Monday, February 3, 2020

Gideon Mantell - geologist

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Although Gideon Algernon Mantell - born 230 years ago today - was almost 50 by the time Victoria became Queen, when reading his lively and i...
Wednesday, January 29, 2020

The Jones/Palin relationship

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In the last ten days, two stalwarts of the British entertainment industry - Terry Jones and Nicholas Parsons - have departed the stage for t...
Monday, January 27, 2020

A solid stretch of ice

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It is now generally accepted that the very first sighting of Antartica took place on this day, two hundred years ago, by a Russian expeditio...
Saturday, January 25, 2020

Dobzhansky, Darwin and religion

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Theodosius Dobzhansky, a Russian-American scientist who did much in the 20th century to marry Darwin’s biological theories with the new scie...
Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Pioneering women’s education

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‘But the great fact is granted, the thin end of the wedge in, and, though nothing is secure till after the Senatus on Saturday, yet it is an...
Saturday, January 18, 2020

Nerves before a sitting

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It’s 40 years to the day since Cecil Beaton died. A famous photographer and costume designer, he was also a significant diarist. His self-ed...
Thursday, January 16, 2020

The Mountains of Jagga

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‘This morning we discerned the Mountains of Jagga more distinctly than ever; and about ten o'clock I fancied I saw a dazzlingly white cl...
Saturday, January 11, 2020

The horizon is getting darker

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‘The horizon is getting darker. Some days ago we heard about Ristlaan’s vicious speech at the Radio House, where he, among other things, had...