Travel to Iceland this summer and discover a world out of the ordinary. He allowed 10,000 non-combatants to leave Derry, which meant the defenders had fewer mouths to feed and formed a homogeneous Protestant bloc, with no fifth column. He opposed the bloodthirsty tactics of his general Von Rosen, who wanted to use women and children as hostages to compel surrender. Worst, he refused to promise Irish Catholics that lands expropriated in the Elizabethan confiscations would be returned to them, fearing that William would spin this as "Catholic tyranny".G?er provides a clear and conscientious guide to the complex military operations and to the bloodshed, heroism and misery. It ended in July 1690 when an English fleet sailed up the river Foyle, broke the harbour boom and relieved the city. The main villain in his story is Louis XIV, who provided inadequate backing to James and thus condemned himself and France to an eight-year war with William.What is not so clear is why Gebler chose this episode, rather than the more important later battles of the Boyne and Aughrim, to illustrate his thesis that the hatreds in today's Ireland are of ancient origin.
James made every mistake in the book: he did not throw enough men into the siege and left the Jacobite besiegers exposed to rain and sleet. James's men (the Jacobites) held all the cards in Ireland, but proceeded to throw them away. Things started to go wrong when the city of Derry unexpectedly resisted the Jacobites, who intended to garrison it with loyal troops. When the newcomers were 60 yards from the walls, the 13 "apprentice boys" of Protestant legend seized the keys and locked out the Papists.There followed a 105-day siege which left about 5,000 dead on either side.
It's spectacularand a most sinister ending.Jilly Cooper - IagoHe's the worst villain of all. That dreadful bullying, cruelty and mocking - Iago is copybook. He's so clever the way he plays everyone against each other yet at the same time he's terribly, insanely jealous of everyone. He's a fiend.Julie Burchill - Marquise de MerteuilThe villain I like is the Marquise de Merteuil from Choderlos de Laclos's novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses She's a right cow and she'd be a laugh to go out with. The one I hate is Mrs Coulter from His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman - because she embodies all the evil of the Catholic Church.Kathy Lette - Bridget JonesThis dithering, maritally obsessed dimwit set feminism back 100 years. She suggests a woman must be saved by a Knight in Shining Armani.
