Break update

Dear Readers,

Here is to tell you I am still on my break. It is a relief to be exempt from the pressure of posting every day. It is also a relief to be listening fewer podcasts and only those that I feel like listening to and not all those that I have to get a bite of in order to be able to write about them. The blogging and the listening had begun to resemble a job rather than a hobby. If it were a job, I'd do it with pleasure and ten times better than I ever did. But it is not and to have to squeeze it in with a real job and family life, while the blog was becoming more and more demanding (more and more podcasts to keep track of) got just a tad too much.

So, that is why I am away. That is why I listen less, but surely,while updating you, I might as well relate what I am listening to these days.

I find myself with three podcast about the First World War:
Veertien Achttien, the unmatched weekly bio of a participant in the war, be it on war or the home front. This remarkable Dutch podcast aims to supply a weekly bio for as long as the Great War itself lasted, that is for some 230 weeks. By now the podcast has reached week 170 without ever failing and at an outstanding constant quality. Another aim is said to translate the podcast into English and to start repeating the weekly feat from 2014 until 2018. Stay posted! (feed)

First World War Centenary podcast by the Imperial War Museum, offering extracts from their unique oral history program.

History of the First World War, an amateur podcast that offers a very accessible military history of the first world war. Currently the podcast is on hiatus, hopefully not for long. (feed)

As the Palestinian bid for statehood is pending at the UN, I also want to point you to a couple of podcast episodes that offer an unexpected perspective on the Middle-East conflict, but that I will report in another post. Stay tuned.

Anne

A break

Dear Readers,

I have begun taking a break from the blog. In due time I will be back to posting, but for the time being it will be very infrequent.

To keep you busy, here are a couple of recent finds I wish to recommend:

1- 2011 Reith Lectures; the lectures have resumed and a looking into the question of protecting Freedom in society. (feed)
2- History of England by David Crowther (feed) - a very nice history of England by following the line of the Royal Family of England as far as it can be traced back. One thing to keep in mind when you start: Crowther calls the Britons 'British' which can easily confuse or even confound (a war of the English on the British? That is between Britons and Anglo-Saxons)
3- History of the First World War - a history with emphasis on the military aspects of the war and with an interesting batch of stories about fronts other than the Western or the Eastern front. In stead of looking up the feed, I recommend to download from the site as the feed contains only the last handful of the entire 44 episodes so far.

Anne