The Joy of Six 1582

"Watching him involved engaging a kind of cognitive dissonance: this desperate, thin man was the same person as a sweet 6-year-old saying he wanted to learn about the moon; a handsome 20-year-old studying Physics in Oxford flirting with the camera; a 48-year-old who had realised that the research he was still passionate about had hit a dead end." Jude Rogers on 70 Up.

Ferdinand Mount has no truck with the idea that Britain has always welcomed refugees: "The usual narrative of the Peasants' Revolt describes John Ball and Wat Tyler's march to London, Ball's sermon at Blackheath ('When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?') and the brave conduct of the young Richard II. We don’t often hear about the massacre of the Flemings in Cheapside on 14 June, though it was at the heart of the revolt and an episode of frenzied violence. According to a contemporary chronicle, the rebels 'beheaded without judgment or trial all the Flemings they found, so that mounds of corpses were to be seen in the streets'."

Norman Baker looks at why politicians deny climate change and champion fossil fuels.

"The more I encountered these stories where political and emotional commitments seemed irreconcilable, the more I began to ask: what was life like for those who found themselves inescapably drawn to someone they shouldn’t be?" Alison Garden leads a project building an archive of oral histories documenting mixed marriage in Ireland.

"If you believe he was an imposter, then you believe he was the son of a “boatman” from Tournai, forced to play the role of Richard, Duke of York. If you believe he was Richard, Duke of York, then he was actually the rightful heir to the English throne." Sophie Bacchus-Waterman is writing a biography of Perkin Warbeck.

Animation Obsessive takes us behind the scenes of the classic Bugs Bunny cartoon 'What's Opera, Doc?': "At a cost of $35,510 (almost $430,000 today), it was spendier than most Warner cartoons. It took seven weeks compared to the standard five. To get the extra work done, Jones and his crew secretly shaved a couple weeks off other, easier films and faked their time cards." 

Six of the Best 910

"The branding is painfully dated. That awful yellow ‘bird of liberty’ that was adopted in 1989 as the party logo should have been put down a long time ago." Otto English considers the Liberal Democrats' continuing lack of success.

Ferdinand Mount puts the 'low-tar fascism' of the new Conservative government in historical context.

Nick Tyrone says does not want to see any more referendums on anything at all. He is right (and right about the plural of 'referendum').

Emma Bartholomew listens to East End residents' memories of work and leisure by the Regent's Canal,

Seven years ago part of Ludlow's town wall collapsed. It has still not been rebuilt, reports Andy Boddington.

"The local authorities, mistakenly believing the dog to be dangerous, issue instructions to shoot it on sight. Recognising it a fellow misunderstood outsider, Sébastien shelters and befriends the dog, naming her Belle and enjoying a series of adventures." Tim Worthington on Belle and Sebastian, which the BBC showed in every school holiday when I was young.

Six of the Best 629

Alwyn Turner paints a portrait of Tom Watson - "an overfed Che Guevara".

"I started out drawing clear lines linking schoolmates to flatmates, Bullingdon buddies and policy wonks, but pretty soon exactly the same people started popping up in new guises — as fellow MPs, cabinet colleagues, party donors — and the lines started to veer into ever more deranged spirals as everyone turned out to be linked, several times over, to everyone else." Emily Hill on the rise and full of the Cameron chumocracy.

Ferdinand Mount reviews a new biography of Karl Marx: "By the end of his life, his was a name to strike terror into bourgeois hearts across Europe, which gave him no little satisfaction. Yet at his funeral in Highgate Cemetery there were only eleven mourners."

In 2013 the poet Geoffrey Hill, who died earlier this year, was interviewed by Sameer Rahim.

"As soon as I saw those huge rust-coloured bridges stretching across the Tyne I knew this was Jack’s manor. Tough, ruthless and uncompromising." Mike Hodges talks to Adam Scovell about Get Carter.

John Fleming tells the sad story of the fallen Blue Peter presenter Christopher Trace.

Six of the Best 598

"His father was a foreign correspondent for The Times, and he was a great-grandson of civil engineer Sir Alexander Meadows Rendel, and a great-great-nephew of Liberal MP Stuart Rendel, the first Baron Rendel, a benefactor of William Gladstone." Paul Walter pays tribute to David Rendel, who has died aged 67.

Ferdinand Mount dissects the Brexiteers: "No one since Greta Garbo has said ‘I want to be alone’ with such feeling. Or perhaps it’s not so much Garbo as the chant sung by the fans of Millwall FC that I should be thinking of: ‘No one likes us, we don’t care.’ At the time of writing, Millwall are lying fourth in Football League One. For the uninitiated, this is really the Third Division."

Jeremy Corbyn is acting like the leader of a minor party and Nick Clegg acted like the leader of a major party, argues William Barter.

Memphis Barker says the next leader of the Greens should not be a water melon.

Lynne About Loughborough attended the commemoration of the centenary of the Zeppelin raid on the town.

The comma splice is becoming more common, Daniel McMahon will tell you why it is wrong.

"Belligerent youths" wins Phrase of the Day

On Liberator's blog Simon Titley suggests some ways of putting life back into the Liberal Democrat Conference and incidentally wins our Phrase of the Day Award:

If any government ministers want to deliver speeches, let them take their chances in the rough and tumble of debate. Or speak at a fringe meeting. Or do a TV interview outside the hall. Anything but clog up the agenda with the sheer tedium of their over-rehearsed speeches. 

The belligerent youths in the leader’s office wouldn't like it, of course.

I have just finished Ferdinand Mount's The New Few: Or a Very British Oligarchy and this patrician Tory and kinsman of David Cameron takes a similar view of the modern party conference. I strongly recommend his book.