The Joy of Six 1559

"Violence has prevailed against the freedom of the press. I was denied the right to report on the disgraceful acts which later unfolded after I left for my own safety – and that is wrong. Violence against anyone should be condemned, that's a fact. But violence against a person simply trying to report is an obstruction of truth." Henry Durand tries to report on the mob violence in Thetford.

Carole Cadwalladr introduces a timeline of The Nerve's investigation of Nigel Farage’s biggest funder, Christopher Harborne, and argues that Farage is a symptom, not a cause, of forces reshaping politics across the world: "Farage has never known anything like it. There are now questions which even he can’t dodge. Questions even the BBC is finally asking. And his luck seems to be running out. A hasty plan to throw off a parliamentary investigation by quitting parliament before he could be sanctioned has spectacularly backfired in the biggest own goal of his career."

Rebecca Nicholson reviews the pitch-dark documentary series Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke, which is currently on BBC iPlayer: "As a vlogger, she and her husband, Kevin, made a living from YouTube, posting videos on the popular channel 8 Passengers, now defunct, about Mormon family life and parenting their six children in the picturesque city of Springville, Utah. But in 2023 Franke was arrested and charged with aggravated child abuse and sentenced to up to 30 years in prison."

"This is a pattern seen repeated throughout our society and system: a government quick to make 'hard choices' that involve easy solutions, but seemingly entirely unwilling or unable to take on the tougher opponents and ... seek harder more essential solutions." Paul Rowlston argues that Britain's proposed social media ban for under-16s tackles a symptom while leaving the real problem untouched.

"Caricatures of the Luddites as history’s losers are simply false," says Brian Lewis. "We have not stopped talking about them ever since."

Giles Wilcock looks back to 1919 – the last time cricket's county championship faced a serious threat: "When the war ended, the Bradford League remained attractive, and the Lancashire League began hunting for star names to compete. And because of the unique circumstances of the 1919 season – two-day games and relatively low county wages – they were often successful."

A cross between Biggles, Tintin, the Famous Five and Fitzcarraldo

George Weeks posted the link to this the other day, saying:

I love the BBC Archive YouTube channel. So much footage to enjoy. This one is possibly my favourite: The Trans-African Hovercraft Expedition of 1969-70. It's a cross between Biggles, Tintin, Famous Five and Fitzcarraldo.

And he was right.

This film was shot in Francophone Africa, and though I know from a recent rabbit hole that British Africa had all but crumbled by 1962 when Sammy Going South was released, but it's still tempting to place hovercraft beside flying boats and airships as new means of transport that promised to make it possible to maintain the Empire but fell short.

Like Sammy Going South, the film also makes clear the importance of the Muslim faith to Central Africa. And there are thoughtful interludes on slavery and colour that would still be impressive today.

George Orwell on the style and quality of C.S. Lewis's arguments

When I wrote about the philosopher C.E.M. Joad last month, a comment suggested I read one of George Orwell's 'As I Please' columns from Tribune. 

In it (it was the column for the 27 October 1944 issue), Orwell defended Joad as someone associated in the public mind with Science and Rationalism (his capitals), unlike the religious right-wingers who tended to dominate debate on the BBC.

But the column was mostly about C.S. Lewis and Orwell's criticism of his writing style and the quality of his arguments. It's worth quoting at length:

Reading, a week or two ago, Mr C. S. Lewis’s recently-published book, Beyond Personality (it is a series of reprinted broadcasts on theology), I learned from the blurb on the dust jacket that a critic who should, and indeed does, know better had likened an earlier book, The Screwtape Letters, to The Pilgrim’s Progress. ‘I do not hesitate to compare Mr Lewis’s achievement with Pilgrim’s Progress’ were his quoted words. Here is a sample, entirely representative, from the later book:

Well, even on the human level, you know, there are two kinds of pretending. There’s a bad kind, where the pretence is instead of the real thing, as when a man pretends he’s going to help you instead of really helping you. But there’s also a good kind, where the pretence leads up to the real thing. When you’re not feeling particularly friendly but know you ought to be, the best thing you can do, very often, is to put on a friendly manner and behave as if you were a much nicer chap than you actually are. And in a few minutes, as we've all noticed. you will be really feeling friendlier than you were. Very often the only way to get a quality is to start behaving as if you had it already. That’s why children’s games are so important. They're always pretending to be grown-up – playing soldiers, playing shop. But all the time they are hardening their muscles and sharpening their wits, so that the pretence of being grown-ups helps them in earnest.

