I very much enjoy this kind of doco series. They may not be so scholarly as history books, depends on who creates them. But the advantage of having vision is a positive trade off. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, eventually embracing Spain and its international possessions, along with the East European expansion up till the 1914-18 war anyway, made it a powerful force to rival the British Empire. But of course empires are a notion to be expunged from our history in this post-cultural world. I doubt very much if your average school student even knows it existed. But they probably know every top 100 band of the last 10 years. I'm looking forward to watching the rest of it.
Victoria
I knew this series existed but never got round to having a look at it till now. Judging by Ep 1 it may be worth seeing, especially if it deals with a lot of 19th century British history. As you get old it's both important and entertaining to keep focusing the little grey cells on fresh intellectual experiences.
Strange Birds
It was so damn hot yesterday that I decided to just watch the idiot box from lunch onwards. This 2017 movie from France features not only one of the greats of the country’s cinema in Jean Sorrel, but also what I grew to love about French Cinema of a certain period, namely a certain mood of pleasurable ennui, if there is such a mood. The plot if there was one came out of nowhere and disappeared in the same direction, but it didn't matter. The mood was all.
