Charlie Fenton > Recent Status Updates

‘Soon afterwards, however, Mosley began his pursuit; and all changed. He had been observing Diana since a ball the previous summer, given at the Park Lane house owned by her brother’s friend, Sir Philip Sassoon. He had an eye on her, naturally. Pre-publicity is a great aid to desire, and no woman in London had more of that than Diana.‘

‘Mosley was fourteen years older than Diana, and perhaps at their respective ages the gap was too great to be bridged – she would have looked to him like a lovely schoolgirl, not a potential paramour. He had both hands full anyway, as another guest of the Astors was his sister-in-law and mistress Lady Ravensdale (‘Vote Labour, sleep Tory’ was then his motto).’

‘Wotton was a mature statesman heading towards retirement. He was also a secret convert to Catholicism and 1612 marked the beginning of a twelve year period of recusancy during which he failed to attend services at his parish church of Boughton Malherbe, seventeen miles west of Canterbury.’

‘Eleanor of Provence maintained a connection with Canterbury throughout her married life, occasionally celebrating Christmas there, as she did in 1262, and sharing her husband’s devotion to St Thomas the Martyr (St Thomas Becket). When, in the autumn of 1237, it was feared that Eleanor might be barren, she undertook a joint pilgrimage to Becket’s shrine with Joan, queen of Scots, Henry III’s older sister.’

‘The King’s School constitutions of 1541 stipulated that fifty pauper boys should be schooled on the foundation, while later in the century a further sixteen could attend the Blue Coat School in the Poor Priests Hospital in Stour Street, where they learned arithmetic, reading and writing. A further twenty ‘poor boys’ were taught at the Jesus Hospital in St Mary Northgate.‘

‘There is also evidence of late medieval material culture of devotion to St Dunstan in Canterbury from an inventory of a sixteenth-century monk’s chamber. Among the items recorded on the death of brother Richard Stone was ‘a blood red curtain for the high altar with scenes from St. Dunstan’s life’, possibly embroidered by Stone himself since his coffer held twenty-two skeins of thread.‘

‘the monks smashed open Dunstan’s shrine and dragged out the coffin. Watched over by Warham and Prior Goldstone, they opened it and found it contained a complete skeleton in archiepiscopal dress, and a lead label which read ‘Sanctus Dunstanus Archiepiscopus.’ The monks removed the skull, which was reverently kissed by all present before being given to Goldstone to be set in a silver reliquary.‘

‘Justice was also for sale. In 1507, Dudley ensured the pardon of a Sussex gentleman, indicted for murder, for £200 paid to the king; Dudley ended up with his lands and manor. Dudley certainly enriched himself as he worked for the king. He offered to pay a Cheshire landowner’s debt in 1507 in exchange for his two manors; perhaps a fair deal, except that Dudley had imposed the debt to begin with.’

‘"Why?" he asked again, this time with
increased volume as he turned around to
face her. "Why? It's because I love you, damn me to hell. Because I've always loved you. Because I loved you when you were with John, and I loved you when I was in India, and God only knows I don't deserve you, but I love you, anyway."’

Audiobook version, not on here.

‘“Please,” he says.
Nothing.
And when it comes to it, he can’t do it. If he could make them understand what it was he was threatening them with, maybe it would be different.’

“In its immature, asexual form, Ophiocordyceps toppled our global civilisation in the space of three years. The only reason it didn’t achieve global pandemic status at once, the only reason any pockets of uninfected humans were able to survive, was because the immature organism can only propagate – neotenously – in biofluid.”

‘in some cases to destroy infrastructure that might have saved a lot of lives. Luton Airport, for instance. That got torched with about forty planes still on the ground, so when the next memo came round – about evacuating the uninfected to the Channel Islands using commercial carrier fleets – all the army could do was shrug its collective shoulders and say, "Yeah, we wish.”’

‘“She thinks,” Francesca said, shuddering as she turned to him, “that we are conducting an affair.”
“After only a week back in London,” he
murmured thoughtfully. “I'm faster than
imagined.”’

‘What Parks can see is that the nightmare-that-walks-like-a-girl is wide-eyed and trembling, barely in control of itself. Everyone in the car is chemmed up, e-blocker from hairline to socks, but there’s enough blood kicking around – on Caldwell’s hands and arms and clothes, on the kid herself – to be pushing her triggers anyway. He’s never seen a hungry in a meat frenzy and not acting on it.‘

‘Miss Justineau doesn’t answer, but Melanie knows that Dr Caldwell is wrong. Miss Justineau can do anything she wants to do. She’s like Prometheus, and Dr Caldwell is like Zeus. Zeus thought he was big and clever because he was a god, but the Titans weren’t scared of him at all. Of course, in the story, the Titans lost in the end – but Melanie is in no doubt about who’s going to win this battle.’

