An Anglo-Saxon herbal and other tangents

Well, I am just about coping being confined to barracks. Working from home with the uncertainty of this situation is a little stressful but I have to keep going, though having things cut off in their midst is very strange and unsettling as I am quite a hands on person and can lose perspective being stuck in near isolation. Still, I am well. 

Being home I have been reading more and have been picking up again on Spitalfields’s Life, the Gentle Author's  London Blog. The other day there was great post on an Anglo-Saxon herbal, which reminded me of how  I enjoyed teaching a small unit on the History of English quite a few years ago and how I enjoyed reading Melvyn Bragg's The Adventure or English - wide and sweeping -  and David Crystal's guides to the development of the English Language; he has written several. I would advise anyone with an interest in language, history or culture or all three to check them out.

I picked up on the ideas in these books about language, culture and power again when GCSE English was still exploratory and fun and we took our students through the spoken language study looking at speeches and rhetoric, through to multi-modal talk and the relevance of accents and pronunciation. One of my favourite web sites at that time was the British Library's  Sound Archive, where you will find a treasure trove of regional accents from the past 100 years to say nothing of other delights. I will may pay more visits during my time in social isolation.

Also, today I am pleased that Keir Starmer won the Labour Leadership with Angela Rayner as his deputy. The Corbyn experiment didn't work but I hope Starmer does abolish tuition fees and put essential services back in to government hands if he gets into power.

Spitalfields Life - Anglo-Saxon herbal
The Adveture of English
Sounds British Library archive
Keir Starmer wins Labour leadership election