fire – A S H Smyth

The One That Got Away – Sandranathan Rubatheesan

A S H Smyth — Sun, 18 Oct 2020 10:39:43 +0000

The Sri Lankan journalist and photographer talks about the greatest shot he never got… and one he did.

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For the Sri Lankan Sunday Times

The One That Got Away – Shehan Obeysekara

A S H Smyth — Sun, 13 Sep 2020 06:03:13 +0000

The Sri Lankan artist and photographer talks about the greatest shot he never got… and one he did.

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For the Sri Lankan Sunday Times

The One That Got Away – Kesara Ratnavibhushana

A S H Smyth — Sun, 28 Jun 2020 04:24:56 +0000

The Sri Lankan artist and photographer talks about the greatest shot he never got… and one he did.

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For the Sri Lankan Sunday Times

NEWS AT A GLANCE

A S H Smyth — Mon, 18 May 2020 09:06:38 +0000

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In the United States only one about one building in three thousand is even nominally fire-proof.

— The Nelson Evening Mail, Thursday, March 14 1907
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Ellis Paz has become the first man in history to be awarded a doctorate by the University of Oxford while wearing just his pants.

Matthew Perry once entered a Vanilla Ice lookalike competition and came fourth.

There is no single recognised word for ‘gay’ in Pashto.

Trypophobia is an aversion to the sight of irregular patterns or clusters of small holes or bumps.

Air India have bespoke a special plane in order to transport the sacred Parsee flame.

There are few bears in Edinburgh.

There is an emoji oversight board.

Emma Bunton “wouldn’t know where to start” in trying to come up with a vaccine for Covid-19.

BMX has been breaking ground in Nigeria.

‘Eelam’ is the Tamil name for spurge, for toddy and also for gold.

Readers of books on nature are expected to be interested in poetry in a way that readers of literary biography are not necessarily expected to be interested in willow warbler migration.

Mussolini didn’t diet.

Even an Oxford man cannot summon knowledge out of the ether.
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‘Beauty retire’ – or; Some notes on a portrait of Samuel Pepys

A S H Smyth — Mon, 20 Apr 2020 09:37:57 +0000

The odd (and possibly inconsequential) story of Pepys’s portrait, his song, and his relationship with Mrs Knepp.

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For The Critic

NEWS AT A GLANCE #3

A S H Smyth — Thu, 22 Nov 2018 23:57:54 +0000

A little bit more idiocy from around the global village.

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For Queen Mob’s Tea House

NEWS AT A GLANCE

A S H Smyth — Mon, 23 Oct 2017 09:00:03 +0000

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All over China temples have been turned into schools with surprising alacrity.

— The Nelson Evening Mail, July 26 1906
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The owl of Minerva flies only at dusk.

Though rare, there have been exactly 201 documented cases of spontaneous combustion.

J Sainbury plc is cutting 2000 Human Resources employees.

The collective noun for brown anchovies is a ‘finish’.

Typing and playing the piano can wear your fingerprints away.

Actors cheers each other up by exchanging bad reviews.

When a ship sinks, the crew are released from their oath of loyalty to the captain.

Translator and poet Paul Celan committed suicide in 1970.

It’s Van Month this October at Renault.

Just because it’s in the Guardian doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

The men of Crete are mostly fair, very tall, sometimes gigantic.

It looks very much as if Everton will be looking for a new manager in the morning.

Without George W Bush there would have been no President Trump.
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