Attempting – unsuccessfully – to get my head round the roots of the Ukraine war, via Orlando Figes’ magisterial Crimea. — For Perspective
Filed in Journalism, review
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Also tagged Alaska, Alexander Morrison, Andrey Kurkov, audiobooks, Austria, Bessarabia, Blackadder, Britain, Circassians, Cossacks, Crimea, Florence Nightingale, France, imperialism, Islam, Jerusalem, Kalmuks, Malk Williams, maps, NATO, Nicholas I, Nikita Kruschev, non-fiction, Orlando Figes, Perspective, religion, Russia, Ruthenia, Tatars, the Army, the Baltic, the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Danube, the Falklands, the Great Game, the Mediterranean, the Ottoman Empire, the Pacific, the press, the Royal Navy, the Soviet Union, trade, Turkey, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Wallachia, war, WWI
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Climbing a mountain, lest I start climbing the walls In January, I promised a visiting Reservist mate that we’d climb Adam’s Peak. That plan was scotched when, days before he landed, I went down with dengue fever. But I’d done Adam’s Peak before (the first time, Christmas ’04, probably saved my life when the tsunami struck…), and […]
Filed in feature, Journalism
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Also tagged Adam's Peak, Adidas, army, boredom, Buddhism, cigars, coffee, Colombo, David Balfour, David Sharp, Everest, Fa-Hsien, Forrest Gump, health, Hinduism, Ibn Battuta, Islam, Marco Polo, meteorology, mosquitoes, mountaineering, music, Neighbours, podcasts, River Kwai, Sinhala, Spectator, Sri Lanka, stairs, Tamil, the Bible, The Mahavamsa, the Matterhorn, The West Wing, Thomas Tallis, Zumba
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. The maximum suicide age is between 65 and 75. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Thursday, August 9 1906 . Forest Green Cricket Club accepts no liability for damage to vehicles parked on the green whilst a game is in progress. There are pros and cons to time-travelling while black. Pope Gregory declared the rooster the most suitable […]
Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE
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Also tagged anatomy, aristocracy, art, Ashmolean Museum, baking, cocks, cricket, crime, education, employment, farming, Forest Green, Fox News, frogs, Fukushima, Latin, music, Nelson Evening Mail, news, North Korea, nuclear power, Partick, race, Raymond Joseph Teller, time-travel, toilets
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Yasuke: The True Story of an African Samurai by Thomas Lockley and Geoffrey Girard Sphere £20 (hardback) . In late July 1579, an enormous, well-dressed and well-armed African bodyguard stepped off a boat into the southern Japanese port of Kochinotsu. Yasuke – perhaps from ‘Isaac’ in Amharic – had (probably) been abducted as a child […]
Filed in Journalism, review
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Also tagged Alessandro Valignano, Amharic, China, Ethiopia, Geoffrey Girard, Geographical, Japan, Japanese, Jesuits, religion, samurai, the East Indies, Thomas Lockley, war
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Wednesday, August 15, 2018
‘For centuries before the Second World War, educated British people knew far more about intelligence operations recorded in the Bible than they did about the role of intelligence at any moment in their own history.’ Nowadays, one might think, few would even know that. But that’s where Christopher Andrew – Emeritus Professor of Modern and […]
Filed in Journalism, review
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Also tagged Afghanistan, Allen Lane, America, Ancient Egypt, army, Bletchley Park, Cardinal Richelieu, China, Christopher Andrew, Christopher Marlowe, CIA, Clausewitz, Elizabeth I, Francis Walsingham, history, Holland, India, Islam, Israel, Ivan the Terrible, Julius Caesar, MI5, MI6, Napoleon, non-fiction, Pearl Harbour, Russia, spies, Stalin, Sun Tzu, the Bible, the Cold War, the KGB, the Medway, The Oldie, the Spanish Armada, University of Cambridge, Vasili Mitrokhin, Venice, war, Waterloo, WWII, Xenophon
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Wednesday, April 18, 2018
This weekend I will be joining a local choral society for their performance of Haydn’s The Creation – and what better way to welcome Spring now that it’s finally arrived. An avowed and much-loved masterpiece from its earliest performances – Vienna, 1798 – ‘whose appeal [I read from A Peter Brown’s DECCA sleeve-notes] was irresistible […]
Filed in correspondence, Journalism
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Also tagged A Peter Brown, Aled Jones, army, bassoons, Beethoven, Chapel Royal, choral societies, cosmology, cricket, DECCA, German, Germans, Hampton Court, Handel, Haydn, Italians, Kent, King James, Maidstone, Milton, music, Napoleon, oratorio, Oxford University, Poetry, religion, school, sheep, singing, Spring, the Bible, the Church of England, the French, The Oldie, the Oxford Spezzati, tigers, Vienna, war, West Kensington, whales, worms
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Monday, November 20, 2017
. More than 6000 editions of the “Imitation of Christ”, ascribed to Thomas a Kempis, have been issued in the past 400 years. — The Nelson Evening Mail, January 21 1907 . The record for the fastest hole in golf is 32.7 seconds. Acres of quiet farmland set a peaceful scene. ‘Bert’ is like a […]
Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE
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Also tagged agriculture, air travel, anatomy, Athens, chocolate, diplomacy, education, elephant, golf, Hector, Iran, London, maniacs, money, music, Muslims, Nelson Evening Mail, Nobel Prize for Literature, nomenclature, nurses, publishing, reality, religion, security, sex, singing, Smooth Radio, Special Air Service, Sri Lanka, Tarjei Vesaas, the Sinhalese, Thomas á Kempis, WWE
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. 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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Also tagged Abraham Lincoln, America, architecture, atheism, babies, Barack Obama, breasts, Britain, Chiang Kai-shek, China, 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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