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Monthly Archives: February 2018

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. A tax of 6d per head is levied on all passengers landed at the Isle of Man. — The Nelson Evening Mail, September 27 1906 . While still a teenager, James Crichton challenged professors at the Collège de Navarre to interrogate him on the liberal arts and science, in Arabic, Dutch, English, French, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Latin, Slavonic, Spanish, […]

He drinks a whiskey almost every night

He drinks a whiskey almost every night. He says: “It gives me dreams, but keeps me reg’lar.”

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. In China the dials of a clock turn round instead of the hands. — The Nelson Evening Mail, September 8 1908 . Benedict Cumberbatch reads Oryx magazine. A piece of pasta (dry) weighs essentially one gram. A man can only care about so many things. Labels are for clothes. In Bosnian there are no words for […]

On ranting

If there’s one thing I just can’t abide, it’s ranters. Not the C17th religious nonconformists. Folk who can’t shut up about things. You know the type. The workplace philosophers; the shouters at the TV; people in whose eyes you see the glint of socialist dictatorship. They come in every walk of life. Stupid boxers (*tautology […]