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Tag Archives: WW2

Turning Japanese stomachs

Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima Penguin, 170pp, £8.99 . Born two years after the Great Earthquake of 1923, in ‘not too good a section of Tokyo’, Kochan is a sickly child, brought up by stultifying parents and a morbid grandmother. His first reliable memory is of the ‘night-soil’ man, and he immediately becomes […]

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. The honorary freedom of the borough of Rye in Sussex confers upon the freemen the privilege of kissing the mayoress. — The Nelson Evening Mail, March 21 1907 . When you register your child at birth, it immediately becomes the legal property of the state. In WW2 German physicists were able to discern the […]

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. Omnibuses in Holland are fitted with letter-boxes. — The Nelson Evening Mail, July 13 1908 . A ‘havelock’ is the flap of cloth that hangs down from a soldier’s kepi, to protect the neck. Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 45th president of the United States drew bigger crowds to Washington DC than any previous inauguration. The […]