20th Century
The Windsors & Jimmy Donahue
The story of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor is one of the most romantic of all time: Edward VIII abdicated his throne and gave up an empire so that he could marry the woman [more…]
Blog
Arts
Postcard from Romania – Part Three
Part Two of the Postcard from Romania saw me waxing rhapsodic about the Museum of Pharmacy at the Mauksch-Hintz House in Cluj. After a fantastic visit, when we spent hours marvelling at the extraordinary collections, [more…]
19th Century
Codswallop
Codswallop! This article is about a type of Victorian bottle invented by Hiram Codd, a British bottle inventor. Invention of the ‘Codd’ Bottle. Hiram Codd worked for the British and Foreign Cork Company and during [more…]
Arts
GB News Preview by Always Worth Saying
Monday the 31st May Sunday the 13th June 2021 sees the much-anticipated launch of Britains’ newest news channel, Andrew Neil’s GB News. With its Union Jack based logo and a hint of the words “Great” [more…]
Biography
Sailing my life away, part 15
COMMENT ON THE COMMENTS ON PART 14 A few readers said they appreciated my responses to comments on Part 13 so I do the same again for Part 14. Bobo provided a link for Foxoles [more…]
20th Century
Somewhere West of Laramie
It was an evening in June 1923, and a Union Pacific train – “The Overland Limited” – was working its way west across the wilds of Wyoming. Onboard was Ned Jordon, president of the Jordan [more…]
Arts
Wolf Country: A Spiritual History of Iran
Introduction Paropamisidae, Arachosia, Gedrosia, Hyrcania…what strangely mellifluous names were given to the provinces of the Persian Empire conquered by Alexander, whose name became synonymous with evil in the Iranian mind. Hyrcania had echoes even in [more…]
Economics
Designing Tax Policy – it should be obvious!
A well-designed tax policy would extract from citizens’ wealth what’s needed by the government to protect their lives and civil liberties. It would not be designed to achieve purely political objectives, no matter how dressed [more…]
Arts
Defund the BBC, letter 1
The following letter is not intended to be legal advice. I am particularly interested to hear about any successful fraud cases against TV licence investigators. NOTICE TO AGENT IS NOTICE TO PRINCIPAL – NOTICE [more…]