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Tag Archives: Russia

Crimean punishment

Tuesday, June 7, 2022

Attempting – unsuccessfully – to get my head round the roots of the Ukraine war, via Orlando Figes’ magisterial Crimea. — For Perspective

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged Alaska, Alexander Morrison, Andrey Kurkov, audiobooks, Austria, Bessarabia, Blackadder, Britain, Christianity, Circassians, Cossacks, Crimea, Florence Nightingale, France, imperialism, Islam, Jerusalem, Kalmuks, Malk Williams, maps, NATO, Nicholas I, Nikita Kruschev, non-fiction, Orlando Figes, Perspective, religion, 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 | Comments (0)

On Commonwealth Day

Monday, March 14, 2022

… my diaries relate a (very positive) diplomatic incident from 15 years ago. — For The Emigre

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged Afghanistan, America, Australia, Basildon, Burundi, Canada, China, diplomacy, drink, finance, Gary Busey, Guinness, Ireland, London, Malaysia, marijuana, Myanmar, oaths, Queen Elizabeth II, Red Bull, Rwanda, school, Soho, Somaliland, South Sudan, Suriname, Tanzania, The Commonwealth of Nations, The Emigre, the Falklands, Zimbabwe | Comments (0)

Zooming windows

Saturday, March 20, 2021

Interview with members of the George Formby Society, as they attempt to break an online ukulele-playing record. — For The Critic

Filed in feature, interview, Journalism | Also tagged Alastair Cook, America, army, Australia, banjos, Batley, BBC, Bette Davis, bingo, Blackpool, Canada, Covid-19, cricket, Cyprus, dating, Ed Balls, Facebook, Falkland Islands Radio Service, France, Frank Skinner, friends, George Formby, German, Germany, grandmothers, Guinness, Gyles Brandreth, Harry HIll, Hawaii, Humphrey Bogart, Italy, jellyfish, lyrics, mental health, music, naturism, nuclear power, proletarians, Queen Elizabeth II, records, Royal Albert Hall, Simon Rose, smut, Swahili, The Critic, The Daily Telegraph, the George Formby Society, the Queen Mother, the RAF, Tottenham, ukuleles, Warrington Museum, Welsh, windows, WWII, Yorkshire, Zoom | Comments (0)

A season in ‘Hell’

Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Review of Jonathan C Slaght’s compelling Owls of the Eastern Ice: The Quest to Find and Save the World’s Largest Owl. — For Geographical

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged Allen Lane, Americans, bears, China, conservation, fieldwork, forests, Geographical, Japan, Jonathan C Slaght, memoir, non-fiction, North Korea, owls, the Soviet Union, tigers, urine, winter | 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, Ethiopia, France, Gamini Jayantha Molligoda, Gundulf, in-laws, Instagram, leopards, London, phones, photography, South Africa, statuary, Sunday Times (SL), technology, The Fast Show, The One That Got Away, Wilpattu | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, December 2, 2019

. There are more kilts in London than in Scotland. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Thursday, May 9 1907 . At 45% of the population, white Christians are a shrinking demographic in America. Hermal eggings are so leek. No sensitive person would choose to be the historian of the Irish asylums in the first part of the […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged America, children, clothing, drink, ducks, English, food, goldfish, health, Hegel, history, holidays, humour, London, madness, Nelson Evening Mail, new, politics, religion, Rioja, Robert Southey, satire, Scotland, Smak, Spinoza, the Irish, WG Grace | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, October 14, 2019

. The King has a collection of 170 curious walking sticks. One is made from one of the piles of old London Bridge. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Wednesday, April 10 1907 . All the best people are born in October. In Moldova (and Czechoslovakia), ‘carp’ is spelled ‘crap’. In 1492 Native Americans discovered Columbus lost […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged books, buses, Christopher Columbus, clothing, cutlery, Czechoslovakia, democracy, engineering, fish, grandmothers, health, honey, London, Max Hastings, Moldova, monarchy, mountains, Mozart, Native Americans, Nelson Evening Mail, news, October, painting, piles, rugby, Rugby World Cup 2019, satire, Scotland, sex, stupidity, termites, walking sticks, war | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, April 8, 2019

. On an average there is only one sudden death among women to eight among men. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Tuesday, September 25 1906 . The Earl of Oxford did not write Fleabag. Hull is other people. Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci chose to stick the with most ridiculous crap name that they could think of. Failure to […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged army, borscht, cars, Cúchulainn, Da Vinci, death, Facebook, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, horses, Hull, Justin Trudeau, men, Nelson Evening Mail, nomenclature, Ohio, Oxford, seafood, sex, space, The Incredible Hulk, TV, violin, women, yoga | Comments (0)

Intelligence review

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 | Also tagged Afghanistan, Allen Lane, America, Ancient Egypt, army, Bletchley Park, Cardinal Richelieu, China, Christianity, 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, 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 | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, March 27, 2017

. A lady of limited means residing in the country says that her garden clothes herself and her daughter. — The Nelson Evening Mail, August 31 1906 . There is a typo in Punjabi birth certificates. Since January 2013, a Russian cruise ship has been drifting unmanned in the North Atlantic. Toxic trolls are pushing Vicky […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged Americans, books, coffee, Concrete Society, drink, farts, food, health, horticulture, India, insanity, Jan Ladislav Dussek, kettles, London, masturbation, Mother's Day, music, Nelson Evening Mail, novels, officialdom, Richard Dawkins, sea-faring, the Atlantic, the Punjab, tigers, trolls, typos | Comments (0)