Author Archives: bernardporter2013

Yes, it was exciting, wasn’t it; but not really ‘cricket’. The method of deciding a winner after a tie was farcical. Why do you have to have a single ‘winner’ when both teams have performed equally well? It reminds me … Continue reading →

Just back from our trip to France. Theme: French revolutionary Art 1780-1848. (Pretentious – moi?) High points: the Berlioz Museum in Cote St-Andre and the French Revolutionary Museum in Vizille. Both terrific, as were the small Clochemerle-like towns they were … Continue reading →

Jeremy Hunt’s latest wheeze, in his bid to become Britain’s new Prime Minister, is to refund university tuition fees for students who go on to become ‘entrepreneurs’. In fact he’s also making a big thing of his own early career … Continue reading →

Before I go: I recently came across an article on the web – I’ve lost it now, but that doesn’t matter – about Hanslope Park, an ultra-secret archive in the depth of the Buckinghamshire countryside, where the British government used … Continue reading →

Just to say that I’ll be on my hols shortly – in SE France, to visit La Cote Saint-André (birthplace of my favourite composer), and one or two other places. Grenoble has a Musée de la Revolution, which Kajsa is … Continue reading →

On the plus side of my ‘good and bad effects of the British Empire list’, I always used to put the spread of cricket. (Sometimes it was there alone.) It must have been the Empire that spread cricket, unlike football, … Continue reading →

I’ve mentioned before that I was asked to revise my The Lion’s Share for a 6th edition, but that I couldn’t face the prospect of going back to my old sick: https://bernardjporter.com/2018/03/19/lions-share-mk-vi/. So Routledge found me a young American scholar to do the … Continue reading →

I take Tony’s point, in his comment on my last post, that Eton has ‘produced’ (if that’s the word) some good Lefties as well as Borises. But that’s because they’ve rebelled against their background, as many kids do. My take … Continue reading →

It’s largely Old Etonians who have got us into this ghastly situation. (I wonder what sort of History they teach them there?) So perhaps another Old Etonian should be made to get us out of it. But not Boris. Rory … Continue reading →

Many years ago I developed a theory that the reason why we in Britain didn’t guillotine our aristocrats in revolutionary times was that they played this clever game of making themselves out to be cuddly and eccentric old half-wits who … Continue reading →