The book is like this all the way through, and I think most of us would hesitate a long time before equating Mr Lewis with Bunyan. One must make some allowance for the fact that these essays are reprinted broadcasts, but even on the air it is not really necessary to insult your hearers with homey little asides like "you know" and "mind you", or Edwardian slang like "awfully", "jolly well", "specially" for "especially", "awful cheek" and so forth. The idea, of course, is to persuade the suspicious reader, or listener, that one can be a Christian and a "jolly good chap" at the same time. I don’t imagine that the attempt would have much success, and in any case the cotton wool with which the BBC stuffs its speakers’ mouths makes any real discussion of theological problems impossible, even from an orthodox angle. But Mr Lewis’s vogue at this moment, the time allowed to him on the air and the exaggerated praise he has received, are bad symptoms and worth noticing.

Students of popular religious apologetics will notice early in the book a side-kick at "all these people who turn up every few years with some patent simplified religion of their own", and various hints that unbelief is "out of date", "old-fashioned" and so forth. And they will remember Ronald Knox saying much the same thing fifteen years ago, and R. H. Benson twenty or thirty years before that, and they will know in which pigeon-hole Mr Lewis should be placed.

And Orwell goes on to describe that pigeon-hole: 

A kind of book that has been endemic in England for quite sixty years is the silly-clever religious book, which goes on the principle not of threatening the unbeliever with Hell, but of showing him up as an illogical ass, incapable of clear thought and unaware that everything he says has been said and refuted before. ... The line of attack is always the same. Every heresy has been uttered before (with the implication that it has also been refuted before); and theology is only understood by theologians (with the implication that you should leave your thinking to the priests). Along these lines one can, of course, have a lot of clean fun by ‘correcting loose thinking’ and pointing out that so-and-so is only saying what Pelagius said in A.D. 400 (or whenever it was), and has in any case used the word transubstantiation in the wrong sense.

Lewis is still a revered figure among British Evangelicals, and in the US he enjoys an extraordinary reputation, so much so that there are those who seek his canonisation, but I think Orwell got it about right here.

Paddington Bear: Slapstick, boosting Jeremy Clarkson's career and becoming our grim reaper

Paddington Bear is a couple of years older than me, so I had one of the books about him when I was a little boy. 

I quite liked the Paddington stories and certainly liked his friendship with Mr Gruber, who treated what was essentially a furry child as though he were an equal. Children really appreciate characters like that.

But you didn't have to grow that old before you started to find all the slapstick a bit babyish. And then there was the weak characterisation. The son of the Brown household was called Jonathan, and he added little to the action beyond saying "Crikey!" now and then. I was bound to notice that.

But the television and film adaptations have made the meh bear a huge cultural figure. Not only has he become the 21st century's grim reaper, conducting the dead to the underworld- more of that in a moment - he was also partly responsible for Jeremy Clarkson's television career.

Here's part of a post I wrote a couple of years ago:

Clarkson and the BBC go back a long way. All the way back to 1973, when as a 13-year-old, be played Atkinson in BBC Radio 4 serialisations of the Jennings books.

Then he went to public school, his fees paid from his mother's business making Paddington Bear toys. And the BBC was Paddington-friendly even before the animations with Michael Hordern's voice, because Michael Bond was a cameraman with them. So you got exclusive Paddington stories in your Blue Peter annual.

And, then, of course, the BBC's Top Gear made Clarkson a millionaire. A little gratitude wouldn't come amiss.

Personally, I'd have taken Paddington's marmalade sandwiches off him for that.

