Sunday, September 1, 2019
Chastise: The Dambusters Story 1943 By Max Hastings William Collins £25 . By 1943, after nearly four years of war ‘ameliorated [only] by a thin gruel of successes,’ Britain and her western allies had little to boast in terms of their offensive victories; the lion’s share of the burden was very clearly being shouldered by [...]
Filed in Journalism, review
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Also tagged Bomber Command, Dambusters, death, engineering, Germany, Guy Gibson, history, Max Hastings, non-fiction, RAF, Sir Arthur Harris, Sir Charles Portal, the Commonwealth, The Oldie, war, William Collins, WW2
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Review of Future Cities: Architecture and the Imagination, by Paul Dobraszczyk. – For Geographical
Filed in Journalism, review
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Also tagged architecture, art, books, Geographical, non-fiction, Paul Dobraszczyk, Reaktion Books, Royal Geographical Society, slums, the future
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Thursday, November 15, 2018
The Spanish Inquisition, and other matters unexpectedly arising. – For Queen Mob’s Tea House
Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE
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Also tagged Angola, anthems, Bosnia, Brazil, cricket, Croatia, De Selby, death, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, Fox News, France, Germany, Greece, Guinea, Guyana, Haiti, housing, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Laos, libraries, money, Mongolia, Nelson Evening Mail, Nepal, New Zealand, November, peace, Portugal, Queen Mob's Tea House, rainbows, religion, roosters, satire, Senegal, sex, sexting, Spain, Spike Lee, Switzerland, Tajikistan, the Forth Bridge, the Marseillaise, the Victorians, Tonbridge School, train-travel, Trinidad and Tobago, trousers, UK, Venezuela, writing, Yorkshire
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Tuesday, October 16, 2018
Two nights from now, by way of (ahem) a birthday present, I will be attending a live-orchestra screening of The English Patient at the Albert Hall. I had invited an old friend, a raven-haired young lady (named in Debrett’s) of impossibly romantic tendency, who first exposed me to the film in, I’d say, about 1998 [...]
Filed in correspondence, Journalism
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Also tagged Academy Awards, Afghanistan, Ahmed Hassanein, air travel, American University in Cairo, anatomy, Anthony Minghella, Arabic, army, Banana Republic, bedouin, Benny Goodman, Booker Prize, books, bookshops, Brighton, Bruce Chatwin, Byron, Canada, Charing Cross Road, Christopher Hitchens, clothing, Debrett's, deserts, Dorset, Egypt, Egyptology, exploration, French Foreign Legion, Gabriel Yared, Geoff Dyer, Geographical, Geographical Journal, Herodotus, Hungarian, Hungary, JM Coetzee, John Ball, John Hare, Joseph Conrad, Justin Marozzi, Kensington Gore, Kristen Scott Thomas, László Almásy, London, Long Range Desert Group, Lorenz Hart, love, Michael Ondaatje, mountains, music, novels, Orientalism, Oscar Wilde, Oxford, Picador, plums, Ralph Bagnold, Ralph Fiennes, Ranulph Fiennes, Richard Bermann, Robert Twigger, Royal Albert Hall, Royal Geographical Society, Saul Kelly, Sinai, SOE, song, South Africa, the Himalayas, the Nile, The Oldie, the Sahara, the Western Desert, war, WG Sebald, William Golding, wind, women, WW2, YouTube, Zerzura
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. The average salary of professors at Dublin University is £530. — The Nelson Evening Mail, March 14 1907 . Wherever there is a fire that ravages everything in its path, the protea is the first thing to regenerate. Clive James once voluntarily interviewed the Spice Girls. Manchester has become ‘Womanchester’. Cineworld has landed in [...]
Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE
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Also tagged academia, America, army, bowls, Cineworld, Clive James, domestic affairs, Donald Trump, drink, Dublin, education, Elon Musk, employment, engineering, finance, flora, Journalism, Kanye West, law, Manchester, music, Nelson Evening Mail, nomenclature, Oscar Wilde, pastry, retirement, South Africa, space travel, technology, the Congo, the Spice Girls, Um Bongo, university, Weston-super-Mare, women, work
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Monday, February 19, 2018
. In China the dials of a clock turn round instead of the hands. — The Nelson Evening Mail, September 8 1908 . Benedict Cumberbatch reads Oryx magazine. A piece of pasta (dry) weighs essentially one gram. A man can only care about so many things. Labels are for clothes. In Bosnian there are no words for [...]
Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE
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Also tagged Benedict Cumberbatch, Bosnian, brothers, China, clothing, cows, Darryl Gerrity, death, Dmitri Kabalevsky, Englishmen, fiction, friends, grapes, Hawaii, health, horology, Islam, love, magazines, measurements, men, music, Nelson Evening Mail, non-fiction, pasta, pornography, Qatar Airways, Reading, religion, Russians, Virginia, white goods
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Monday, December 25, 2017
. More than nine-tenths of the railway passengers in England travel third-class. — The Nelson Evening Mail, October 20 1906 . ‘The is cat washing dishes’ is an 18th-century expression for the reflection of water on the walls of a room. A skate’s vagina is anatomically similar to a woman’s. Just because a thing is true does not mean that [...]
Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE
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Also tagged (il)literacy, 18th century, accommodation, age, anatomy, army, Batman, Ben Affleck, brothers, Canterbury, Casey Affleck, cats, Chartham, children, Christmas, de Lesseps, democracy, Die Hard, drink, Egypt, employment, fish, Italian, Nelson Evening Mail, paper, Roy William Scranton, sex, steel, Suez Crisis, Superman, Tennessee Williams, The Fratellis, the Soviet Union, train-travel, Truth, water, women, writers
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Tuesday, December 19, 2017
Dunkirk – THE UNTOLD STORY!! – For The Oldie
Filed in correspondence, Journalism
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Also tagged 11th Armoured Division, 51st Highland Division, 97th (Kent Yeomanry) Field Regiment, army, British Expeditionary Force, Canterbury, champagne, Channel Islands, cricket, Croix de Guerre, D-Day, Dunkirk, Elsie Adeline Cockersell, France, Germans, incarceration, James Kingford Carson, Kent, livery companies, love, moustaches, Nazis, Normandy, Royal Artillery, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, sea-faring, St Valery-en-Caux, The Oldie, war, women, Yorkshire
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Dear Amorist, I recently made a joke about my pregnant wife – and found myself receiving several pointers. ‘Have lots of sex before the baby’s born,’ said one. ‘Watch loads of movies,’ said another. Couldn’t we just watch porn, and kill two birds with one stone? Yours, &c. ASH Smyth, by email
. There are more fragrant white flowers than of any other colour. — The Nelson Evening Mail, July 13 1908 . The inhabitants of Ipswich are the least passionate in the UK, having sex on average only 18 times per annum. Gazelles are quite amenable to snuff. Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich was a fully-trained football referee and [...]
Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE
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Also tagged Aberystwyth, Americans, anatomy, children, Déodat-Guy-Sylvain-Tancrède Gratet de Dolomieu, drink, eBay, football, gazelles, Great Portland Street, Ipswich, James IV, Jesse James, languages, literature, mineralogy, Nelson Evening Mail, obscenity, Scotland, sex, Shostakovich, tennis, the Bible, the French, tobacco, UK, wives, writing
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