Hobbies
A Scottish Odyssey
The memsahib & I decided on one last Scottish tour of The Highlands, our fifth, before we run down the curtain. I have some Scottish ancestry, my grandmother’s clan was Bruce although a lowland clan [more…]
Travel
Culture
An English to English Dictionary
I have long wondered if a dictionary existed that translates the bastardised version of the English language used in America to our original version. That bloke Webster has a lot to answer for, compiling his [more…]
20th Century
The Death Railway, Part Five
David Lean’s 1957 film depicted the bridge as a significant timber structure located in the deep jungle, spanning a narrow river featuring rocks and rapids. This is of course a work of fiction and was [more…]
20th Century
The Death Railway, Part Four
Step forward to the present day; SWMBO and I have been visiting Thailand for many years and decided it was time to head out to the Death Railway as Grandad Humbug had been in Burma [more…]
20th Century
The Death Railway, Part Three
Railway Construction Initially, the railway construction schedule allowed reasonable working conditions to be imposed on the POWs who, at that time, formed the majority of the skilled workforce. This combined with the fact that the [more…]
20th Century
The Death Railway, Part Two
The preparatory work was completed by early September 1942 and construction began both in Burma and Thailand on the 16th of that month. Many of the Japanese engineers had attended British universities before heading back [more…]
20th Century
The Death Railway
Most Puffins will have watched David Lean’s 1957 film The Bridge on the River Kwai which is based on a novel published five years previously by French author Pierre Boulle. Whilst both book and film [more…]
19th Century
Once Quarried From The Old Testament
They say you should never meet your heroes. Is this a recent phenomenon? Certainly, you’d be advised to make an excuse and leave if you think a chief constable is about to enter the room. [more…]
20th Century
American Journey 1952, New York
Of course, it’s impossible to do justice to New York in a few hundred words. Its like saying the Pacific is deep or that Everest is high or that Helen of Troy was a pretty [more…]