And his new role as our angel of death? Here's the abstract for Jennifer Riley and Matthew Hilborn's paper (Br)Exit pursued by a bear: Paddington's polysemic political power as the `new Grim Reaper':

Though hailing from distant “darkest Peru”, Paddington Bear has become a bastion of British identity. His critically-acclaimed films (2014, 2017, 2024), starring icons of British cinema, trade on nostalgic national tropes. This symbolic imbrication peaked in 2022, starring alongside Queen Elizabeth II in her Platinum Jubilee celebrations – and later becoming a symbol of collective mourning, materially and digitally, after her death. Paddington – endangered and repeatedly imperilled onscreen – thus became the Establishment’s new mor(t)al totem, what Douglas Davies would call a ‘paradigmatic’ figure ‘good to think’ in life, and in death. 

His incongruously cuddly ‘Grim Reaper’ became a globally recognisable meme. Yet, since symbols are malleable, and film-based memes subversive and satirical, Paddington has proved a provocative meme(nto mori). Analysing social media posts (X, Instagram) and the films, this article explores Paddington Bear the Grim Reaper as politically polysemic. 

If, following Robert Hertz, society grieves those ‘in whom it incarnates itself, and with whom it identifies itself’, Paddington’s mortal multivocality forces a reckoning. Whose lives – and deaths – are grievable? And which version of Britishness should Paddington embody: the polite, Establishment-aligned “Good Immigrant”, or the racialised, once-incarcerated refugee?

 I thought such wordp(l)ay had gone out of fashion in academia in the early Nineties: I do hope it's not making a comeback. Anyway, if you really want to, you can read the whole article online.

And if you didn't believe me about Jeremy Clarkson being in Jennings, here's a cutting to put your doubts to rest. 

Ian Holm as Richard III in the BBC's Wars of the Roses from 1965

First, Fergus McClelland led us to Brecht on television. Now, bless his little khaki shorts, he's led us to Shakespeare.

Ravensbourne University London explains the origins of the BBC's Wars of the Roses:

This production had had a highly acclaimed run on the RSC stage in 1963 and was directed for BBC Television in 1965 by Robin Midgley and Michael Hayes. It was filmed on the stage at Stratford-On-Avon using a multi-camera set up, resulting in a much more fluid filmic result with a greater variety of shots and even the use of hand-held cameras for the battle scenes. 

In this respect the production was a forerunner of today’s recorded theatre productions which are regularly streamed to cinemas and homes throughout the world.

The Wars of the Roses was an abridgement of four Shakespeare plays – the three parts of Henry VI and Richard III – into three plays: Henry VI, Edward IV, and Richard III.

You can find an extract from the third of these above. McClelland is playing Edward V, the elder of the Princes in the Tower, having played the similarly ill-fated Edmund, Duke of Rutland, earlier in the production.

But the real interest is Ian Holm's Richard III, who here appears not as a monster but very much the younger brother to the charismatic Edward IV that he was.

This recording is of some importance to theatrical history, because Holm was struck down with stage fright in the Seventies and thereafter chose to concentrate on film and television work.

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Kevin Collins asks how modern Britain would cope with a drought on the scale we experienced in 1976: "The public of 1976 learned to cope with these unusual weather conditions, and per-person use of water dropped from an estimated 190 litres per day in 1972 to 95 litres in 1976. This was a generation with direct or family experience of the hardships of the second world war – including following government restrictions on food, clothing and fuel rationing, which finally ended in 1954."

Roger Mosey finds the latest BBC cuts mystifying: "As misinformation and disinformation swirl around the globe, audiences will want to know what is true – and the BBC can provide a place where our querulous nation can share its views. The onslaught of YouTube, Netflix, Disney and the rest means that we risk having most of our viewing choices made by giant American companies, with algorithms devised in Palo Alto replacing editorial choices made in Britain."

From hedgehogs to buzzards, Britain's wildlife is being quietly killed by rodenticide poisons, report Eliza Egret and Tom Anderson.

National politicians should keep their noses out of the decision-making processes of local councillors, argues Richard Kemp.

