Or; Some Further Notes Towards the Bestiary To the researches of the antiquary and scholar Jorge Luis ‘Vintage’ Borges, a few points offer further context on that most peripatetic of birds in this, our present century. . Learned reports come from South Asia, where the spotted-bill Filipino pelican (phillipensis) is found, with no small irony, only in Cambodia, the Indian peninsular, and in Sri Lanka (or the contemporary […]
Filed in Fictions
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Also tagged America, animals, army, babies, basketball, Borges, British Library, Cambodia, Captain Scott, children, Colombo, Corpus Christi College, daughters, death, employment, fables, food, Gartagena, General John Guise, Hebrew, hieroglyphs, Horapollo, India, Jesuits, John Grisham, Joseph Hall, King Lear, murder, oil, pelican, Post-modern Bestiary, psychology, Roald Dahl, Spain, Sri Lanka, St James's Palace, St James's Park, St Jerome, stupidity, the Bible, The Spectator, Thomas Aquinas, US Supreme Court
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Tuesday, October 16, 2018
Two nights from now, by way of (ahem) a birthday present, I will be attending a live-orchestra screening of The English Patient at the Albert Hall. I had invited an old friend, a raven-haired young lady (named in Debrett’s) of impossibly romantic tendency, who first exposed me to the film in, I’d say, about 1998 […]
Filed in correspondence, Journalism
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Also tagged Academy Awards, Afghanistan, Ahmed Hassanein, air travel, American University in Cairo, anatomy, Anthony Minghella, Arabic, army, Banana Republic, bedouin, Benny Goodman, Booker Prize, books, bookshops, Brighton, Bruce Chatwin, Byron, Canada, Charing Cross Road, Christopher Hitchens, clothing, Debrett's, deserts, Dorset, Egyptology, exploration, film, French Foreign Legion, Gabriel Yared, Geoff Dyer, Geographical, Geographical Journal, Herodotus, Hungarian, Hungary, JM Coetzee, John Ball, John Hare, Joseph Conrad, Justin Marozzi, Kensington Gore, Kristen Scott Thomas, László Almásy, London, Long Range Desert Group, Lorenz Hart, love, Michael Ondaatje, mountains, music, novels, Orientalism, Oscar Wilde, Oxford, Picador, plums, Ralph Bagnold, Ralph Fiennes, Ranulph Fiennes, Richard Bermann, Robert Twigger, Royal Albert Hall, Royal Geographical Society, Saul Kelly, Sinai, SOE, song, South Africa, the Himalayas, the Nile, The Oldie, the Sahara, the Western Desert, war, WG Sebald, William Golding, wind, women, WW2, YouTube, Zerzura
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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 […]
Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE
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Also 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, 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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Monday, September 4, 2017
. The typewriter is more largely used in Mexico than in France. — The Nelson Evening Mail, August 2 1906 . In 1943 a British pilot made an emergency landing on the Italian island of Lampedusa, only to have it surrender to him. Kelo trees live for up to 3,500 years, and remain standing for another 700. […]
Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE
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Also tagged air travel, arachnids, Arthur C Clarke, coffee, death, dictionaries, electricity, food, France, fruit, humour, Italy, José Mauricio Nunes Garcia, Manchester, marketing, Mexico, Michael Jackson, Mozart, music, Nelson Evening Mail, painting, Pliny the Elder, politics, Spinal Tap, the Labour Party, trees, typewriters, Walliston, war
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. On the body of a man who committed suicide in the canal at New Gravel Lane, Stepney, a hospital card was found marked “delusions”.’ — The Nelson Evening Mail, January 6 1909 . The new Norwegian Bible translation is by no means a rush job. Gieves & Hawkes is the cheapest Top 10 London tailor. […]
Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE
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Also tagged America, antelopes, art, Charles X, children, China, clothing, cricket, death, engineering, England, finance, Gieves & Hawkes, giraffes, kung fu, London, Natalie Imbruglia, Nelson Evening Mail, Norwegian, Pukka Pies, religion, Rudolf Hess, sex, Shostakovich, Spandau Prison, Sri Lanka, Victor Hugo, West Indies, work, writing
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. Though Russia is fast developing her oil lands, the United States produces more petroleum than all the rest of the world. — The Nelson Evening Mail, June 22 1912 . In English maritime law a ship is not ‘wrecked’ if the cat survives. Ezra Pound heard many performances of the Bellringers’ Guild. Kale is a […]
Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE
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Also tagged age, America, artillery, campanology, Canada, cars, cats, cell-phones, chameleons, clowns, Disney, drink, emotions, Ezra Pound, ice hockey, John Travolta, law, LGBT, marmalade, Napoleon, oil, passports, Russia, sea-faring, statuary, tartan, text, the Welsh, turtles, vegetables, war, winter
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Saturday, October 8, 2016
Review of three books on Ancient Egypt: Egypt: People, Pharaohs, Gods, by Rose-Marie and Rainer Hagen; Egyptomania: A History of Fascination, Obsession and Fantasy, by Ronald H. Fritze; and Writings from Ancient Egypt, by Toby Wilkinson. — For The Spectator
Filed in Journalism, review
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Also tagged academia, hieroglyphs, history, non-fiction, Rainer Hagen, religion, Ronald H. Fritze, Rose-Marie Hagen, Toby Wilkinson, translation
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Sire, Among the many achievements which exemplify the reign of your august father, His Majesty Fouad I, the mapping of the Libyan Desert must surely take pride of place. This enormous expanse of sand, covering almost two thirds of the Kingdom, incorporated vast unexplored regions, maps of which showed little more than a series of […]
The Narrow Road to the Deep North By Richard Flanagan (Chatto & Windus 448pp £16.99) ‘We will die, and who will ever understand any of this?’ So asks Colonel Dorrigo Evans, second in command of the Australian Imperial Force’s 2/7th Casualty Clearing Station, slave worker on the Siam–Burma ‘Death Railway’, and redoubtable hero of Richard […]
Filed in Journalism, review
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Also tagged art, Australia, Basho, Burma, haiku, health, Japan, Literary Review, Miles Franklin Literary Award, novels, PoWs, Richard Flanagan, Singapore, Syria, Thailand, war
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Saturday, February 25, 2012
Carry on up the hillbillies, the questionable merits of Aïda, and why the CIA employs so many jazz nerds. — For theartsdesk
Filed in column, Journalism
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Also tagged Aïda, art, CIA, Hamlet, Hieronymus Bosch, jazz, John le Carré, Kings of Leon, opera, plaid, radio, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, theartsdesk, Verdi
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