‘She scares the shit out of him, and he can’t explain why. Or maybe he can, and he doesn’t like to think about it. Certainly a part of it is that unfailing good-little-girl smarminess she’s got. An animal like that, even if it looks like a human being, should make meaningless sounds or no sounds at all. Hearing it talk just muddies the waters.’

‘to stare at her, his eyes tracking her movements. It doesn’t mean he’s alive. Dr Caldwell takes the view that the moment of death is the moment when the pathogen crosses the blood–brain barrier. What’s left, though its heart may beat (some ten or twelve times per minute), and though it speaks and can even be christened with a boy’s name or a girl’s name, is not the host. It’s the parasite.’

‘And by this time, Melanie has thought of the big exception to that rule about kids having mothers and fathers – Pandora, who didn’t have a mother or a father because Zeus just made her out of gloopy clay. Melanie thinks that would be better, in some ways, than having a mother and a father who you never even got to meet. The ghost of her parents’ absence hovers around her, makes her uneasy.’

Death of the young Princess Elizabeth:
‘The princess’s body was conveyed to Westminster Abbey in a black chariot with six horses trapped in black, her coffin covered with a black cloth fringed with red and white roses. An inscription at the foot of her effigy - ‘Death snatched her away’ - reflects the feelings of her grief-stricken parents.‘

‘tactics was “check kiting,” a fraudulent practice that takes advantage of the several days banks need for deposited checks to officially clear. First, Anna opened checking accounts with Citibank and Signature Bank. Then, she wrote checks from one account to the other. She didn’t actually have the funds to cover the checks, but the money would show up in her account, and she would immediately withdraw it’

‘Meanwhile, under the guise of friendship, she tethered herself to my core. With every hour we spent together, her power grew. Where I felt connection, she felt control. Before I knew it, I was coming to rely on her. After Morocco, all that remained was a void—my life, hollow; her promises, empty; our friendship, without meaning.’

‘The delay weighed on my nerves, but since I had faith the funds would arrive any minute, I didn’t tell anyone about it. It didn’t seem necessary, and I’d always been taught that financial matters were private. If I were Anna, I’d have been embarrassed to put such a strain on a friend. By not blabbing about it to others, I was being respectful.‘

Just waiting for the moment it dawns on her.

‘She started in the shallow end and swam out fast. She invested in her appearance as if it were a business expense. She went to Christian Zamora for $400 full eyelash extensions, or $140 touch-ups here and there. She went to Marie Robinson Salon for $400 color and Sally Hershberger for $200 cuts. She wanted to try everything: cryotherapy, microcurrent facials, beauty-­boosting IV drips, and on and on.’

‘The religious changes were especially damaging to the thousands of chapels which had come into existence to honour Christ or a saint. They had depended for their survival on pilgrimages and offerings, and had relied on indulgences to attract worshippers. The leaders of the Reformation disliked chapels for those reasons and, one suspects, because chapels were seen as weakening the control of the authorities’

‘taught us that sex before marriage inevitably led to heartbreak, irreversible physical damage, and diminished human worth. The abstinence pitch centered on saving the prize of your “diamond zone” (an invisible area that starts at your neck, goes out to include your breasts and mid-region, and concludes at your crotch) for your future husband. You saved your diamond until you got a diamond (wedding ring).’

‘She came from an outside Christian-based organization and was brought in by the school to teach this portion of the health curriculum. “Okay, now raise your hand if you’re a second-time virgin.” This meant that you had already lost your virginity, but having seen the error of your ways, you had repented and declared your virginity anew, presumably until marriage.’

I have no words for this concept.

‘I watch them. The two foremost women in my life. They have been friends since Kate first arrived to marry Arthur; they dance together, exchange silk swatches and fabrics. I have never felt jealous of their bond before but now that Mary is displeased with me, I find it difficult. I want to tear their hands apart and demand the attention and affection I deserve.’

‘There are those who have murmured that it is foolhardy to leave a woman in charge of the realm, and a Spaniard at that, but … I shout them down. Kate is my queen. She is ripe with England’s heir and will do all in her power to advance the good of the country for the sake of her husband and her unborn son. She has my absolute faith, my absolute devotion and my absolute love.’

‘The Banqueting House was fitted up after
the fire as the principal Chapel Royal
by the architect Christopher Wren, to
replace the burnt Tudor chapel. William IlI
intended to rebuild Whitehall Palace, but
the funding was never available, and the
plans came to nought. The King required
an impressive London chapel in which
he could be observed worshipping in
the Protestant faith’