Ruby Hamilton analyses the appeal of screwball comedies: "Some Like It Hot (1959) doesn’t work just because Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon are men pretending to be women (though they’re always funny about it) but because nobody notices or cares. Lies and truth have indistinguishable effects, so what’s the fuss? Screwballs aren’t miserabilist-humanist comedies about learning to revel in imperfection; they’re comedies of fantasy and will."

A soft pop op-art space rock opera from 1970 starring Olivia Newton-John? Yes please, says Discontinued Notes.

Why Kenneth Williams wanted to be serviced by Terence Rattigan

Having recently posted a video of Fergus McClelland with Leo McKern in Brecht's Gallileo, yesterday I had a look in the British Newspaper Archive to see if he had gone on acting for long.

He did for a while, because here's a report from the Coventry Evening Telegraph for 14 March 1966, when he would have been 15:

Duke of Edinburgh Introduces 'Nelson' 

Duke of Edinburgh has recorded an introduction for ATV's specially commissioned play by Terence Rattigan: 'Nelson: A Study in Miniature,' to be screened at 9.25 tonight. 

The play has a strong cast headed by Michael Bryant and Rachel Roberts as Nelson and Lady Hamilton, and including Celia Johnson, Michael Hordern, Sir Felix Aylmer and Fergus McClelland. 

This interpretation of Nelson – which covers the 24 days he spent in London and at his country home at Merton before his final voyage to the West Indies and engagement of the combined French and Spanish fleets off Cape Trafalgar – is largely seen through the eyes of his nephew.

And as McClennan played the part of Nelson's nephew, he must have been central to the production.

Today an extract from an episode of Round the Horne appeared in my YouTube feed. It contained a classic Kenneth Williams rant about not being properly serviced by the scriptwriters – you can listen to it above.

And when you hear Williams say they should get Terence Rattigan to write the show, "then we could have Prince Philip introduce the show ... like he done that thing on Nelson," you will recognise what he was talking about, just as I did.

Incidentally, this a good example of how Round the Horne got away with murder. "Terence Rattigan would service me" indeed.

Kenneth Horne had a parallel career as a business executive and the view at the BBC seemed to be "Horne's a good man" and "If Horne's involved then it's probably all right."

I suppose this coincidence is just an example of the quantum level of weirdness I mentioned the other day, just as I mentioned Kenneth Williams and his wish to be serviced.

Violent Bonham Carter features on Fake or Fortune?

The notorious gender-fluid London gang boss of the Sixties gets a mention in a post from last year on the Herstmonceux Castle website.

BBC’s Fake or Fortune here at the Castle

On Monday, 21st July, viewers were treated to a fascinating episode of Fake or Fortune, much of which was filmed here at Herstmonceux Castle.

We thought Dylan and Claire acquitted themselves brilliantly on camera in the garden and amongst the archives.

The episode provided insights into a painting, seemingly by Winston Churchill, of his wife Clementine, as they were staying at Hertsmonceux Castle together with his mother and Violent Bonham Carter, as guests of Claude Lowther, in the summer of 1916. 

I mentioned this to Lord Bonkers. He said that if Violent says a painting is kosher, it's prudent to agree with him.

Northern Ireland debates the future of its railways in 1957

From YouTube:

The first documentary produced by the BBC Film Unit in Northern Ireland looks at the problems the railways are facing in NI. Can anything be done to arrest the decline of the permanent way in the face of rising competition from road traffic? Indeed, should anything be done?

Something was done: they were largely closed down, particularly in Nationalist areas. 

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"Look at our responses to three of Labour’s flag ship pieces of legislation: the Employment Rights Bill, Great British Energy and taking the railways into public ownership. On each of these pieces of legislation, the Liberal Democrats in the House of Commons abstained on them. Why? I gather we attempted to amend each of them, but how? I could not tell any voter whether the Lib Dems supported or opposed Labour’s landmark legislation on employment, energy or transport, because I genuinely have no idea." Paul Hindley convicts the Lib Dems of timidity.

