. The average salary of professors at Dublin University is £530. — The Nelson Evening Mail, March 14 1907 . Wherever there is a fire that ravages everything in its path, the protea is the first thing to regenerate. Clive James once voluntarily interviewed the Spice Girls. Manchester has become ‘Womanchester’. Cineworld has landed in […]
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Tagged academia, America, army, bowls, Cineworld, Clive James, domestic affairs, Donald Trump, drink, Dublin, education, Elon Musk, employment, engineering, film, finance, flora, Journalism, Kanye West, law, Manchester, music, Nelson Evening Mail, nomenclature, Oscar Wilde, pastry, retirement, South Africa, space travel, technology, the Congo, the Spice Girls, Um Bongo, university, Weston-super-Mare, women, work
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When I went to the bar as a very young man, it was often enough in the company of the Oxford University Gilbert & Sullivan Society. My relationship with G&S had started early, specifically the argument in Three Men in a Boat over which song Harris is trying to sing (I remain confused to this […]
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Tagged All Souls College, Arcadia, Bletchingdon, Brexit, clowns, comedy, Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act 1907, donkeys, drink, English National Opera, fairies, food, French, G Schirmer, Greek, Grenadier Guards, Holywell Music Room, Iolanthe, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Jerome K Jerome, Kazakhstan, ketamine, Latin, law, librettos, Mount Ararat, music, opera, Oxford University, Oxford University Gilbert & Sullivan Society, plebs, politics, Richard D'Oyly Carte, Savoy Theatre, sex, shepherds, Sir Arthur Sullivan, Sir William Schwenk Gilbert, the Conservative Party, the House of Lords, the Liberal Party, The Oldie, The West Wing, voice, women
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. A blind chameleon cannot change its colour. — The Nelson Evening Mail, July 17 1908 . Nobody ever thinks they’re stupid. All homes bear ethnic odours. Some bags look the same. There’s no point putting shackles on Quinton de Kock. You don’t get many Mini Eggs for a pound no more. The UK is […]
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Tagged alpacas, André Aciman, bags, blindness, Bruno Mars, Cadbury, Canada, chameleons, chocolate, cricket, death, Derbyshire, economics, eggs, ethnicity, farming, finance, French, housing, ironmongery, maple syrup, Michael Jackson, music, Nelson Evening Mail, oaths, oil, oral hygiene, Quinton de Kock, stupidity, the EU, the UK, voice, weather, Yarmouth
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Monday, February 26, 2018
. A tax of 6d per head is levied on all passengers landed at the Isle of Man. — The Nelson Evening Mail, September 27 1906 . While still a teenager, James Crichton challenged professors at the Collège de Navarre to interrogate him on the liberal arts and science, in Arabic, Dutch, English, French, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Latin, Slavonic, Spanish, […]
Monday, February 19, 2018
. In China the dials of a clock turn round instead of the hands. — The Nelson Evening Mail, September 8 1908 . Benedict Cumberbatch reads Oryx magazine. A piece of pasta (dry) weighs essentially one gram. A man can only care about so many things. Labels are for clothes. In Bosnian there are no words for […]
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Tagged Benedict Cumberbatch, Bosnian, brothers, China, clothing, cows, Darryl Gerrity, death, Dmitri Kabalevsky, Englishmen, fiction, film, friends, grapes, Hawaii, health, horology, Islam, love, magazines, measurements, men, music, Nelson Evening Mail, non-fiction, pasta, pornography, Qatar Airways, Reading, religion, Russians, Virginia, white goods
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Thursday, February 1, 2018
If there’s one thing I just can’t abide, it’s ranters. Not the C17th religious nonconformists. Folk who can’t shut up about things. You know the type. The workplace philosophers; the shouters at the TV; people in whose eyes you see the glint of socialist dictatorship. They come in every walk of life. Stupid boxers (*tautology […]
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Tagged Adolf Hitler, Alex Ferguson, Bangalore, Basil Fawlty, boxers, British Rail, Charlie Sheen, comedians, customer services, Denmark, dictatorship, Donald Trump, fathers, Geoffrey Boycott, Hamlet, humour, Jeremy Clarkson, John McEnroe, Mel Gibson, memoirs, men, Michael Richards, Naomi Campbell, philosophy, phones, pubs, ranting, religion, Samuel Johnson, socialism, The Daily Mail, the Labour Party, The Oldie, TV, Will Self
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Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Or; how to raise money for charity and feel bad doing it. — For The Oldie
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Tagged Adidas, Bilal Hassen, Borussia Dortmund, cappuccino, charity, Colombo, Hilton Residences, Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children, Manchester City, Mount Lavinia, Nigel Havers, rugby, running, Sri Lanka, Thaabit Ahmed, Thaabit Ahmed Football Academy, The Oldie, Valencia CF
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Saturday, January 13, 2018
Review of Kim A Wagner’s The Skull of Alum Bheg: The Life and Death of a Rebel of 1857. — For The Spectator
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Tagged Alum Bheg, army, Bengal Native Infantry, Brigadier-General John Nicholson, British Empire, colonialism, death, geography, history, India, Indian Mutiny, Kim A Wagner, non-fiction, Pakistan, Queen Mary University of London, religion, sepoys, Sialkot, the East India Company, The Spectator
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. Stocks were first used in England about 1359 A.D.. — The Nelson Evening Mail, January 18 1907 . Women leaders are more volatile than men. The cause of alcoholism is unknown. They’re selling hippy wigs in Woolworths. In Togoloese, ‘fofo’ means ‘revered big brother’. White people, lacking community, must make do with property. If extortionate fares […]
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Tagged bathrooms, black, brothers, Ceylon, crime, drink, Elvis Presley, feet, hair, health, heroes, hippies, justice, law, men, money, mud, Nelson Evening Mail, Nicodemus, politics, Reading, rickshaws, Satan, scholarship, sex, somnambulism, Tate Britain, the internet, Togolese, weather, white, women, Woolworths, work
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Monday, December 25, 2017
. More than nine-tenths of the railway passengers in England travel third-class. — The Nelson Evening Mail, October 20 1906 . ‘The is cat washing dishes’ is an 18th-century expression for the reflection of water on the walls of a room. A skate’s vagina is anatomically similar to a woman’s. Just because a thing is true does not mean that […]
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Tagged (il)literacy, 18th century, accommodation, age, anatomy, army, Batman, Ben Affleck, brothers, Canterbury, Casey Affleck, cats, Chartham, children, Christmas, de Lesseps, democracy, Die Hard, drink, Egypt, employment, film, fish, Italian, Nelson Evening Mail, paper, Roy William Scranton, sex, steel, Suez Crisis, Superman, Tennessee Williams, The Fratellis, the Soviet Union, train-travel, Truth, water, women, writers
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