"We are all immigrants"

You may have thought I was joking earlier and that Janina might have been engaging in a spot of wishful thinking, but now it's straight from the horse's mouth...and the Guardian...

Yes, the BBC really did choose to go with its new Game of Thrones-style epic, The Last Kingdom, because of its helpful 'message' about immigration - i.e. that we English are all immigrants:

Bernard Cornwell: BBC made The Last Kingdom due to its 'interesting echoes of today'

The BBC was inspired to make a lavish new series about King Alfred the Great because of current debates about immigration and nationhood, according to the author of the historical drama. 

The Last Kingdom is based on the novels of Bernard Cornwell about how King Alfred became the first king of the Anglo-Saxons and created England. 

Cornwell said the BBC was interested in the story because it had echoes of today. 

“That’s why they [the BBC] picked it”, he said. “I do see something modern in it – that we are all immigrants. The Saxons are immigrants – according to the British, the Celts, they have stolen the land they have. The first shield wall battle which Uhtred takes part in is [for the Saxons] against the Welsh. 

“The Saxons were very successful colonisers, and neighbours, then the Danes, the Normans, the Huguenots, you name it … right through to this century, we are all immigrants.”

Thank you Mr Cornwell for confirming yet again that the BBC has precisely the agenda we think it has.

"...a mixed, culturally-diverse place, very cosmopolitan..."

Ah, the BBC and its 'messages'...

Last night's Front Row on Radio 4 previewed The Last Kingdom, the BBC's new epic drama/attempt to cash in on the success of Game of Thrones. It concerns the Vikings' invasion of Anglo-Saxon England. BBC historian Dr Janina Ramirez talked to Kirsty Lang about it.

According to Dr Ramirez, it looks as if it might 'express' a familiar BBC point:

And there's some very important questions being asked about identity - something we still need to ask ourselves today. It's a truism that we trace English heritage back to the Anglo-Saxons but that in fact...it was a mixed, culturally-diverse place, very cosmopolitan, and this series, I think expresses that very well.

I bet it does.

*****

Away from bias,

Front Row also talked haiku.

New finds, old poet.

Two hundred haiku

by eighteenth century great

Yosa Buson found.

Show's guest compared it

to discovering lost Keats' 

notebook, miracle.

Guest, wise as water,

Translated one found Buson

For us. Petals fell.

"The torn paper um-

brella has just become a 

ghoul with moonlit eyes".

Tip for Halloween:

Must tear paper umbrella,

scare trick or treaters.