Noblesse Oblige

One of the most compete explorations of this double-edged sword is to be found in Jean Renoir's "La Règle du Jeu". The hypocricies of the ruling classes (and who is not a hypocrite and so will not enjoy this?) and snobberies of their servants are beautifully choreographed.

However it is also probably one of the most frightening films ever made, as the homicidal underplay of themes and primordial emotions are danced out on the brink of what was to be a world war.

I have never lived through the worst excesses of rationing, denouncements of friends and family that lead to death, living for the day as you never know what tomorrow might bring.
But, looking at the royal tour around Ireland I have to admit how toughening a long life, which included the worries of many wars, has strengthened the generation that reared me.

The stamina of the royals is what most people seem to be discussing.
I find it increasingly worrying, but it could be that they are well able for it and that they carry within the genetic material which led to the successful invasion of Ireland in the first place.

How could a poetry crazed romantic Celt have any chance against the law makers who marched across both of the islands herabouts? The tithe system hit everybody in Europe after the Normans came to power and ruined a society that was getting on quite nicely. The crazed monks who sided with Rome finished the job off. Their greed (in some cases monasteries made war on one another) is one of the reasons that so many castles are now in ruins after the stupidity of Henry the VIII's unimaginative solution.

I have great regard for the Norman ability to resolve problems through rule of law, however.

Noblesse Oblige...