18th Century
A Walk in the Past
Ey-up miduks, as they say here in my adopted city. This ramble all started with a day off. A Friday, to be precise. It was no particular Friday, and there was no particular reason for [more…]
Blog
History
Mancs, Marx and Mill Towns
More notes from 45 years of cycling If you are following this series, you will know that my kind of curiosity is one that is still making money, or at least providing a public service [more…]
Economics
Going For Gold – Part 5
Previous articles in this series have focused heavily on British coins produced by the Royal Mint. I thought it would be interesting to do some articles on precious metal coins from other countries around the [more…]
Arts
Postcard From November, Part 3
Happy Birthday to Me My birthday is November 4th and as a child my main memory of it was always of my parents laying on a party for my friends who all turned up bearing [more…]
Engineering
Sleep Apnoea, “What a load of CPAP!”
“You, you may not know this about me but years ago I was diagnosed with a sleep disorder” – William Shatner Pronounced “Sleep ap knee ah”. I remember an episode of the Sopranos from 2000 [more…]
20th Century
The Desert War – April 1941
April was a very busy month 80 years ago, Libya, Greece, Iraq and East Africa were all full of action. On the 1st, just as Rommel began his attack, there was a coup d’état in [more…]
Biography
Sailing my life away, part 12
PREFACE REFLECTIONS ON FREEDOM Oh dear! 12 April 2021 is the first day we’ve been let out of our cages and I’m frightened. The world outside seems a big, scary and uninteresting place – please [more…]
Authoritarianism
Return to HMP UK
Kafka’s Joseph K did not know what his crime was. Dr and Prof K do. They had the audacity to travel to a foreign country for compassionate reasons. Getting to said foreign country was easy [more…]
Animals
Cnuteneering, Part Thirteen
Welcome back to Cnuteneering, where the possible is made more difficult by bone headed ignorance, overenthusiasm and pointy metal things being brought together. You may want to refresh your memory on the project in: Part [more…]