Winston Churchill Motivational Posters

The fine folks over at Art of Manliness have put together a fine selection of Winston Churchill Related motivational posters.

Here’s my favorite:

The old codger was really a romantic at heart.

Check out the rest of the Winston Churchill Motivational posters here.

Anglophile Reviews: Churchill’s Secret Skills by Binden Shovel

This book is a lovely little self-pulbished title that was sent to me for review. Everyone knows I’m a huge admirer of Winston Churchill and this book provides a fascinating insight into the man and how he thought.

The book is called Churchill’s Secret Skills and is a unique look through history at Churchill’s qualities and how they can be used today in a business setting.

The author, Binden Shovel, has carefully done his research and it shows. The book is well written, thorough and joy to read.

I soak up anything about Winston Churchill and this book has made an excellent addition to my Anglophile Library. Shovel provides illuminating commentary backed up by primary source documents. All in all, it makes a very interesting read.

One neat thing about the book is the way it portrays Churchill as a person, a person who knew how to use people in order to get things done. There’s a lot of good nuggets in the book about how to manage people so this book succeeds in it’s intentions to show the business world how a few lessons from history will help them have a better business.

So, if you’re looking for a way to combine work with Churchill, this is the book. Well worth the money.

5 out of 5 Union Jacks for informative history with a modern purpose.

Buy Churchill’s Secret Skills Today on Amazon for $14.95

Anglophile Reviews: HBO’s Into the Storm – Winston Churchill During World War II

I really enjoyed HBO’s recent airing of “Into the Storm” and will watch it a million times. However, it has serious flaws and I don’t think it’s on the same caliber as it’s predecessor “The Gathering Storm.”

The film, made in partnership between HBO and BBC Films is pretty much a direct sequel to “The Gathering Storm which aired several years ago. “Gathering” was all about the events leading up to World War 2 and Churchill’s warnings of an ascendant Hitler. But it wasn’t just about that – it was about Churchill the man and his relationship with his wife – whom he loved very much. And that’s the strength of “The Gathering Storm.”

The writer of “Into the Storm” (who was the same as the other one) seems to have forgotten about all that and decided to focus on the broad strokes of history. I’ve been salivating over the idea of a movie that focused on Britain during World War II. There aren’t that many these days as most films focus on American involvement, often ignoring the fact that the Brits stood alone for almost 4 years.

I think the biggest failure of this movie is that it was not longer. There was so much story to tell, so many events that were skipped over that I think it’s lacking. I think the characterization of Winston Churchill was good – however, I don’t think Brenden Gleeson was a very convincing Churchill. You could hear the actor’s Irish accent invading his acting and it was distracting. I really believe that Albert Finney played a better Churchill. The most maddening thing was the terrible lighting inflicted upon Brenden Gleeson – his really bad makeup on his fake bald head really stood out – creating a distraction that took away from the story.

One aspect of the movie I did like was how the relationship between Churchill and the King was portrayed. I really enjoyed those bits of the movie – even if it seemed a little tedious watching Brenden Gleeson make the trip up the stairs at Buckingham Palace a half a dozen times. The set design was nice, the scenes of World War II London were nice. I really liked the look behind closed doors of British Politics during the war.

The pacing of the film just seemed off. They chose to tell the story in a non-linear fashion that I don’t really think worked as the scenes in Post War France just didn’t seem to have a point other than to show Winston grumbling at his wife and servants.

One thing that I really think they have included at the end was a post script letting viewers know that Churchill was actually Prime Minister again. His defeat to Attlee was not the end of his political career.

Another aspect that bothered me was the inclusion of a lot of material related to the Americans and Franklin Roosevelt. It just seemed forced into the movie, especially the scenes that Churchill wasn’t actually in. I suspect this material was inserted to appeal to American audiences whom would not have appreciated a solely British Perspective. While the relationship between FDR and Churchill is portrayed as rosy – history shows that they weren’t exactly best friends.

I did enjoy how they portrayed the tortuous toll the war took on Churchill – especially when it came to traveling to the various conferences, a process that meant travel by unheated plane for many days at a time.

Now, I know I am being harsh on the movie. I still enjoyed it greatly and I suspect I will be watching it many more times. One of my favorite World War II era movies is “The End of the Affair” – it shows what life was like for normal people during the blitz.

Does anyone else have recommendations for movies about Britain during World War II?

Into the Storm Earns 3 out 5 Union Jacks for a weak plot that focuses on the broad strokes of history, but is still a very adequate and enjoyable movie.

For more information on Into the Storm:

Official HBO Website
IMDB Profile

Winston Churchill’s Daily Routine

I came across this pretty interesting blog post the other day. Daily Routines is a blog that posts about the daily routines of famous people in history.

It gives a pretty good insight into how history’s brilliant minds operated. The other day, they featured the venerable Winston Churchill.

Here’s an extract:

Despite all this activity Churchill’s daily routine changed little during these years. He awoke about 7:30 a.m. and remained in bed for a substantial breakfast and reading of mail and all the national newspapers. For the next couple of hours, still in bed, he worked, dictating to his secretaries.

At 11:00 a.m., he arose, bathed, and perhaps took a walk around the garden, and took a weak whisky and soda to his study.

At 1:00 p.m. he joined guests and family for a three-course lunch. Clementine drank claret, Winston champagne, preferable Pol Roger served at a specific temperature, port brandy and cigars. When lunch ended, about 3:30 p.m. he returned to his study to work, or supervised work on his estate, or played cards or backgammon with Clementine.

At 5:00 p.m., after another weak whisky and soda, he went to be for an hour and a half. He said this siesta, a habit gained in Cuba, allowed him to work 1 1/2 days in every 24 hours. At 6:30 p.m. he awoke, bathed again, and dressed for dinner at 8:00 p.m.

Dinner was the focal-point and highlight of Churchill’s day. Table talk, dominated by Churchill, was as important as the meal. Sometimes, depending on the company, drinks and cigars extended the event well past midnight. The guests retired, Churchill returned to his study for another hour or so of work.

As you can see his daily routine involved the consumption of copious amounts of alcohol.

Credit goes to Daily Routines – Winston Churchill.

Anglophile Pictures – London Through the Ages: Pictures from LIFE Magazine

Google Recently teamed up with LIFE magazine to digitize their entire archive and post it for free on the internet, available to all. Many of the pictures are stunning and provide an unique insight into the life of yesteryear.

I did a search through the gallery to find pictures that might interest my fellow Anglophiles and it was a gold-mine of awesome picture. I’ve pasted some of the best LIFE Magazine pictures of London below.

What’s great is that if you really love a picture, you can buy a beautiful print directly from LIFE. Prints are reasonably priced. If you want to browse the Google LIFE gallery, click here. If you’d like to see British pictures, search for British related keywords. You can also download higher quality versions, many large enough to make desktop wallpapers.

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