15th Century
Disintermediation
My first job was as a graduate trainee for a merchant bank in the City in the late 1980s and among the many buzzwords that the Slick Willies of that profession used to bandy about [more…]
History
19th Century
A Labour of Love
Introduction Hidden away in the heart of France’s Drôme region about 50km south of Lyon is a little known yet magnificently eccentric example of naïve architecture that is well worth a detour or, in my [more…]
20th Century
20th Century
Operation Keelhaul
Come the end of the second world war, the last thing Stalin wanted was any number of Russians who were potentially his enemies wandering around the Western countries. To ensure this did not happen his [more…]
20th Century
20th Century
Communist Flip Flops
The aspiration for this article is to enlighten some Puffins about the several about-turns the Communists were forced into before, during and after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact when Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were enemies, [more…]
History
Postcard from Piercebridge
A few miles south of Legs Cross Bank, Dere Street crosses the River Tees at a place called Piercebridge, the Roman Morbium. Although no more than a village it is still regarded as a town [more…]
20th Century
The Marshall Plan
Following on from the Morgenthau Plan, only partially and half-heartedly implemented, we come to the much better known Marshall Plan. This was named after General Marshall who at the time was the US Secretary of [more…]
Christianity
Daniel – a Prophetic Vision Part 5
Nebuchadnezzar’s Madness, Belshazzar’s Feast and the Fall of Babylon In a prophetic book of such striking imagery and dramatic scenes as that of Daniel, the accounts of Nebuchadnezzar’s madness, Belshazzar’s Feast and the Fall of [more…]