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News At A Glance #4

Friday, April 22, 2022

Concerning sparrows in Ethiopia, more than one Alma in Wisconsin, and William Langley in Port Stanley. — For The Emigre

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged beards, berries, birds, Cameroon, death, dogs, Ethel Smyth, facts, fleas, government, Guinness, intelligence, Moondog, music, Nelson Evening Mail, news, patriotism, publishing, rivers, Rome, Russians, satire, sex, Shantha Bandara, singing, Sri Lanka, Stanley, TE Lawrence, The Emigre, the sea, typos, William Langley, Wisconsin, women | Comments (0)

Should I stay or should I Goh?

Monday, November 1, 2021

Or – how to get a rodent to walk on your balls (gratis). — For The Emigre

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged The Emigre, travel | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, September 21, 2020

. Forty Popes have lived less than a year after their election. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Friday, January 18 1907 . Ethiopia has exported its first avocados by train. The Communist Party banned photocopiers. More geese than swans now live. In Brazil there is a butterfly that uses its legs for running. All Pakistani […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged Alastair Cook, beer, birds, Brazil, butterflies, Cecil Court, class, coats, Communism, cricket, death, elections, fruit, Great Britain, Nelson Evening Mail, news, Pakistan, photocopiers, religion, Saracens, satire, sealioning, Sir Paul McCartney, The Beatles, the internet, train-travel, William Huskisson | Comments (0)

The Ones That Got Away

Sunday, June 14, 2020

Introduction to a new column on photographic misfires, beginning with my own amateur misadventures. — For the Sri Lankan Sunday Times

Filed in column, Journalism | Also tagged Antarctica, Argentina, birds, cows, England, France, Gamini Jayantha Molligoda, Gundulf, in-laws, Instagram, leopards, London, phones, photography, Russia, South Africa, statuary, Sunday Times (SL), technology, The Fast Show, The One That Got Away, Wilpattu | Comments (0)

Selassie come home

Thursday, February 6, 2020

The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste Canongate, £16.99, pp. 428 . In 1935 the troops of Benito Mussolini’s sinister-clownish Roman Empire II invaded Ethiopia, in large part out of spite for Italy’s embarrassing defeat there 40 years before. Initially largely uncontested – thanks both to emperor Haile Selassie’s desperate faith in international brotherhood and to […]

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged Abysinnia, Adwa, Andy McNab, Canongate, death, dragons, fiction, gas, Haile Selassie, history, Homer, Italians, Maaza Mengiste, Mussolini, photography, sex, the Bible, the Derg, The Spectator, Verdi, war, women, WW2 | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, July 29, 2019

. Leather trunks were used in Rome as early as the time of Caesar. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Friday, September 28 1906 . Tilda Swinton has been elected leader of the Liberal Democrats. The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour began outside a kebab shop in Kent. The complete works of James Joyce are available for £0.75. ‘Twirly’ […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged air travel, books, California, cats, coffee, construction, Devon, emotions, garlic, George Best, George III, horticulture, hygiene, India, Ireland, James Joyce, Julius Caesar, kebabs, Kent, Kew, leather, Nelson Evening Mail, Rome, satire, sex, Søren Kierkegaard, The Beatles, the Liberal Democrats, Tilda Swinton, World Tiger Day, YouTube | Comments (0)

Black samurai

Thursday, May 23, 2019

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 | Also tagged Alessandro Valignano, Amharic, China, Christianity, Geoffrey Girard, Geographical, Japan, Japanese, Jesuits, religion, samurai, the East Indies, Thomas Lockley, war | Comments (0)

Extracts from the letters of Gerald Spence Smyth, Capt., 1st South African Irish Regt., Abyssinian campaign, 1941

Monday, February 25, 2019

6.2.41 I am given to understand that this is the 6th day of Feb. but for the life of me I don’t know what day of the week it is. Anyhow it doesn’t make any difference here. Excuse the dirt. A.A.¹ has just spilt some tea on my pad. The journey from the forest² to these […]

Filed in Non-fictions | Also tagged Abyssinia, Allan Arnott, biltong, Cape Point, censorship, Cyril Cochran, death, East Africa, food, Gerald Fayle, Gerald Fayle Preston Smyth, Gerald Spence Smyth, infantry, Italians, letters, Mega, Micky Williamson, Muslims, Somalis, South Africa, South Africans, the Irish, war, WWII | Comments (0)

‘Hockey puck’ (or; A poet’s frame of reference)

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

I I like to have my steaks done ‘like a hockey puck’. Sometimes I actually say this to the waiters (though not in French restaurants, admittedly.) II In Ethiopia, some ‘baristas’ knock used coffee grounds out onto the bare-earth floors. Flat, round, and black. ‘Like a hockey puck,’ I tell people. III I used to play […]

Filed in Poetry | Also tagged Canada, coffee, eating out, France, hockey, Poetry, steak | Comments (0)

Town of Runners

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Documentary on what’s in the water in the distance-running capital of the world: Bekoji, Ethiopia. (Reviewed.) — For theartsdesk

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged film, Olympics, running, sport, theartsdesk | Comments (0)