Six of the Best 412

Armour-Plated Liberalism is right to point out that the debate over the origins and morality of the First World War is more nuanced than Michael Gove or his critics would have you believe. "This year will see many of these myths recycled on all matter of platforms by all manner of people. It is important that we challenge them when they make these assertions; not just because what they say is often wrong, but because those who fought in the war are no longer here to speak against them."

"By the end of this year, I believe, we will begin to see the true cost of the targets and compliance regime of the Blair/Brown years, and it will begin to explain why public services have become so expensive that we seem - at least according to the Chancellor - not to be able to afford them any more." David Boyle on the toll of targets in the public sector.

Mike Jay writes in Aeon Magazine about Geel, a little town in Belgium that has been treating the mentally ill for centuries.

Simon Lovestone on NIHR Biomedical Research pays tribute to the way the Archers treated Jack Woolley's illness.

How's your Hungarian. If, like mine, it is a little rusty, you can still enjoy these photographs of some of the world's most remarkable libraries on Positivnap.

Celluloid Wicker Man reviews Mark Gatiss's Christmas adaptation of M.R. James's ghost story The Tractate Middoth for the BBC: "Gatiss knows which of the classic adaptations work best but, perhaps more importantly, knows where their potential shortcomings were too.  His ghost was not to be seen running, or even barely moving unlike some of its predecessors.  It also remains ambiguous as to whether the hauntings are dreams or reality."