Sacha Hilhorst has interviewed Reform voters and she found them much more progressive than you think: "While it is true that Reform is building its base in former mining and manufacturing areas, the local people who can be won over to progressive politics will only be convinced by being less like Reform, not more. Winning in post-industrial England requires connecting with its popular radicalism."

"MPs who support the change have called for the bill to be brought back in the new parliamentary session, which begins on May 13. They have reportedly been joined in their demands by almost 200 peers in the Lords." Daniel Gover looks at the plans to reintroduce the assisted dying bill at Westminster.

Mark Urban on the effect decades of cuts have had on the BBC and its workforce.

Joy O'Toole introduces the work of Ngaio Marsh, one of the four Queens of Crime: "While she followed many of the same rules of the Golden Age-mystery genre, Marsh focused more on characterization and literary technique than plot. Inspector Alleyn is from an aristocratic family and well educated, like Sayers' Peter Wimsey and Allingham's Campion, but he’s a professional policeman and more down to earth."

"I think you have to decide for yourself whether both the Sufi and the Catholic aspects of Burton are equally represented; the freethinker is not. The outside of the it carries very clear Christian and Islamic symbolism in the shape of the cross and the crescents and stars. Inside the story is more complex." Mathew Lyons takes us inside the explorer Sir Richard Burton's mausoleum in Mortlake.

Is The UK heading for divorce? An interview with James Hawes

I referred to James Hawes's The Shortest History of Ireland the other day, and I've just sent Liberator a review of the book by fast orphan. Here Hawes raises wider issues about the future of the United Kingdom, and he's well worth a listen.,

Among his insights are that "England", to the Conservative Party, ultimately means the South East of England and the elite institutions to which it is home. And that the Reform vote is not working class, but a vote for a more hard-line Tory party. I suspect, though, that a good chunk of it is the sort of protest vote that we Liberals used to benefit from.

A word too for Adrian Goldberg, who was one of the most welcome voices in the early day of BBC Radio 5.

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"Opinion polls consistently suggest that after the elections on 7 May, England will be flanked by countries run by restless centre-left nationalist parties – Plaid Cymru in Cardiff, the Scottish National party in Edinburgh and, in Belfast, Sinn Féin, which shares power with the Democratic Unionists." Severin Carrell and Bethan McKernan say next week's elections could reshape UK.

"Real names becomes a tool for bullies online – and will force victims either to accept the bullying or avoid using the internet. This, of course, is not just true for bullies, but for overbearing parents, sadistic teachers and much worse. It is really important not to just think about good parents and protective teachers. For the vulnerable children, parents and teachers can be exactly the people they need to avoid." Paul Bernal argues that children need anonymity and encryption online. 

Catherine Heseltine asks if we can build crisis care outside the mental health system: "Being violently locked away and forcibly drugged made my mental health crisis many times worse – an experience shared by far too many people who have been subjected to standard NHS crisis 'care'.  Yet the mental health system seems to resist change like a train with no brakes."

Emma Peplow, with the help of the History of Parliament blog's oral history archive reminds us that Hannah Spencer is not the first new MP to remark on Westminster's drinking culture disapprovingly.

"Football Focus lasted almost two decades after its mothership Grandstand finally came off the air in 2007. The falling number of top flight 3pm kick offs certainly didn’t help though, and that trend might in time make it harder for even Final Score to endure, too." Richard Jones discusses what the BBC's axeing of Football Focus tells us about trends in sports broadcasting.

Londonist takes us to North Korea's London embassy, which stands just off the North Circular in Ealing

Something amazing: A Shropshire businessman falling out of the sky and Mystery at Witchend

The latest Secret Shropshire programme on BBC Sounds is intriguing:

In 1937 Max Wenner fell to his death from a plane in one of aviation's greatest mysteries. Wenner was a wealthy landowner and pilot living at Batchcott Hall outside Picklescott in the foothills of the Long Mynd.

Wenner's frequent flights to Germany in the 1930s and visits from high profile Nazis like Joachim von Ribbentrop led to speculation that Wenner may be leading a double life. In January 1937 his body was found in woodland near Genk, in Belgium.

