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Monthly Archives: September 2019

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, September 30, 2019

. Football was a crime in England during the reign of Henry VIII. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Tuesday, October 2 1906 . The moon is up for longer than the sun. Your antivirus expires in 29 days. The Dogmata Theologica of Petavius are a work of incredible labour and compass. The steep limestone walls of a […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Tagged America, anatomy, astronomy, books, eggs, England, expectoration, football, geology, health, Henry VIII, homosexuality, humanity, law, money, Nelson Evening Mail, Oscar Wilde, pachyderms, Petavius, religion, Russians, satire, scholarship, Sri Lanka, the Chinese, university, war | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, September 23, 2019

. John Stow, author of the Survey of London, was rewarded by James I with a licence to beg. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Friday, August 17 1906 . In Germany, young ladies have no sex. ‘Silver Billy’ Beldham was blond, and is said to have fathered 39 children. Thom Yorke’s left eye is made […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Tagged Alexander von Humboldt, anatomy, Britain, children, Chinese, cricket, Edward Said, eels, fairies, Germany, James I, John Stow, law, London, money, Nelson Evening Mail, Nevada, Poetry, satire, sex, ships, sport, stupidity, the internet, the Middle East, Thom Yorke, vegetables, William Beldham, women, words, writers, Xerxes | Comments (0)

Ducks and cover

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann Galley Beggar Press, £14.99, pp1020 . Why, I asked some months back, in these pages, do the protagonists in American fiction these days seem so lost? What is it they’re all so het up about? Well… everything. At least according to the narrator of Ducks, Newburyport. Lucy Ellmann’s monster novel […]

Filed in Journalism, review | Tagged 4th of July, actors, Americans, boarlets, Booker Prize, brandnames, burial mounds, clickbait, death, ducks, engineering, facts, first world problems, FOOSH injuries, Galley Beggar Press, geography, Gilbert & Sullivan, guns, health, homework, James Joyce, Laura Ingalls Wilder, lists, Lucy Ellmann, lyrics, memory, mothers, movies, names, Newburyport, novels, Ohio, Philip Glass, pies, presidents, Revere Ware, Schubert, Shakespeare, shopping, Spectator, styptic sticks, the Amish, the Midwest, trauma, Umberto Eco, wallpaper, women, wordplays, YouTube | Comments (0)

‘Bad in life, good in the book’

Thursday, September 12, 2019

A Q&A with writer and artist Dan Richards. — For Geographical

Filed in interview, Journalism | Tagged Alice Oswald, Amazon, art, Bath, bears, Bob Dylan, climbing, Dan Richards, David Bowie, Denis Johnson, Geographical, Horatio Clare, Iceland, JA Baker, Jan Morris, Joan Didion, Max Porter, mountains, North Korea, Norway, Outward Bound, post, Rebecca Solnit, Richard Brautigan, Royal Geographical Society, Spetses, Svalbard, sæluhús, Ted Hughes, Tim Severin, TS Eliot, writing | Comments (0)

Hit and miss

Sunday, September 1, 2019

Chastise: The Dambusters Story 1943 By Max Hastings William Collins £25 . By 1943, after nearly four years of war ‘ameliorated [only] by a thin gruel of successes,’ Britain and her western allies had little to boast in terms of their offensive victories; the lion’s share of the burden was very clearly being shouldered by […]

Filed in Journalism, review | Tagged Bomber Command, Dambusters, death, engineering, film, Germany, Guy Gibson, history, Max Hastings, non-fiction, RAF, Sir Arthur Harris, Sir Charles Portal, the Commonwealth, The Oldie, war, William Collins, WW2 | Comments (0)