Friday, June 30, 2023

Irreversibly into the abyss

›
’The Germans play their game cleverly: treason on all sides. Why is it that in no other people drawn into the war is there so much treason a...

Audience with the King

›
‘Audience of the King [Edward VII], . . [He] kept me for about twenty minutes, talking about Japan, the Garter mission, and gardens, such as...
Monday, June 19, 2023

The Golding condition

›
It is 30 years since the death of William Golding, the great British writer, author of Lord of the Flies . A large literary archive containi...
Monday, June 12, 2023

People murdered in martyrdom

›
‘The tombs and graves of people murdered in martyrdom are ever increasing all over the country. Every village and town, every forest abounds...
Saturday, June 10, 2023

A field of purple lupins

›
Some 80 years ago today, Philip Mechanicus, a Dutch journalist who had been arrested and imprisoned in the Westerbork transit camp by the Na...
Tuesday, May 30, 2023

The French lack of delicacy

›
‘The French people do not seem to think it wrong to cheat or lie, or the least disgraceful to be told they do.’ Such was the view of a preco...
Monday, May 29, 2023

On top of Mount Everest

›
Seventy years ago today, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa, made the first acknowledged ascent to the peak of Mount Everest. Altho...
Tuesday, May 23, 2023

What is the answer? Money!

›
Very many happy returns to Joan Collins, 90 years old today. A famous British actress best remembered for her role in Dynasty , she is now c...
Saturday, May 6, 2023

The bluff to Old Snuffy

›
‘In the afternoon Lt. Wheeler and I came to a rapid where we deemed it advisable to wait for the Picture [a boat]. I climbed the bluff to O...