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Intelligence review

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

‘For centuries before the Second World War, educated British people knew far more about intelligence operations recorded in the Bible than they did about the role of intelligence at any moment in their own history.’ Nowadays, one might think, few would even know that. But that’s where Christopher Andrew – Emeritus Professor of Modern and [...]

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged Afghanistan, Allen Lane, America, Ancient Egypt, army, Bletchley Park, Cardinal Richelieu, China, Christianity, Christopher Andrew, Christopher Marlowe, CIA, Clausewitz, Elizabeth I, Francis Walsingham, Holland, India, Islam, Israel, Ivan the Terrible, Julius Caesar, MI5, MI6, Napoleon, non-fiction, Pearl Harbour, Russia, spies, Stalin, Sun Tzu, the Bible, the Cold War, the KGB, the Medway, The Oldie, the Spanish Armada, University of Cambridge, Vasili Mitrokhin, Venice, war, Waterloo, WWII, Xenophon | Comments (0)

Monty’s trouble

Monday, May 28, 2018

A footsoldier’s review of Antony Beevor’s Arnhem: the Battle for the Bridges, 1944. – For The Oldie

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged 1st Airborne Division, Allied Expeditionary Force, Antony Beevor, army, Arnhem, books, Britishness, engineering, Field Marshal Montgomery, Flanders, General Bradley, General Eisenhower, General Patton, Germans, Holland, Nijmegen, non-fiction, Operation Market Garden, paratroopers, Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld, the Dutch, The Oldie, the Schutzstaffel, the Wehrmacht, WW2 | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, April 30, 2018

. Norway has five leper hospitals, with about 600 patients. — The Nelson Evening Mail, January 24 1907 . There is an injury called ’tennis elbow of the heel’. The rocks in the Sultanate of Oman are special. Hitler only started all the Nazi bollocks because he was such a godawful painter. There is no necessary connection between [...]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged Adolf Hitler, America, birds, boxing, codicology, crime, death, dogs, Edwin RIst, finance, Francis Urquhart, geology, health, leprosy, London International Palaeography Summer School, manuscripts, mountaineering, Natural History Museum, Nazism, Nelson Evening Mail, Norway, Oman, painting, palaeography, phones, Poetry, poets, policing, pudding, Samaritans, Stephen Merchant, tennis, the Bible, the Scots Guards, Tibetan, Tring | Comments (0)

Cannon law

Saturday, January 13, 2018

Review of Kim A Wagner’s The Skull of Alum Bheg: The Life and Death of a Rebel of 1857. – For The Spectator

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged Alum Bheg, army, Bengal Native Infantry, Brigadier-General John Nicholson, British Empire, colonialism, death, geography, India, Indian Mutiny, Kim A Wagner, non-fiction, Pakistan, Queen Mary University of London, religion, sepoys, Sialkot, the East India Company, The Spectator | Comments (0)

Summoning Pearl Harbor

Thursday, December 7, 2017

A commemoration of Pearl Harbor, through Alexander Nemerov’s ekphrastic explorations. – For The Oldie

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged air travel, Aleutian Islands, Alexander Nemerov, America, art, Congress, David Zwirner Books, ekphrasis, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Hawaii, Japan, Jimmy Roosevelt, navy, Stanford, The Oldie, USMC, war | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, October 2, 2017

. Few of those who know and admire the camellia, that waxlike and pure flower, are aware that the parent plant, the origin of the million plants scattered throughout Europe, is still alive and is in Italy. — The Nelson Evening Mail, January 22 1907 . The Taliban now control more territory in Afghanistan than they did [...]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged Afghanistan, Alex Haley, Americans, castanets, D-Day, dancing, death, fishing, flora, France, genealogy, hats, Icelandic, Ireland, Italy, Khmer, Lakshman Joseph de Saram, linguistics, Miles Davis, musicians, Nelson Evening Mail, ostriches, phones, Playboy, politics, race, religion, royalty, shit, Sri Lanka, the Taliban, Theresa May, Vikings, violin, vomit, war, woodpeckers | Comments (3)

An honest pisstake

Friday, September 8, 2017

Pissing Figures: 1280–2014 by Jean-Claude Lebensztejn (transl. Jeff Nagy) David Zwirner Books, 168pp, £11.95 . From a Cimabue cherub to Szydlowski/-lowska’s Lenin, simply everyone is pissing. In pen and ink, paint on canvas, plaster, wood, stone, polymer, block prints, engraving, chamber pots, aquatints, dishware, film, manuscripts, inlay, public statuary, trick-photography, and in a Japanese video [...]

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged Abraham Bosse, Andrew Lincoln, art, Bartosz Szydlowski, books, Christ, Cimabue, criticism, Cupid, David Zwirner Books, Japan, Jean-Claude Lebensztejn, Jeff Nagy, Jeffrey Lebowski, Lenin, Malgorzata Szydlowska, Mars, Michelangelo, Paula Radcliffe, sex, Snow White, The Amorist, the French, Titian, urine | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, February 6, 2017

. The telephone has a tendency to render the girl operators left-eared. — The Nelson Evening Mail, July 4 1908 . Eight wickets for eight runs is the worst batting collapse in Twenty20 international cricket. St Blaise is the patron saint of sore throats, and of knitting. Estonian literature suffers from a dearth of stories [...]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged Chaucer, Chrysippus, cricket, drink, driving, Estonia, health, humour, information, Japan, knitting, law, literature, Mount Rushmore, Nelson Evening Mail, Nixon, novels, phones, politics, Samuel Derrick, science, Secret Service, sex, Shakespeare, St Blaise, statuary, toilets, tramps, turnips | Comments (0)

Intellectual MOT

Sunday, October 16, 2016

Some thoughts on the enquiring mind, slang, and judging a book by its cover - in correspondence with Tia Goonaratna. – For The Sunday Leader

Filed in interview, Journalism | Also tagged Angela Carter, books, Christopher Hitchens, Churchill, dictionaries, intellectuals, literature, Mongols, Peter Frankopan, slang, Sri Lanka, The Sunday Leader, Tia Goonaratna, Waterstone's | Comments (0)

Battle

Friday, October 14, 2016

for Harry . When Edward was king, Harold, an English earl, and his horsemen rode to Bosham, to the church there. Harold then crossed the sea, his sails full of wind, and came into the domain of Count Guy. Guy took Harold prisoner, and leading him away to Beaurain, held him captive there. Harold and Guy [...]

Filed in Translation | Also tagged 1066, Bayeux, England, France, Harold, Hastings, Latin, needlework, Normans, William the Conqueror | Comments (0)