Christianity
Christmas Gifts
“Then Herod secretly called the wise men, and learned from them exactly what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, “Go and search diligently for the young child, and when [more…]
Foxoles
18th Century
Book review: Georgiana, by Amanda Foreman
Amanda Foreman is the British/American daughter of American film-maker Carl Foreman (Bridge on the River Kwai, High Noon). Carl Foreman moved to England from Hollywood during the McCarthy era; he had been blacklisted and his [more…]
Health
Don’t worry – be happy
I was encouraged to write this article by Teggers Play Pop and Foxoles (I think) following a comment I made on GP some months ago. I can’t recall exactly what I said but it was [more…]
Human Interest
Gtech HyLite model SCV100 – product review
‘I started Gtech to create sensible, easy-to-use products, which do a great job’ Nick Grey – inventor and owner of Gtech. Well, I think Mr Grey has achieved that in this case. Read on to [more…]
America
Book Review: Kick by Paula Byrne
The subtitle of this book is ‘the true story of Kick Kennedy, JFK’s forgotten sister, and the heir to Chatsworth’, although personally I think the title ‘forgotten sister’ might be more accurately applied to JFK’s [more…]
20th Century
A Different Class of Murder, by Laura Thompson
We Brits love a mystery, and they don’t come much more mysterious than Lord Lucan. There are lots of books out there about the Lucan case – those of us who were around then will [more…]
Arts
Inside the Neolithic Mind
This is a rather niche book, but I know there are (at least) a few Puffins keen on archaeology, so I thought it might be of interest. It explores, as the subtitle says, ‘consciousness, cosmos [more…]
Arts
English Alabaster
On a mini-break to London some years ago, we decided to have a look round the Courtauld Gallery (in the old Somerset House, which used for decades to be the central registry of birth, marriages [more…]
Hobbies
Solving Cryptic Crosswords – Some Hints
A Puffin asked in the comments recently if someone could do a post on this, as he had always been interested in having a go at them but didn’t know where to start. So here [more…]