geoffrey monmouth
Blog
Confidence – a short story
Confidence in what? Confidence is the title of my latest short story. Read the story and find out to what it refers! For once I've written a short story set in the present. If you want some more, try my collection of stories set in the past: Geoffrey's Historical...
A Matter of Honour
What matter of honour? This is the beginning of my novel Blood and Secrets. I set out my reasons for writing about the English Civil War in a previous post. This is also one of the short stories in my collection Geoffrey's Historical Shorts, which I wrote about in...
Not the Tudors again!
The Tudors are on TV again! One of the Tudors, Elizabeth I, is back on the BBC on Wednesday nights as the 1970's series Elizabeth R, starring Glenda Jackson, is repeated. I have said before that that family get more publicity in both drama and documentaries than...
Is The Great great?
The Great What? The Great is a series on Channel Four about Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia. Some people think it is a great travesty of history, whilst others enjoy it. Controversy seldom does a TV series any harm and many features of this one make for...
Marx, how can he help us study history?
Karl Marx is famous, but not as a historian Marx was an economist, wasn't he? Or you might think he was a politician. He certainly had a lot to say about economics and you can't separate that from politics. However, Marx was not actively involved in politics, as he...
Coronation Street by Geoffrey Chaucer?
Coronation Street is 60 years old Coronation Street has just been celebrating this milestone in its history. By TV standards it's been around a long time, but how does Chaucer get in on the act? When was he writing? From the middle to late fourteenth century. Did his...
Does the slave trade on screen shock you?
The slave trade has been in the news and on screen People are thinking about the slave trade a lot this year because of Black Lives Matter and the arguments about statues. There was also the film Twelve Years a Slave. I have seen a series Enslaved with Samuel L...
A historic election – World leaders respond
An election like no other Here's how I imagine some world leaders might react to the current US election, if they were being honest. If. (I have omitted their surnames to preserve their anonymity, a thing they all crave.) "It reminds me of my historic victory in...
How inclusive is Black History Month?
Inclusive? Of course it is! Inclusive education is the whole point of Black History Month, surely? The aim was always to redress the balance, because many people thought history was all about white people. As I said before, history often seemed to be very narrow, and...
Build Back Better – will we do it?
Build Back Better is the new slogan of this government Build Back Better sounds good. I hope we all can agree with it. The Prime Minister's speech offering us a better future sounded good too. The trouble is that gave such little detail that we don't know where we're...
Should schools teach Black History?
Black History Month is October Black History Month takes on a special significance this year, as we have heard so much about race in the UK and the USA. I hope a historical perspective will help us all. As I have said in previous posts, I want us to face the truth,...
I need a title for my new novel
A title for what? I need a title for a book I have been writing for some time. It is set against the background of the English Civil War. It seemed so relevant when I began it last year, when the big issue was Brexit. The divisions in society in 2019 reminded me of...