The gloom begins to lift??

A couple of things have just begun to lift my gloom a little.

First up, this week's Biography class was exceptional. We were given a whole stake of primary sources related to Anne Boleyn, together with a 10-page biographical piece. Our task was to try to digest the primary material and consider how we might use each bit. This is exactly the sort of deep thinking class that I am most keen on. My knowledge is Anne Boleyn is actually quite slight based solely on the recent movie, The Other Boleyn Girl, and the small amount I have absorbed by general education, but I have have become very interested in her as a result of this class. So I was instantly considering buying a relatively-scholarly biography of her and examining in some detail how the primary sources have been used.

Included in the primary material was a collection ofr contemporary portraits of Anne Boleyn. This is not much like she looked, but is a nice picture! Natalie Portman in The Other Boleyn Girl

My favourite of a selection of portraits of Anne Boleyn

On a similar-ish theme, one of the weekend papers had an article on Delaroche's painting, The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, especially the rather "up, down, up" view that people have had of it over time. I am rather in the "up" camp, and have always quite liked what might be called "heroic narrative painting". Amazing to think that for years it was rolled up in a storeroom below what is now Tate Britain. The picture is now at the National Gallery and might well be worth a look. Apparently Nancy Mitford once told Evelyn Waugh that this painting was the source of her teenage sexual fantasies - not very clear to me why this was the case

Delaroche's The Execution of Lady Jane Grey from the National Gallery

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In Oxford I had a good look at biographies of Anne Boleyn before selecting Eric Ives's The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn: The Most Happy. The main rival was Alison Weir's very recent book and I might buy that one as well soon. Ives's book looks the most scholarly. We already have several books by Alison Weir around the house and I would like to get some idea on her career as a biographer

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One of my books on doing a PhD has a chapter on "flagging" and I have been reading this for advice on getting moving forward again. Advice was to do some reading in related, but different areas, select and read some short articles and listen to some music. I could do all that I reckon. Interestingly, this particular book was bought and read initially in 1997 - so I have apparently been seriously considering a research degree for the last 12 years.

New downsides, though, include problems with the website from which I download UK TV programme and the death of Captain Phil Harris of the Cornelia Marie from my favourite TV show, Deadliest Catch. A couple of night's ago, I was watching an episode when he had really overdone it - awake for close to 4 days by drinking 55 cans of Red Bull. Amazing that he was only 53 - a warning to us all.

And to end on an upnote - we did have a nice Valentine's day meal though Linda is not very well at the moment. An M&S, £20 special, supplemented by one or two extras, and pretty good too.