Biography
Hashtag Henry!
It is the time of year when the wife launches her annual campaign to get me to agree to replace our old Henry the Hoover with a modern upright machine. As ever my response is [more…]
bobo
History
Attila The Hun’s Trousers
Attila the Hun burst, ferociously and irrevocably, into Western European consciousness in 451AD. Following the route that would be taken by German armies in 1914 and 1940 he led his forces along the banks of [more…]
Arts
The Willendorf Venus And Others
Suerte que mis pechos sean pequeños y nos los confundas con montañas – Cervantes The problem with Art is, of course, that it appears very suddenly in the archaeological record. And furthermore that when [more…]
America
The Bay In The Meadows
In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, as the old jingle reminds us, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. But at the very moment that Columbus first set foot on that bright, sunlit isle in the Antilles there [more…]
Biography
The Erdington Chapter
‘Brothir, seyede Sir Launcelot, wyte you well I am full loth to departe out of thys reyllme, but that the Quene hath defended me so hyghly that mesemmeth she wyll nevir be my gode ladye [more…]
Cooking
Ophiocordyceps unilateralis
Yes, there are two paths you can go by. But in the long run there’s still time to change which road you’re on. – Lao Tzu There exists in nature a particularly blasphemous little organism [more…]
Arts
Graveyard Shift
I used to work in a cemetery. It was a dead-end job, but you could always bury yourself in your work! Oh, ho ho ho! I humbly beg your pardon. I shall start again. I [more…]
20th Century
Murder on Meon Hill
Meon Hill lies in the valley of the River Avon, on the border of Oxfordshire and Warwickshire. It is an outlier of the Cotswolds and, although it reaches only a modest 194m of elevation, it [more…]