Day Off Week 48 2023

In week 47 we were down in South Wales for two days with the family but this week it was back to the more normal arrangement. Dale Ralph Davis's latest book on the Psalms (38-51) is now out and is well up to scratch. I am enjoying it immensely and finding it very helpful. There has been a lot of publicity about Ridley Scott's film Napooleon so I decided to go see it at our nearby Imax cinema. It does merit such a viewing and kept me gripped throughout. How accurate it is is debatable and we could have done without some of the material included that make ita 15. Nevertheless, you get an idea of the impact Napoleon made in his time at least. In the evning I watched a further episode of the current Shetland which seems t be thriving despite losing its main character (actually the main character is Shetland itself).

Napoleon and St Luke

de Tolly
(копия Serge Lachinov (обработка для wiki), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

In J G Lockhart's Life of Napoleon Buonaparte there is a reference to Marshal M A Barclay de Tolly and in a footnote Lockhart, a Scotsman, says "This officer had been born and educated in Germany. He was descended from an ancient Scottish family, exiled for adherence to the Stuarts, in 1715." I remember someone remarking that it was only Lockhart who mentions the Scots connection few other historians finding it worth remarking on. Lockhart was interested because of his own Scots; blood.
It is an interesting observation in light of Acts 6:5 where Luke tells us, with no comment on most of the others, that the last of the seven appointed, Nicolas, was a Gentile convert to Judaism from Antioch. Does that suggest that, as tradition maintains, Luke himself was from Antioch? The Expositors Greek Testament certainly says that "It was a notice of special interest to St. Luke if his own home was at Antioch".

Cruise 03

Our first port of call was Ajaccio, which is on the western coast of Corsica. Now Corsica I knew about and that Napoleon was born there - actually in Ajaccio itself, and in the house above. (The plaque says Napoelon est ne dans cette maison Le XV Auoust M DCCLXIX - Naopoleon was born in this house 15 August 1769). Closed on Mondays it turns out ;-(. Anyway we had a nice look round and found a lovely sandy beach for the boys to play on. We also saw this statue of Napoleon and his four brothers. My nephew William very kindly acted as the horse. Technically my second son should be sat on him not my fifth. (Napoleon also had two or three sisters).

I had with me for the trip Paul Johnson's recent biography of Napoleon, which I have almost completed. I can recommend it for its brevity, detail, insight, grasp of the subject and unwillingness to believe in myths. We all ought to know at least this much about Napoleon. He truly was a phenomenon.

The other thing that fascinated us in Corse was being able to see snow on the mountains even while we were quite warm among the palm trees.