Sunday, October 9, 2016

Looking for a snowbow

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Benjamin Banneker, a free black American who not only worked his own tobacco farm but was a self-taught astronomer and mathematician, died 2...
Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Václav Havel as diarist

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Václav Havel, the Czech political dissident and human rights activist who became his country’s first president in the post-Communist era, wo...

A monster to devour me

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Mary Astor, a Hollywood star of many films but best known for her role in The Maltese Falcon , was also a writer of some talent. However, he...
Saturday, September 24, 2016

Puppeteer extraordinary

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‘I love it!. I’ve always enjoyed cars - and I enjoy being in love with my car.’ This is the famous US puppeteer, Jim Henson, creator of the ...
Friday, September 23, 2016

V happy with E

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‘Oh E, how can I live separated from you? What have I done to us? If I stopped caring, I should never care for anything. If I stopped fearin...
Tuesday, September 20, 2016

The king of Madagascar

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Maurice, Count de Benyovszky, was born 270 years ago today. A gloriously romantic figure, a nobleman who fought for different countries acro...
Thursday, September 8, 2016

A fool’s paradise of poetry

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‘Heavens! what fortitude one needs, to become a decent writer. One runs madly through green thickets, enamoured of the bird-notes which last...
Monday, September 5, 2016

10,000 houses in one flame

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It is exactly 400 years since London was ravaged by the great fire of 1666. Astonishingly, two of the nation’s most important and earliest d...