its siege the most immortal drama in our culture was the length of time it took. If Achilles and Hector had been made to fight only for a few minutes, nobody would have bothered to remember: in other words, if it had been a Twenty20 game or a one-day international." - Scyld Berry

The Cricket has been fantastic at the moment; there is something about test match cricket that can't be matched. Five days of competition where any one moment can change a whole game; you can be on top for four days and lose it on the fifth, you can have a seemingly guaranteed win snatched from you by one stubborn batsmen or one gifted bowler. I wanted to write another blog here about why I love this sport, why I think it's better than any other sport in the world because it can give days on end of tension and excitement, how any one man can change the whole match and yet it still takes a team to win. It's gladiatorial and also communal. (Twenty20 and ODI cricket are not the same in the slightest, they're like Cricket for people with a three second attention span.) But I'm not going to write it, partly because I've spoke garrulously of my love for the game before and partly because Scyld Berry has done a marvellous job of explaining it here at the Daily Telegraph. I particularly love the Troy analogy; it hits the nail on the head in a way few people could.

Scyld Berry: England and South Africa show how to sell the long game