He had fallen out of a passenger plane but no could explain why. Almost ninety years later, the mystery continues to intrgue journalists in the UK, and on the continent.

Johnty O'Donnell visited Batchcott Hall to investigate the mysterious Max Wenner, the man who fell from the sky.

So there were rumours of a nest of Nazi spies in a big house in the shadow of the Long Mynd? Could this story have been an inspiration for Malcolm Saville's first Lone Pine book Mystery at Witchend? 

Wenner's death must still have been the talk of the district when Saville visited Shropshire during the war. Even the name Batchcott echoes the Hatchholt of his book, and I once drew parallels between Mystery at Witchend and the wartime propaganda film Went the Day Well?

While I was writing this the Trivia Desk phoned to point out that Max Wenner was the great uncle of the Blue Peter presenter Christopher Wenner, who later became a crusading documentary maker under the name Max Stahl.

Jonathan Meades on the BBC on the BBC's own buildings

Thanks to Illuminations Media for pointing me to this Jonathan Meades video from 1989.

How Charley fooled the Luftwaffe and saved Midland cities

Here's the blurb for one of the short Secret Leicestershire features on BBC Sounds – The secret RAF base which foiled the Nazis:

Slightly north of Coalville in the Leicestershire district of Charley are the remains of a secret RAF base which foiled Nazi bombing raids during WW2.

The RAF 80 Wing was formed in 1940 and comprised a team of specialist wireless operators who sent radio signal beams to throw German pilots off course, tricking them into releasing their bombs away from their intended targets.

Charley was one of those specially chosen sites, being close to the important manufacturing centres of Leicester, Derby, Coventry, Nottingham and Birmingham. That secret RAF team was nicknamed "The Beambenders".

You can read more about this operation in the Wikipedia entry for Battle of the Beams, and there's more about the site at Charley on the parish council's website.

Nora Brown and Stephanie Coleman: The Very Day I'm Gone

BBC Radio 3's Late Junction is a treasure, so of course the station's controllers can't stop cutting it. It once ran for two hours, three time a week: now it's only 90 minutes and only on Fridays.

As Wikipedia says:

The programme has a wide musical scope. It is not uncommon to hear medieval ballads juxtaposed with 21st-century electronica, or jazz followed by international folk music followed by an ambient track.

It was on Late Junction that I heard Carl Orff's Trees and Flowers, which is surely taken from the soundtrack of a lost folk horror classic. 

And I remember hearing Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa by something called Vampire Weekend. I thought I'd discovered an obscure band to feature here one Sunday, but on further investigation they proved to be about the trendiest band in the world at that time. (Normally, of course, I'm down with the kids.)

Which brings us to Nora Brown and Steph Coleman, who I heard on Late Junction the other week. Their billing for a gig at The Harrison – a pub near St Pancras where I've been known to meet Liberator friends – in 2023 explains:

First brought together by Brooklyn’s tight-knit old-time music community in 2017, Nora Brown and Stephanie Coleman share a rich musical partnership that belies their 20 year age difference. Nora is a banjo player, and has released 3 albums on Brooklyn based Jalopy Records. She has performed across the US, Europe and Japan including NPR’s Tiny Desk and TED EDU. 

Stephanie is a master old-time fiddler, having recorded with and toured internationally over the last two decades with celebrated artists such as trailblazing all-women stringband Uncle Earl, Watchhouse’s Andrew Marlin, and clawhammer banjo virtuoso Adam Hurt. 

Nora and Stephanie recorded together on Nora’s debut album Cinnamon Tree, and have performed as a duo at such renowned festivals as the Philadelphia Folk Festival and the Trans-Pecos Festival in Marfa, TX, and are looking forward to performing at major festivals in Canada and Europe in the coming year including the Winnipeg Folk Festival and the Roskilde Festival in Copenhagen.

I like The Very Day I'm Gone, though I suspect it's best listened to in the late evening.

Richard Dimbleby, David Dimbleby, Henry Dimbleby and the hereditary principle

David Dimbleby's current television series is questioning Britain's hereditary monarchy. So it's time for a thumping ad hominem argument and some fun with the Dimblebys and the hereditary principle.

