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Tag Archives: death

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. Forty Popes have lived less than a year after their election. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Friday, January 18 1907 . Ethiopia has exported its first avocados by train. The Communist Party banned photocopiers. More geese than swans now live. In Brazil there is a butterfly that uses its legs for running. All Pakistani […]

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. The Challenger voyage report is in 48 volumes, which weigh over 400lb. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Thursday, November 22 1906 . In the Republic of Cameroon Guinness is thought to be an aphrodisiac. A search for ‘fat naked German man chasing pig’ did not match any image results. Bernard Lout was buried in […]

The One That Got Away – Kesara Ratnavibhushana

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

Quaker lives matter

A tribute to my somewhat improbable Quaker ancestors, murdered/martyred on this day, at Scullabogue, in 1798. — For The Critic

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. One’s past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Wednesday, August 29 1906 . Globalisation is going into reverse. The (great) auk became extinct because he forgot how to fly. Your underpants contain cellulose. In the medieval period, walking through a labyrinth or […]

The Pelican

Or; Some Further Notes Towards the Bestiary To the researches of the antiquary and scholar Jorge Luis ‘Vintage’ Borges, a few points offer further context on that most peripatetic of birds in this, our present century. . Learned reports come from South Asia, where the spotted-bill Filipino pelican (phillipensis) is found, with no small irony, only in Cambodia, the Indian peninsular, and in Sri Lanka (or the contemporary […]

‘It is the living we should fear’

DISCLAIMER: Ten years ago, I reviewed Shehan Karunatilaka’s debut novel, Chinaman, for this newspaper. It was brilliant, I said, and everyone should buy it. I noted, though, for form’s sake, that I’d done some light proofreading of the manuscript, and hoped that this would not be taken either as cause or symptom of inoperable bias. […]

Selassie come home

The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste Canongate, £16.99, pp. 428 . In 1935 the troops of Benito Mussolini’s sinister-clownish Roman Empire II invaded Ethiopia, in large part out of spite for Italy’s embarrassing defeat there 40 years before. Initially largely uncontested – thanks both to emperor Haile Selassie’s desperate faith in international brotherhood and to […]

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. The Government of India collects about £7,000,000 from the sale of opium. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Thursday, July 19 1906 . Jacob Zuma is the only black South African president never to lift the rugby world cup. At Morrisons, your opinion gets rewarded with a £500 voucher. Vegetarianism, which is based on false hypotheses and ideas, […]

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. During one year a high police official in New York was offered £120,000 in bribes to “look the other way.” — The Nelson Evening Mail, Tuesday, June 22 1909 . The night is chilly to a man without clothes. You get a free tote bag if you subscribe to almost anything. Sussex folk have few superstitions. There […]