The Llama Butchers have birthdays covered this week. In noting C.S. Lewis' anniversary yesterday they pointed the way to a striking website devoted to the great man, Into the Wardrobe.
As The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has been bedtime reading in recent days, the gallery of Pauline Baynes illustrations is particularly appreciated – as is news that the story is being made into a movie, with Tilda Swinton cast as the White Witch. (It says a great deal for the tale that it was able to overcome the beaver suits in the 1988 BBC version. Here's to special effects in the new production.)
Meantime, today is the birthday of Winston Churchill, who no doubt would have marked the day, as he did every other, with cigars and brandy.
To his memory, a sonnet by Lord Alfred Douglas:
“Like genie smoke you rose, a giant form
Clothed with the Addisonian attributes
Of God-directed angel. Like your Sire
You rode the whirlwind and out-stormed the storm.”