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Tag Archives: Russia

Crimean punishment

Attempting – unsuccessfully – to get my head round the roots of the Ukraine war, via Orlando Figes’ magisterial Crimea. — For Perspective

On Commonwealth Day

… my diaries relate a (very positive) diplomatic incident from 15 years ago. — For The Emigre

Zooming windows

Interview with members of the George Formby Society, as they attempt to break an online ukulele-playing record. — For The Critic

A season in ‘Hell’

Review of Jonathan C Slaght’s compelling Owls of the Eastern Ice: The Quest to Find and Save the World’s Largest Owl. — For Geographical

The Ones That Got Away

Introduction to a new column on photographic misfires, beginning with my own amateur misadventures. — For the Sri Lankan Sunday Times

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. There are more kilts in London than in Scotland. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Thursday, May 9 1907 . At 45% of the population, white Christians are a shrinking demographic in America. Hermal eggings are so leek. No sensitive person would choose to be the historian of the Irish asylums in the first part of the […]

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. The King has a collection of 170 curious walking sticks. One is made from one of the piles of old London Bridge. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Wednesday, April 10 1907 . All the best people are born in October. In Moldova (and Czechoslovakia), ‘carp’ is spelled ‘crap’. In 1492 Native Americans discovered Columbus lost […]

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. On an average there is only one sudden death among women to eight among men. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Tuesday, September 25 1906 . The Earl of Oxford did not write Fleabag. Hull is other people. Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci chose to stick the with most ridiculous crap name that they could think of. Failure to […]

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

. 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 […]