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Tag Archives: India

Bleak Howzat!?— Charles Dickens pays a visit to The Cricket Club

(in loving memory of its former incarnation) . Colombo. The Galle and Pallakele matches lately over, the series lost, and the selectors falling back on Maitland Place in hopes of inspiration for the third and final test. The last of the erratic rains now gone, the water in the half-uncovered sewers stagnant, rank with garbage. […]

Intelligence review

‘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 […]

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. Last year 15,391 persons kept bees in this colony. The number of hives was 74,341. — The Nelson Evening Mail, April 10 1907 . It’s not every day a virgin conceives and bears a son. Indifference to facts is not confined to the alt-right and the hyper-liberal Left. The word ‘minge’ is of Romany extraction. […]

Around the world in 60 minutes

On microlecturing, the RGS, and a whistlestop tour around the Jaffna peninsula. — For The Oldie

Cannon law

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

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. From the deepest pit we may see the stars. — The Nelson Evening Mail, August 28 1906 . Armadillos are incapable of irony. Greek prostitutes bill their clients in six-minute units. One of the stars of early-Nineties cult TV show Twin Peaks was called Suburbis Polaski. It is rarely useful to have studied Latin. A ‘wineglassful’ is an […]

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. A lady of limited means residing in the country says that her garden clothes herself and her daughter. — The Nelson Evening Mail, August 31 1906 . There is a typo in Punjabi birth certificates. Since January 2013, a Russian cruise ship has been drifting unmanned in the North Atlantic. Toxic trolls are pushing Vicky […]

Eight debut novels

Currently sitting at 12 to 1 for this year’s Booker Prize, first-time novelist Paul Kingsnorth has set the cat among the pigeons through the disarmingly original expedient of submitting his offering in a fictional language. Composed in what Kingsnorth calls the ‘shadow tongue’ of ‘eald anglisc’, The Wake (Unbound 365pp £16.99) explores one angle of […]

On the ecstasy of finally getting Sky HD (with the FF, PAUSE, and RW options)

FRASIER: ‘… and I’ve never felt more alive!’ [30x FF] sponsor’sdeodorantad(tagline=grammaticalerror)Channel4fillerhypsersentimentalfilmofIndianmagic realistnovel(youcantellfromtheColdplay)highstreetdrugstoreposhboyadolescentcomedian/AmazonLacoste mansprayoverpricedforeignchocolatewithpurposefully’cosmopolitan’misspellingmakeupArgos1/2Snickers (JoanCollinsnotMrT)supermarketArgos2/2peopleLovin’somethingVinceVaughanChristmasvehicle/C4plug deodorantagain [PLAY] FRASIER: ‘You can’t imagine the thrill I felt…’

Sarnath Banerjee has his own aesthetics

only they’re a bit… wonky. Interview and slide-show with Delhi’s finest graphic novelist. — For theartsdesk