A veritable hodgepodge of quality articles and excerpts from my weekend wanderings.

(1) Excerpt from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage by Lord Byron:

The Niobe of nations! there she stands,
Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe;
An empty urn within her withered hands,
Whose holy dust was scattered long ago;
The Scipios’ tomb contains no ashes now;
The very sepulchres lie tenantless
Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow,
Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness?
Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress!

(2) Malmesbury Abbey from the North-West (J.M.W. Turner)

(3) Conclave Review (100 Movies Every Catholic Should See)

(4) “The Man in the High Castle”: The Uses of Alternative History (The Imaginative Conservative)

“By the 1970s the Soviet Union’s power no longer depended on a leader or a group of leaders. It survived through its ideology, a monolith of acceptable truth that was completely integrated with the power structures. Ideology prohibits deep thought because it claims to have thought through the most important issues itself.”

(5) CS Lewis, Tolkien, Orwell among works tagged as triggers for ‘far-right’ extremism by anti-terrorism group (Fox News)

(6) Tetsuya Nomura Drops a Cryptic Kingdom Hearts 4 Tease on Birth by Sleep’s 15th Anniversary (IGN)

“…and all follow the concept of giving something up to gain something in return.”

(7) Brompton profits plummet from £10.7m to £4,600 as industry ‘turmoil’ continues (Cycling Weekly)