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Personal Note Archive December 2006

8th December 2006

The Cam at King's College

Cambridge is one of the two oldest and most famous centres of learning and knowledge in Britain. Today we associate learning with progress and change, but this has not always been so. The university town of Cambridge grew out of a group of monasteries and religious communities, where knowledge was the eternal revelation of the same unchanging truth. Somehow this early emphasis on the unchanging nature of knowledge has led to a town in which a great deal of the past has been preserved. We now have a famous university where great strides are made in knowledge, situated in one of the most historic environments to be found in Britain

 

 

 

15th December 2006

(On the 14th of December Tony Blair was interviewed by police in connection with the cash for honours controversy.)

So maybe Labour politicians accepted payment for honours; or maybe they didn't. And maybe they are being called to help enquiries, or maybe they are witnesses... There is always some scandal in the air. Compared to the parliament of the eighteenth century the peccadillos of today would have seemed ridiculous, while other standards of today would have seemed outrageous in the eighteenth century. Eighteenth century MPs accepted bribes all the time, but a young man eloping with his sweetheart, as the playwright Richard Sheridan did in 1772, resulted in the unfortunate young man being challenged to a duel for his disgraceful behaviour, during which he was seriously injured. Times change, each age finding its own scandal. But whatever form scandal takes people seem to want it even as they condemn it. Today the papers might make a big fuss if someone in the public eye does something naughty, but you can imagine the editors almost praying for a scandal to break so that their papers will sell. It seems that in every age there has to be a degree of accepted unacceptable behaviour. Scandal fits this bill. It is not proper, but it is not quite criminal; it is that divine middle way we call scandal.

Explore scandal through the life of the eighteenth century playwright and MP Richard Sheridan, and visit his beautiful house at Polesden Lacey.