#ackroyd

I used to draw a lot back when I was a teenager, but I was never really good at it. Pretty bad actually, so I quit trying.

History is about longing and belonging. It is about the need for permanence and the perception of continuity. It concerns the atavistic desire to find deep sources of identity. We live again in the twelfth or in the fifteenth century, finding echoes and resonances of our own time; we may recognise that some things, such as piety and passion, are never lost; we may also conclude that the great general drama of the human spirit is ever fresh and ever renewed. That is why some of the greatest writers have preferred to see English history as dramatic or epic poetry, which is just as capable of expressing the power and movement of history as any prose narrative; it is a form of singing around a fire.

Ackroyd: I'm not doing so well, I admit.

Ackroyd & Harvey: The Art of Activism review – culture and politics collide in film of eco-artist double act | Film