19th Century
A Bear’s Diary – Part 7
May 6th, 1809 We are part of a regular army again, pressing on to confront the French. I must confess that my old bones are aching from the furious pace of our advance. Jem is [more…]
History
20th Century
A History of Pop Music – 1970
Featured song: Simon & Garfunkel – Bridge over troubled water 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 [more…]
19th Century
Milestones in Nineteenth Century Firearms Development, Part Three
Introduction Although the flintlock ignition system was technically advanced for its time, it wasn’t without its shortcomings. Flintlocks require careful setting-up and constant maintenance and adjustment to be reliable. They also have a relatively slow [more…]
19th Century
A Bear’s Diary – Part 6
March 2nd, 1809. We are back in Portugal at last. It has been a circuitous journey across ridges and valleys, avoiding the French troops on the lower ground, but we have managed it without any [more…]
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…]
19th Century
Milestones in Nineteenth Century Firearms Development, Part Two
In my introductory article we saw that by the beginning of the 19th century the flintlock was firmly established as the state-of-the-art means of ignition in military and sporting firearms. In this article, we will [more…]
19th Century
A Bear’s Diary – Part 5
January 19th, 1809. Our return to Lisbon will not be like our march north. Then we were travelling with an army in good order on broad roads through a populated area near the coast. Now [more…]
20th Century
A History of Pop Music – 1968
Featured song: The Bee Gees – Words 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…]
Arts
The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon
I was musing on the small pleasures in life this morning: hot, clean water on a cold day; the scent of flowers that catches you unawares when walking through a dormant winter’s garden; the taste [more…]