in no way is it painless this loss of emotion

 read Death of empire by M K hulme  one of his trilogy books this is prohecy book 2   seen it all before  novel set in  the time of attila the hun   only   new idea that merlin was a travelling healer with the roman army    journeying with a crowd of other woadish  stereotypes from Britannia  to constantinople  a little less conversation a little more action needed in this novel!  most of the  big events  were peripheral  and the main characters Aetius, Atilla just had walk on parts  starting well it had by page 200  turned into   a 1950s melodrama of a door stop sized  Roman empire novel without a good story   in contrast to  anything by  ben kane or richard blake
with  all MK Hulme the story is padded out for  duration of the full series  and that is the weak point of this well researched  dark age series

A line in the sand  - Britain France and the struggle that shaped the modern middle East by james barr  based on Newly  declassified government papers  this is  a stuffy archive of a book that re tells the  period of the   revolt in the desert form cabinet minutes and  has less content on interwar Syria than i expected  and  then goes full speed  into the  oftold transformation  of Palestine into Israel  a more interesting book on the changes  and politics in  interwar iraq and transjordan is  reduced to a few paragraphs 




modern art british art in the early 20th century basee on the whitechapel art gallery catalogue  of 1914 and it five strands of modern art   it followed this lead to   write about sickets tabloid mrder paintings,  vortiicism tyros pastel vanessa bell    and had a good section on  blomberg  and gettlers jewsih art  lie the 1914 catalogue it only shows how art and taste are dated 

the city of london   a companion guide by nicholas kenyon    this is not the london of legends or tourist attractions  but the city area from temple to tower    concentrating on the architecture of  demolished churches,  livery halls and  the changing  sites of financial institutions from  flat Georgian edifice  to  1960s tower then  this demolished for 21st century  skyscraper

did not write much  poetry   applied for nine voluntary jobs and three college courses to move on