20th Century
Report From Israel, 1957 – Part Three
In 1957 my uncle, John Alldridge visited Israel for the Birmingham Mail. This is the third of his reports. – Jerry F The first you see of it is a row of whitewashed oil drums, [more…]
Blog
Arts
Christmas, How Did Yours Go?
I saw a piece to camera from Sonia Poulton before Christmas who felt Hollywood was less than helpful in its portrayal of a Christmas as a sugary confection of unreasonable expectation. True of course because [more…]
Collecting
A Few of My Favourite Things – Part 1
It’s been a while since I last did an article about art and thought I would take a few pictures of some of my best and most treasured items. The first is our most recent [more…]
Arts
Crom’s Fav Albums of 2023
Below I present my five favourite albums of this year. They aren’t necessarily ‘the best’, (whatever that even means), just the ones that I am most likely to revisit over the ensuing years. Of the [more…]
Drinking
The 12 wines of Christmas
In no particular order are here my 12 wines of Christmas with the descriptions as found online From left to right Mersault J.M. Boillot 2019Beautifully crisp and textural Meursault with fresh white fruit and striking [more…]
Arts
Going Postal’s Monster Christmas Quiz
What do you or your family know about Christmas, and how it’s been celebrated and portrayed over the years? 120 Christmas questions! Doing the whole quiz in one go might be a bit much for [more…]
Biography
Tales From The Alarm Industry Hong Kong Special
I hadn’t intended to write about my trip to Hong Kong and subsequent work but here it is. I hope you find it interesting. Having finished with the alarm company on Friday, I was due [more…]
Arts
Fabulously Flamboyant Fridays: Synth-Pop – Part 2
Greetings pop pickers and welcome to another edition of Fabulously Flamboyant Fridays – our occasional Campari and soda drenched probe into the rainbow and glitter world of artistes who are quite simply fabulous, darling. This [more…]
20th Century
Postcard From Kiruna
Having been presented with the key to the door, my wilful 21-year-old self used the opportunity to close the lock tightly behind him and allow the trade winds to billow his sails north, all the [more…]