20th Century
Bax of Delights
There have been quite a few occasions when one wished one was a fly on the wall to listen in on a conversation. The private discussion between Sir Arnold Bax, Master of the King’s Musick, [more…]
History
Arts
Standards, Flags and Colours
In an attempt to win the driest, dullest posted article I present this. The document’s first couple of lines regarding a diversity and inclusion impact assessment may take readers aback. We all know that Royal [more…]
20th Century
Postcard from Hiroshima
This is a note about my visit to the Peace Memorial Museum at Hiroshima. Some of what follows is gruesome. I’ve long been interested in military history, and I’ve been fortunate to visit the site [more…]
19th Century
A Bear’s Diary – Part 30
September 3rd, 1811. I have been too much occupied to keep up my diary for several months. We have all been toiling on the improvement of the Bear Inn, which had fallen into some disrepair [more…]
19th Century
A Bear’s Diary – Part 29
June 9th, 1811. At sea once more, we discovered that two of our crew had deserted, preferring the fleshpots of New York to their homeland and what will certainly be a more than generous reward [more…]
19th Century
A Bear’s Diary – Part 28
June 3rd, 1811. The city of New York lies in a broad river estuary whose wooded slopes give no hint of what will appear around the corner. The river is divided into several channels, forming [more…]
19th Century
A Bear’s Diary – Part 27
April 24th, 1811. Our wanderings have brought us to Trinidad, the largest and almost the easternmost of the chain of islands which dot the edge of the Caribbean Sea. Skirting the western edge of the [more…]
19th Century
A Bear’s Diary – Part 26
February 22nd, 1811. Late last night, as we were heading north-west in a moderate wind, a tremendous grinding crash threw the whole ship askew, and we found ourselves drifting with the sails flapping dangerously, threatening [more…]
20th Century
The devil is always in the detail
Cast your mind back to the morning of Friday the 2nd of May 1997. The British electorate had overwhelmingly swept Anthony Charles Lynton Blair to power, in a landslide victory that conjures imagery of a [more…]