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nigelhillpaul6
Dec 21, 20234 min read
NOSH
Breakfast around the Middle East is usually a washout. Two places I’ve enjoyed it have been the Hotel Baron in Aleppo and over the border...
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nigelhillpaul6
Dec 21, 20233 min read
THE GENTLEMAN IN THE RED WAISTCOAT
I saw him one last time this morning, before closing the back door and heading off to work, the little Gentleman in the Red Waistcoat,...
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nigelhillpaul6
Nov 23, 20234 min read
CREATORS, CONQUERORS, & CITIZENS: A HISTORY OF ANCIENT GREECE – ROBIN WATERFIELD, OUP, 544pp, £25.00
I bought my first book on Greek history as a small boy in a second-hand bookshop in Saffron Walden. Those great nodding crests hooked me...
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nigelhillpaul6
Nov 23, 20234 min read
MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC SECTARIANISM – CHRISTINE D. BAKER Arc Humanities Press, 120pp, £11.95
My grandfather used to read a couple of pages from the Oxford English Dictionary every day throughout his retirement, telling anyone who...
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nigelhillpaul6
Nov 23, 20234 min read
The Emergence Of The English By Prof. S. Oosthuizen Arc Humanities Press £11.95
I tend to approach books like this with either a degree of trepidation or resignation. As a Welshman, I have had a lifetime of smiling...
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nigelhillpaul6
Nov 23, 20237 min read
THE THEODOSIAN WALLS pt. II 1-DEC-2016 (Published in Issue Seven of the Byzantine Times)
Well, we’ve had a chance for a bit of a break halfway along the Walls; there is after all, rather a lot of them to cover. A chance to...
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nigelhillpaul6
Nov 23, 20236 min read
OUTLANDISH KNIGHT: THE BYZANTINE LIFE OF STEVEN RUNCIMAN Minoo Dinshaw-Penguin 784pp
I once turned down an invitation to meet the subject of this biography (a girl or a riot; it all seems to blur into one these days) I...
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nigelhillpaul6
Nov 2, 20233 min read
ON HERESY
I am orthodox, you are error strewn; they are deeply heretical. We have always striven for a way to mark ourselves as part of a...
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nigelhillpaul6
Nov 2, 20233 min read
AUGUSTINE: CONVERSIONS AND CONFESSIONS Robin Lane Fox-Penguin 672pp
Augustine always reminded me of a clever little, provincial, mummy’s boy, who I could almost picture revelling in his Carthaginian accent...
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nigelhillpaul6
Sep 15, 20233 min read
MABINOGI: MATTHEW FRANCIS Faber & Faber, 112pp, £14.99
'Here at the turn of a leaf a horseman is riding Through the space between one world And another.' I struggle in Welsh and am (I am told)...
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