The Hump of the Camel

When I mentioned Le Morte d’Arthur recently I observed in passing the blase way in which mediaeval aristocrats fought wars with their relatives for their power, consigning thousands of their unsung soldiery to death in the process.

I thought I ought to read Mallory’s Le Morte d’Arthur before I die. Not only is it one of those “monuments to English prose,” but to be honest I wanted some temporary escapism from the present evil age. The edition I got from Amazon, for a mere 15 quid or so, gives reading pleasure of the old sort in itself – leather bound, gold-edged, illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley, nice illuminated large-cap chapter starts, with old Gothic script headings, and with a modern scholarly introduction. Handling that old-school volume is as much superior to a Kindle edition as a live church service is to a webcast. It was printed in China, of course.

A comment I noticed on a blog today, after someone suggested that there would be huge political ramifications once the truth of one of the COVID lies emerges: “Most Americans don’t trust the government already – but they still obey it.”