Skip to content

Monthly Archives: April 2020

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. A banker’s license in the United Kingdom costs £30 per annum. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Friday, July 17 1908 . Sri Lanka has only 500 cases of the Coronavirus. Germany has no elite universities. There are a lot of porno videos featuring Scarlett Johansson’s face. Mexico City is a good place to be an […]

The Pelican

Or; Some Further Notes Towards the Bestiary To the researches of the antiquary and scholar Jorge Luis ‘Vintage’ Borges, a few points offer further context on that most peripatetic of birds in this, our present century. . Learned reports come from South Asia, where the spotted-bill Filipino pelican (phillipensis) is found, with no small irony, only in Cambodia, the Indian peninsular, and in Sri Lanka (or the contemporary […]

‘Beauty retire’ – or; Some notes on a portrait of Samuel Pepys

The odd (and possibly inconsequential) story of Pepys’s portrait, his song, and his relationship with Mrs Knepp. — For The Critic

Peak fitness: a virtual expedition diary

Climbing a mountain, lest I start climbing the walls In January, I promised a visiting Reservist mate that we’d climb Adam’s Peak. That plan was scotched when, days before he landed, I went down with dengue fever. But I’d done Adam’s Peak before (the first time, Christmas ’04, probably saved my life when the tsunami struck…), and […]

Hello, Mrs Merkel

An n+(SamsungGalaxyS)7 poem for Padraig Reidy . Hello, Mrs Merkel. This is your mum, your best friend. I have found a copy of Pepys on the stairs, which belongs to you. (My great-grandfathers!! I missed your call when unloading.) I will have the whole set redelivered  to you when I get home. Thank you. Freya.