Robert Winder

Shakespeare is ordered by Sir Edward Coke to right a play about Henry VIII but as he is feeling guilty about the hatchet job that he done on Richard III under Elizabeth he decides that in secret he is going to write one about Henry VII and redress the balance.
Knowing that this play will never be performed and that if he is caught it will be off to the tower, he starts to suspect everyone of his friends of being in league with the crown and plotting against him. The problem for me is that I didn't care if any of his friends were plotting against him or if they got caught, Shakespeare seemed to believe that because he was Shakespeare he could do whatever he wanted to.
I don't know if the anti-scottish feeling towards James VI was Shakespeare's own feelings or if that is how the writer feels, Shakespeare in this book seems to believe that James is out to destroy England in revenge for the murder of his mother. While I won't argue that James was a weak, spoilt and ineffectual king the idea that he was plotting anything credits him with more brains than he actually had.… (meer)

"Wisden Cricketers' Almanack" is the longest running sports annual in the world, stretching back to 1864 and while I am not one of those obsessive collectors who aim to purchase a collection of the entire set, I've been known to read the odd "Wisden" in my time and enjoyed this history of the venerable tradition.

From its debut in 1864 where, for reasons known only to John Wisden, we got details of the canals of Britain and important English Civil War dates, through the nineteenth century where "Wisden" came to identify itself with the cricket establishment, and, something I hadn't realised, its complete ignorance of cricket's first Test match in 1877 (the scorecard of which wasn't published in "Wisden" until 1978). We also read of the characters that edited or contributed to "Wisden", along with the broad range of publishers and owners, whose names include Robert Maxwell and a Getty.

Long may "Wisden" continue and perhaps for its 200th anniversary we'll get an update of "The Little Wonder".… (meer)