. The Queen won a first prize for bantams at the King’s Lynn Fur and Feather Society’s show. — The Nelson Evening Mail, January 6 1909 . In LA there is a chess set designed for the East India Company, featuring Sikh soldiers vs Afghans. Among a certain kind of people, being ‘passionate about Israel/Palestine’ […]
Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE
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Tagged (il)literacy, Afghans, bantams, birds, Bobby Kennedy, Brett Dean, butter, chess, Communism, cricket, death, Django Reinhardt, education, England, finance, Germany, government, Iceland, Israel, King Alfred, King's Lynn, liberal arts, Los Angeles, music, Nelson Evening Mail, opera, Palestine, politics, queens, Rain Men, sailors, Sam Craft, sea-faring, sex, Sikhs, South Benfleet, tattoos, the East India Company, Tierra del Fuego, traffic, Truth, work, WWII
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. All over China temples have been turned into schools with surprising alacrity. — The Nelson Evening Mail, July 26 1906 . The owl of Minerva flies only at dusk. Though rare, there have been exactly 201 documented cases of spontaneous combustion. J Sainbury plc is cutting 2000 Human Resources employees. The collective noun for brown […]
Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE
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Tagged actors, anatomy, birds, China, Crete, criticism, death, Donald Trump, education, Everton, fire, fish, French, George W Bush, Journalism, men, music, Nelson Evening Mail, nouns, October, Paul Celan, poets, religion, Renault, Sainsbury's, sea-faring, translation, vans, work, writing
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Saturday, October 21, 2017
. Ancient Chinese proverb The most capable woman cannot make a meal without food. Chinese Communist Party saying A capable woman can make a meal without food. .
. Only about three in every hundred amateur novel-writers find their way into print, except at their own expense. — The Nelson Evening Mail, January 22 1907 . The erection of a verandah is a useful way to extend one’s living quarters. Seven American states observe Abraham Lincoln’s birthday as a public holiday. There is only one […]
Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE
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Tagged Abraham Lincoln, America, architecture, atheism, babies, Barack Obama, breasts, Britain, Chiang Kai-shek, China, Christianity, class, Comic Sans, Communism, crime, domestic affairs, education, Eskimos, finance, French, Germany, grammar, holidays, John le Carré, Judaism, Mormonism, Nelson Evening Mail, novels, religion, sharks, synthetic fibres, the Irish, the Soviet Union, translation, vision, war, writing
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Saturday, October 14, 2017
From deer park to gun park… . Sixteen years ago, American and British forces hurled themselves into Afghanistan the same week I arrived at Magdalen College, Oxford. I didn’t give them much thought – although the ‘War on Terror’ was immediately everywhere. I had an Egyptology degree to get to grips with; and choral evensong […]
Filed in feature, Journalism
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Tagged Afghanistan, army, education, Frank Ledwidge, George MacDonald Fraser, Honourable Artillery Company, Max Boot, me, Oxford University, singing, TE Lawrence, The Oldie, war, Yorkshire
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Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima Penguin, 170pp, £8.99 . Born two years after the Great Earthquake of 1923, in ‘not too good a section of Tokyo’, Kochan is a sickly child, brought up by stultifying parents and a morbid grandmother. His first reliable memory is of the ‘night-soil’ man, and he immediately becomes […]
Filed in Journalism, review
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Tagged army, autobiography, education, Guido Reni, homosexuality, Japan, JK Huysmans, Joan of Arc, Magnus Hirschfeld, Nobel Prize for Literature, novels, Oscar Wilde, sex, suicide, The Amorist, transvestism, violence, war, WW2, Yukio Mishima
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Tuesday, October 10, 2017
In a mid-September interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Baron Richards of Herstmonceux (GCB, CBE, DSO, DL – better known as General David Richards, former Chief of the Defence Staff) made a comment to the effect that “a part-time soldier cannot be as effective as someone who’s devoted his life to it and puts on a […]
Filed in correspondence, Journalism
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Tagged Afghanistan, army, Baron Richards of Herstmonceux, Brigadier James Roddis, Bruce Dickinson, children, David Dickinson, death, Ed Drummond-Baxter, employment, food, Honourable Artillery Company, Iraq, Iron Maiden, Jack Sadler, Ted Heath, The Oldie, war
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. Volunteers had no recognised existence in England until May, 1859. — The Nelson Evening Mail, September 8 1908 . Everyone in Joe Orton’s social circle was called Kenneth. The word ‘truth’ has no exact equivalent in Welsh. The 8-hour workday doesn’t make sense. Sloths take five seconds to have sex, but a month to digest a […]
Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE
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Tagged agave, air travel, America, anatomy, education, England, food, furniture, Gerry Adams, Ireland, Joe Orton, Johnny Vaughan, Kenneth Cranham, Nelson Evening Mail, politics, religion, royalty, sex, Sinn Fein, sloths, snooker, tap-dancing, The Evening Standard, the Isle of Man, Truth, Welsh, work
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Dear Amorist, I recently made a joke about my pregnant wife – and found myself receiving several pointers. ‘Have lots of sex before the baby’s born,’ said one. ‘Watch loads of movies,’ said another. Couldn’t we just watch porn, and kill two birds with one stone? Yours, &c. ASH Smyth, by email
Filed in correspondence, Journalism
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Tagged advice, babies, birds, film, letters, pornography, pregnancy, sex, The Amorist, women
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. Few of those who know and admire the camellia, that waxlike and pure flower, are aware that the parent plant, the origin of the million plants scattered throughout Europe, is still alive and is in Italy. — The Nelson Evening Mail, January 22 1907 . The Taliban now control more territory in Afghanistan than they did […]
Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE
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Tagged Afghanistan, Alex Haley, Americans, castanets, D-Day, dancing, death, fishing, flora, France, genealogy, hats, history, Icelandic, Ireland, Italy, Khmer, Lakshman Joseph de Saram, linguistics, Miles Davis, musicians, Nelson Evening Mail, ostriches, phones, Playboy, politics, race, religion, royalty, shit, Sri Lanka, the Taliban, Theresa May, Vikings, violin, vomit, war, woodpeckers
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