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The Antichrist is dead, long live the communists!

August 27, 2021 by Daniel

Buondì.

A short one today, as I messed up and spent ages proofreading (and listening to) the wrong episode of our FREE Summer Series, then had to go do the correct one as well.

Also, we got up late this morning, after a disturbed night of vomiting, diarrhoea – what a horrible word to spell – and abdominal cramps, fortunately none of them affecting me personally, other than waking me up at two-thirty a.m.

So imagine my surprise when, having finally fired up my laptop, then figured out which episode of medieval history I actually should have been publishing, I got to read about the later escapades of the ‘famosissimo’ Emperor Federico II.

Yes, Fede, who we heard about on Wednesday. You remember – he was such an irritant to his contemporary rival, the pope, that he earned the title of ‘Antichrist’, though it didn’t seem to bother him much.

Unfortunately, after a long and fantastically successful stretch of emperoring and pope-baiting (n.b. if vomiting has only one ‘t’, I’ve decided that emperoring should have just a single ‘r’), the poor man expired of dysentery.

Federico II should have checked with the British NHS (National Health Service) website, which states that, assuming you rest, drink plenty of fluids, and absolutely refrain from bothering your overstretched local healthcare providers, dysentery will go away on its own.

Which must be reassuring to know, I’m sure, when you feel as if you’re being turned inside out and half your body weight has disappeared down the lavatory. I speak from painful experience…

Anyway, here are the links to today’s FREE episode and to the History page on the club website, where you’ll find all the earlier ones in the series, plus details of what’s coming.

Il Medioevo, Episodio 21, I nemici di Federico II nella penisola italica (XII-XIII secolo)

And the communists?

Check out today’s episode, and Monday’s, to find out.

A lunedì, allora.

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Comments

  1. Sharon Dias says

    August 27, 2021 at 4:38 pm

    Hi Daniel
    You have made me laugh in this episode. Horrible condition and horrible spelling, must be linked in some way. Excuse my Portuguese spelling. constipasao in Portuguese is a cold. In English we know what a similar word means. In South Africa a Mozambican tourist was in Johannesburg, had a cold and asked the chemist for something for his” constipasao”. Chemist gave him a made up draught for constipation. The poor guy was tapping his nose trying to explain his cold. My English aunt walked into the pharmacy ( she lived in Mozambique) and translated for the poor man. I speak Portuguese, but only read and write minimally. Grew up there, but never went to school there.

    Hope this has made you smile after an awful night.
    Sharon

    • Daniel says

      August 27, 2021 at 6:08 pm

      And subsequently, an awful day. But yes, thanks Sharon!

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