Here's his father Richard Dimbleby in 1956. Because of his work as the BBC's war correspondent during World War II, including reports from newly liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, he was Britain's most celebrated broadcaster and a significant public figure.

Embed from Getty Images

Here's Richard's son David Dimbleby making his first broadcast for the BBC at the age of 12.

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And here's David's son Henry Dimbleby, at the age of 13, in one of the two BBC adaptions of Arthur Ransome books – Coot Club and The Bix Six – in which he played a leading role in 1984.

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Keir Starmer's digital ID project is a techno-authoritarian’s wet dream, argues Carole Cadwalladr: "This is a policy that wasn’t in the Labour Party’s manifesto, that no party faithful campaigned for and that no voters were told about on the doorstep. Instead, after some brief ground softening by pet journalists in friendly newspapers, it appeared out of almost nowhere in late September."

David Nowell Smith shows that accusations of "left-wing bias" against the BBC have a long history and arose from newspapers' fear of competition: "The first coordinated newspaper campaign against the ‘Reds’ at the BBC was initiated by the Daily Mail in January 1937, less than two weeks after a new BBC Charter had given the Corporation further editorial independence."

Carolyn Jackson and Mieke Van Houtte say the high-stakes tests common in English schools could be having a serious effect on children’s wellbeing.

"Academics warned that recovery from the October 2023 cyberattack, apparently by an international ransomware gang, has been 'agonisingly slow'. Even the imminent restoration of functions such as the library’s online catalogue will be of only limited help to researchers still unable to access key resources: Frances Jones finds a lack of concern at the plight of the British Library.

"We handed a loaded weapon to four-year-olds." Alex Kantrowitz on the regrets of the man who built the retweet.

Dick Weindling and Marianne Colloms tell the remarkable story of the two men who robbed eight London banks in a morning: "Robert wrote a lengthy confession and said he did it for: 'the devilment of the matter – the excitement, the ingenuity, the almost impossible success to crown it all, urged me to attempt the fraud'."

Llyn Dulyn: The Ghosts of the Black Lake (Nationwide, 1973)

Another Fortean report from Nationwide, the BBC early-evening magazine programme that offered an unrivalled portrait of Britain in the Seventies:

Llyn Dulyn ("Black Lake" in Welsh) lies nestled in the Carneddau range of mountains in Snowdonia. 

A quiet, eerie place, it’s steeped not only in an ancient folklore of evil spirits and witches, but also a more modern variety of ghost story. It was the site of multiple airplane crashes during WWII, and became infamous across North Wales. 

In this clip, the locals speak in hushed tones to reporter John Swinfield of collecting debris from the plane wrecks, catching strange-looking fish and hearing disembodied voices calling out to them.

This report was broadcast on 17 October 1973.

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Callum Miller, the party's foreign affairs spokesperson, sets out a Liberal Democrat approach to foreign policy: "Our economy is stronger and our security greater when we work with other nations. As an open economy, the UK is a beneficiary when all nations work together and abide by shared rules."

"Gibb’s allies say he’s trying to save the BBC from itself. To me, though, his behavior resembles less a tree surgeon trying to prune an oak for stronger growth than a lumberjack sizing it into planks of wood." Jem Bartholomew dissects the right-wing plan to bring down the BBC.

An investigation by openDemocracy and the Children Rights International Network reveals the shocking extent of the bullying, harassment, self-harm, sexual offences and safeguarding failures that teenagers who join the British Army are subject to.

Fiona Daly says we have grown too comfortable with the exclusion of older people from the digital world.

Alan Tyler tells the story of the remarkable Isokon flats in Belsize Park: "Along with the Bauhaus refugees came many notable residents through the coming years – crime novelist Agatha Christie being the most famous and Soviet spymaster Arnold Deutsch probably the most notorious."

"From the start he has the air of a man who’s seen it all, little of it good. His reaction to a source being gunned down in front of him at Checkpoint Charlie is so restrained as to make it seem routine." Sara Batkie on Richard Burton's performance in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.