UK in Collapse

A Scottish girl - only 14 years-old - has gone viral by displaying a knife and an axe to a migrant.  Of course, she was arrested soon after.  The question becomes, why was a migrant following a teenaged girl and her 12-year-old sister?  And filming them with his phone?  Why would a teenage girl carry weapons at all?  Rapes in Scotland have tripled in the last 20 years, from 924 in 2002 to 2,897 in 2024.  Stories of grooming gangs have been mostly ignored by the government lest the open borders policy suffer from the bad publicity.  The UK has failed to protect its girls and this particular girl has taken her defense upon herself.  Tragic.

Coincident with this incident, the English have started a campaign of flying the St. George Cross throughout England.  While flying Ukraine flags and Palestinian flags was supported and protected by the government, the English flag has been taken down or painted over.  It is a sign of bigotry and intolerance.  Really?  The English can't fly the English flag in England?  Here is an obvious case of the government attempting to dissolve the people and import another.  London, the capitol city, is majority foreign.  England has been conquered by a hostile power, and the English are only now catching onto the fact.

The Riddle of the Sands (1979)

In 1901, Arthur Davies (Simon MacCorkindale) is sailing his yacht along the Frisian Islands on the German coast.  Another yacht takes note of him and soon a young lady arrives to invite him for dinner.  She is Clara Dollman (Jenny Agutter), a German girl who speaks excellent English.  Arthur accepts the invitation and meets Clara's father and step-mother.  Herr Dollman is particularly interested in Davies' activities and reacts with something like alarm when Davies reveals that he is mapping the islands and sandbars.  Davies is convinced something peculiar is afoot and sends a letter to his old school chum, Charles Carruthers (Michael York), who speaks fluent German and has a junior post in the foreign office.  Carruthers is an aristocrat and, as such, is immediately put-off by Davies' tiny yacht.  Moreover, he thinks that Davies has no reason to be suspicious of Dollman.  However, he changes his view when he also provokes alarmed reactions from German officers.  What are the Germans doing?

The movie is something of a spy thriller, with the two young Englishmen poking their noses where they don't belong.  There is a good story here but it comes off mostly dull in this telling.  Davies' growing relationship with Clara is not allowed to flourish once Carruthers arrives.  Clara is left as a side character with little to do and only interacts with Davies in Carruthers' presence: awkward.  Davies and Carruthers should have been fused into one character, especially since most of the excitement sees one or the other infiltrating a factory or fleeing soldiers or fighting sailors.  The chemistry between the two is good and their banter is fun, but it distracts from the thriller aspects of the story.  Rather than opening and closing narration, the movie should have bookended the story with the discussed Royal visit between Kaiser Wilhelm (Wolf Kahler) and King Edward VII.  Open all cordial and jovial before Edward gets a stern look where he says they must discuss something.  Insert the action of Davies and Carruthers.  Return to the meeting where Wilhelm is now pale.  Show, don't tell, especially in a movie.

The most interesting thing about the movie is that it was based on a 1903 book, which warned against a German assault on the English coast.  More than a decade before the Great War, Erskine Childers saw conflict coming between the two nations.

It is just okay.

The Empty Throne

Book 8 of the Saxon Stories takes place when Aethelred, Lord of the Mercians, died and his wife, Aethelflaed - daughter of Alfred the Great - became Lady of the Mercians.  Of course, that is just the backdrop for action and adventure with the aging and injured Uhtred of Bebbanburg. King Edward of Wessex - son of Alfred the Great - shares his father's desire to unite all the petty kingdoms into one: England.  As such, he has dispatched an ealdorman - who happens to be Edward's father-in-law, to pave the way for Edward's ascension to the Mercian throne.  There is also a plot to kill Aethelstan, a boy with a strong claim to the throne of Wessex and thus an impediment to the ealdorman's goal of seeing his grandson as king.

In the previous book, Uhtred had been seriously wounded and remains in such pain as to be a virtual invalid.  Luckily, he has his son, also named Uhtred, and a band of warriors to do the fighting for him.  The elder Uhtred is a cunning strategist and a shrewd judge of character.  However, he is a man of his times and believes that to heal himself from his injury, he must find the sword that skewered him.  He must go to Wales.  While in Wales, he sees a fleet of Viking ships that can only be headed to Mercia!

 

This is one of the better books in the series.  Uhtred is more of a chess master than a warrior.  He has always been brilliant and insightful but hobbled with crippling pain forces the story to focus on his wits and not on his combat prowess.  This also provided opportunities for his children, Uhtred and Stiorra, to play pivotal roles and perhaps helm the Saxon Stories when Uhtred the elder dies.  The history of the early 10th century is sufficiently opaque that Cornwell has wide latitude to shape the story.

 

Great fun and recommended.