20th Century
The Only One in The World?
I’m a great believer that surges of adrenaline reshape the connections in the brain in the way a deluge of flood water might reshape a river valley. You are not the same person after an [more…]
Science
Health
The Big Big D
From HMS Pinafore: Captain: Bad language or abuse, I never, never use, Whatever the emergency; Though “bother it” I may occasionally say, I never use a big, big D — Chorus: What, never? Captain: No, [more…]
Diary
Through The Storm to The Smoke
After a breakfast of yoghurt and cheese, washed down with a glass of full-fat milk, we made our way to the railway station early. Storm Floris was interrupting myself, Mrs AWS’s, and our VVIP’s chaperoning [more…]
Authoritarianism
Do You Still Believe Anything You Read?
Apologies in advance to Larry and his scribe WorthingGooner for pre-empting part of this coming Sunday’s ever popular and always entertaining Larry’s Diary, but something has cropped up and I think all G-P authors, commenters [more…]
Health
What’s special about special needs?
The Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson, has promised a statement on Special Education Needs and Disability (SEND) in the autumn. The driver is largely money. Local authorities have retained financial responsibility for SEND [more…]
Hobbies
Playing With Electricity – Part 4
Damn You Morus Nigra! ‘John Swerved as Mary, Queen of Scots, was busy with her throne but it wouldn’t flush so her face turned to stone when Jane put her hand on John’s gear stick [more…]
Arts
Digitising Old Cine Films
Having modernised and saved the old family photos and audio recordings for ‘posterity’ by converting them to digital format, attention turned to the family cine films, shot in the 1960s and early 1970s: 24 reels [more…]
20th Century
Always Worth Saying’s Railway Review
One tires of the streetcars of Paramaribo, the mineral railways of the Amazon, and even of rural Albania in the 1980s. Railway Review’s roving reportage shall change continents and seek excitement (but not too much) [more…]
19th Century
Sir Joseph Whitworth and the Confederate Sniper
Introduction In March 2024 I purchased a first generation, Birmingham-made Parker-Hale replica of a Whitworth military pattern muzzle-loading rifle of the late 1850s. These iconic rifles gained legendary status following their use in the American [more…]