20th Century
The History of Pop Music – 1983
Featured song: Spandau Ballet – True This is a series of articles looking at pop music from 1955 when in my opinion proper pop music began up to 1999 when they stopped making it. One [more…]
History
20th Century
Troublesome Afghanistan – 1895 to the Third Afghan War
Drawing the line From 1895 until the Third Afghan War of 1919, Afghanistan experienced a period of relative political stability marked by attempts to consolidate internal control, manage external pressures, and maintain independence amid the [more…]
20th Century
An (Algaes’ Eye) View From The Greenhouse; An Civil Society….Innit?
I may have mentioned (I could check back, but I can’t be bothered) that we had an early harvest of small, not very tasty and far from sweet strawberries, following the early warm spell back [more…]
20th Century
The History of Pop Music – 1982
Featured song: Madness – Madness – House of Fun This is a series of articles looking at pop music from 1955 when in my opinion proper pop music began up to 1999 when they stopped [more…]
19th Century
Troublesome Afghanistan
My great-grandfather on my father’s mother’s side served in Afghanistan. Being hill, mountain and lake types, our local regiment, The Border Regiment, deployed to the disputed territory between that country and British India in the [more…]
20th Century
Kill not cure: the economic prescriptions that failed
Introduction In my essay ‘From Socialism to Welfarism: the Betrayal of the Working Class’, I observed that the early socialist thinkers developed their ideas at the peak of the industrial revolution. Socialist theory was therefore [more…]
20th Century
Always Worth Saying’s Railway Review
One tires of the streetcars of Paramaribo, the mineral railways of the Amazon, and even of rural Albania in the 1980s. Railway Review’s roving reportage shall change continents and seek excitement (but not too much) [more…]
20th Century
The History of Pop Music – 1981
Featured song: Squeeze – Labelled With Love This is a series of articles looking at pop music from 1955 when in my opinion proper pop music began up to 1999 when they stopped making it. [more…]
19th Century
Sir Joseph Whitworth and the Confederate Sniper
Introduction In March 2024 I purchased a first generation, Birmingham-made Parker-Hale replica of a Whitworth military pattern muzzle-loading rifle of the late 1850s. These iconic rifles gained legendary status following their use in the American [more…]