Jewel Of Winter

It is that time of winter of continuous grey, one day of snow, the next of rain. It is the kind of winter day that, were the groundhog to stick his head outside his burrow, he would feel the aimless depression of the sun denied, and pity the animals in the white-grey subniveal world who do not hibernate and must occupy their minds through this endless twilight....

In short, it is time for a binge-viewing of The Jewel In The Crown again, as it is every year when the festivals run down from the heights of Christmas through a madness of New Year's, then a subtler Epiphany, then a bracing MLK Day, then Winter Break, and dragging down to the mundane paganism of the Super Bowl with its phony embarrassments and cheats and ceaseless tea-pot tempests...

Presidents' Day, St. Valentine's, the feast of St. Jovita; the solstice is a golden city that remains over the horizon...

So we watch the 1984 BBC creation based on Paul Scott's The Raj Quartet.

Flags of the British Empire

Queen Victoria as Empress of India

Art Malik and Susan Wooldridge

A Lake in Kashmir

Rosemary Leach and Judy Parfitt

Eric Porter and Saeed Jaffrey

Tim Piggott-Smythe

Peggy Ashcroft

Fabia Drake

Zohra Sehgal

Charles Dance and Geraldine James

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