20th Century
A History of Pop Music – 1969
Featured song: The Rolling Stones – Honky Tonk Women 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…]
History
20th Century
New Year Past
Beneath the headline London’s Joyous Welcome to the New Year, the Daily Mirror of 1st January 1925 showed a ‘special Daily Mirror photograph’ snapped as revellers welcomed in the New Year at the Albert Hall. [more…]
21st Century
Gen Z, Riggy G, and the Kenyan Pornocracy
Gen Z, Riggy G, and the Kenyan Pornocracy In a political landscape defined by opportunism, spectacle, and betrayal, Kenya’s youth-led protests offered a fleeting glimpse of change – only to be ensnared by the same [more…]
20th Century
Boxing Day Past
Yes, I know it isn’t Boxing Day, it’s the day after, but not being around a century ago I can’t repeat the newses from those days with the usual mildly exaggerated and slightly embellished personal [more…]
20th Century
Christmas Past
If you think I can remember 1924, you’re wrong. One relies upon our friends at the British Newspaper Archive. Ten decades ago some newspapers did publish on Christmas Day. The Sutton & Epsom Advertiser was [more…]
Authoritarianism
20th Century
Desert Mystery: “Letters from Afrika” Part Four
In Part 3, I described how Afrika Korps Gefreiter, Hans Walden, had written to Hildegard Bronnold about food parcels he had sent to her, his imaginary coloured pencil sketch of the Nile and his hope [more…]
20th Century
Publicans Win Diploma For Bar Etiquette
One secret: No politics As fine a figure of an English landlord (he tips the scale at nearly 17 stones) as ever drew a pint of old-and-mild is Mr. Alfred Leslie Farrell, “mine host” of [more…]
20th Century
Great Uncle Wally
Great Uncle Wally introduced me to Guinness. Well, to be fair Mackeson, its slightly sweeter cousin. A stout more adapted to the tastes of your average seven-year-old. Those regular Sunday trips during the late 60s [more…]