Long reads shortened
England: defined by a sense of place. The Harvesters by George Vicat Cole (1881)
What is it that makes England so special?
Many feel that the England they knew and loved is âgoing, or is goneâ, says Robert Tombs in The Daily Telegraph. But England has, over the many centuries of its existence, been in âcontinual fluxâ. The Norman conquest was a kind of apocalypse, involving the âtotal seizure of all landâ and the systematic destruction of cultural heritage and language. Yet it is Norman England that we inherited, not its defeated Anglo-Saxon predecessor. In the 14th century the Black Death wiped out half the population, but eventually left the survivors better off, making space for a new English culture, âpioneered by Chaucerâ and perfected by Shakespeare. Then came the Wars of the Roses, the cataclysm of the Reformation and âtwo centuries of merciless religious conflictâ. But after that, to general astonishment, in the 18th century, modernity: âliberty, science, politeness, commerce, empire, even happinessâ. The American Revolution brought back despair, but soon after the Industrial Revolution brought with it Victorian splendour. The world wars devastated this Victorian world, but cleared the way for the cultural revolution of the 1960s.
What unites these radically different phases of English life is a sense of âplace and belongingâ, not anything particularly to do with ethnicity or culture. Oliver Cromwell and Charles I would both have been âastounded and horrifiedâ by the drinking, sexual libertinism and intellectual freedom of George IIIâs England. Samuel Johnson would have found the ânoisy, teeming, smoke-filled England of Dickensâ a nightmare. William Gladstone could not have comprehended Tony Blairâs Britain, with its âreligious indifference, lack of deference, permissive morality and intellectual frivolityâ. Their different Englands, with their characteristic beliefs, manners, standards of civility and political structures, had all evaporated. âOurs will evaporate too, and we, like our forebears, will lament it.â But thatâs England: âalways old, and always newâ.
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Property
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Heroes and villains
YouTube/@Willsmith
Villain
Will Smith, who appears to have used AI to edit the crowds at his shows in a video on social media. The actor and hip-hop star is currently on tour in the UK, and posted a selection of clips from venues including Scarborough, London and Wolverhampton. But fans say the video is riddled with obvious deepfakes (identifiable from distorted faces and odd-looking hands with misplaced fingers), including an ostensibly fan-made sign that reads âYou Can Make It [one of Smithâs songs] helped me survive cancer. Thx Willâ, which experts say has all the hallmarks of being entirely made up.
Villain
Keir Starmer, who recently boasted â quite wrongly â that his government had made it âcheaperâ to travel by bus. âThe ÂŁ3 bus fare cap,â the prime minister declared, âhas already cut costs for families.â Itâs a curious claim, says Michael Deacon in The Daily Telegraph. Under the Conservative government, the bus fare cap was ÂŁ2, rising to ÂŁ3 at the start of this year. âIâm no Alan Turingâ, but Iâm sure when I was at school âthree was generally considered to be a larger number than twoâ. Unless Starmer is talking about families who can no longer afford the bus, and cannot reach the shops on foot, and so buy nothing. âTheir costs have indeed been cut.â
Cheers, Charlie
Applications to Cirencester and other agricultural colleges are booming, apparently inspired by land manager Charlie Ireland (above), the ever-affable bearer of bad news in Clarksonâs Farm.
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