21st Century
Warfare – Snake style
Puffins that have their ears to the ground (or is it ears to the clouds?) will no doubt be aware of the excellent series of lectures by David Betz which very convincingly argues that we [more…]
History
20th Century
Beautiful Kashmir
Never travel to a country that’s a funny colour on the map, or worse still, described by different coloured diagonal lines. Disputed territory is not only the cartographer’s nightmare, but also that of the traveller. [more…]
20th Century
Book Review: Concorde by Mike Bannister
Introduction In response to Swiss Bob’s lack of articles, I have dashed this out, instead of a fuller version I had planned. In short, I heartily recommend Mike Bannister’s book ‘Concorde’, which I listened to [more…]
20th Century
The Eurovision Song Contest 2025 – The Grand Final
Don your taffeta and sequinned best, pull on your bondage trousers, lube up your leather chaps and please be welcome to the annual festival of flounce and flamboyance that we all know and love as [more…]
20th Century
Desert Mystery: Cartoons on a wall
Recently, I acquired a set of wartime photographs sourced from a militaria dealer in Munich. The photographs are of cartoons hand-drawn across the whitewashed walls of a room. The style is typical of that seen [more…]
20th Century
A View From (Brougham Hall) Quite Near The Greenhouse; Was It All Worth It?
I don’t doubt that my long suffering reader will have had a similar conversation to the one I had some days ago with Mrs. C. It went something like this; “Er, Colin, are there any [more…]
20th Century
The History of Pop Music – 1977
Featured song: Eagles – Hotel California 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…]
20th Century
On this day, 1945
On this day 80 years ago, the Allied powers accepted Germany’s unconditional surrender, bringing an official end to World War II in Europe. We in the U.K. celebrate 8 May as Victory in Europe Day, [more…]
20th Century
In the Graveyard of St Nicholas, Moreton
During a visit to the Tank Museum at Bovington Camp, Dorset, with my daughter, we decided first to go to the graveyard of the Church of St Nicholas in the village of Moreton in the [more…]