A guillotine in Picadilly
: Nice and timely lines in today’s Times review of Master and Commander:
O you want to see a guillotine in Piccadilly? Do you want your children to grow up singing the ‘Marseillaise’?” This is Jack Aubrey, commander of H.M.S. Surprise, rousing the patriotism of his men as they prepare to engage a faster, larger French vessel somewhere off the coast of South America….
It is tempting to read some contemporary geopolitical relevance into this film, which appears at a moment when some of the major English-speaking nations are joined in a military alliance against foes we sometimes need to be reminded do not actually include France.
Oh, that’s right.
