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Author Archives: A S H Smyth

An irony

Saturday, March 3, 2018

South Africa is not on Zulu Time.

Filed in Non-fictions | Tagged army, GMT, irony, micro-non-fiction, South Africa, time, Zulus | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, February 26, 2018

. 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, […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | | Comments (0)

He drinks a whiskey almost every night

Thursday, February 22, 2018

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

Filed in Poetry | Tagged anatomy, dreams, drink, The Pikey Laureate | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, February 19, 2018

. 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 […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Tagged Benedict Cumberbatch, Bosnian, brothers, China, clothing, cows, Darryl Gerrity, death, Dmitri Kabalevsky, Englishmen, fiction, film, friends, grapes, Hawaii, health, horology, Islam, love, magazines, measurements, men, music, Nelson Evening Mail, non-fiction, pasta, pornography, Qatar Airways, Reading, religion, Russians, Virginia, white goods | Comments (2)

On ranting

Thursday, February 1, 2018

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 […]

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Tagged Adolf Hitler, Alex Ferguson, Bangalore, Basil Fawlty, boxers, British Rail, Charlie Sheen, comedians, customer services, Denmark, dictatorship, Donald Trump, fathers, Geoffrey Boycott, Hamlet, humour, Jeremy Clarkson, John McEnroe, Mel Gibson, memoirs, men, Michael Richards, Naomi Campbell, philosophy, phones, pubs, ranting, religion, Samuel Johnson, socialism, The Daily Mail, the Labour Party, The Oldie, TV, Will Self | Comments (0)

Fun run

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Or; how to raise money for charity and feel bad doing it. — For The Oldie

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Tagged Adidas, Bilal Hassen, Borussia Dortmund, cappuccino, charity, Colombo, Hilton Residences, Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children, Manchester City, Mount Lavinia, Nigel Havers, rugby, running, Sri Lanka, Thaabit Ahmed, Thaabit Ahmed Football Academy, The Oldie, Valencia CF | Comments (0)

Cannon law

Saturday, January 13, 2018

Review of Kim A Wagner’s The Skull of Alum Bheg: The Life and Death of a Rebel of 1857. — For The Spectator

Filed in Journalism, review | Tagged Alum Bheg, army, Bengal Native Infantry, Brigadier-General John Nicholson, British Empire, colonialism, death, geography, history, India, Indian Mutiny, Kim A Wagner, non-fiction, Pakistan, Queen Mary University of London, religion, sepoys, Sialkot, the East India Company, The Spectator | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, January 1, 2018

. Stocks were first used in England about 1359 A.D.. — The Nelson Evening Mail, January 18 1907 . Women leaders are more volatile than men. The cause of alcoholism is unknown. They’re selling hippy wigs in Woolworths. In Togoloese, ‘fofo’ means ‘revered big brother’. White people, lacking community, must make do with property. If extortionate fares […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Tagged bathrooms, black, brothers, Ceylon, crime, drink, Elvis Presley, feet, hair, health, heroes, hippies, justice, law, men, money, mud, Nelson Evening Mail, Nicodemus, politics, Reading, rickshaws, Satan, scholarship, sex, somnambulism, Tate Britain, the internet, Togolese, weather, white, women, Woolworths, work | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, December 25, 2017

. More than nine-tenths of the railway passengers in England travel third-class. — The Nelson Evening Mail, October 20 1906 . ‘The is cat washing dishes’ is an 18th-century expression for the reflection of water on the walls of a room. A skate’s vagina is anatomically similar to a woman’s. Just because a thing is true does not mean that […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Tagged (il)literacy, 18th century, accommodation, age, anatomy, army, Batman, Ben Affleck, brothers, Canterbury, Casey Affleck, cats, Chartham, children, Christmas, de Lesseps, democracy, Die Hard, drink, Egypt, employment, film, fish, Italian, Nelson Evening Mail, paper, Roy William Scranton, sex, steel, Suez Crisis, Superman, Tennessee Williams, The Fratellis, the Soviet Union, train-travel, Truth, water, women, writers | Comments (0)

A hero’s welcome

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Dunkirk – THE UNTOLD STORY!! — For The Oldie

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Tagged 11th Armoured Division, 51st Highland Division, 97th (Kent Yeomanry) Field Regiment, army, British Expeditionary Force, Canterbury, champagne, Channel Islands, cricket, Croix de Guerre, D-Day, Dunkirk, Elsie Adeline Cockersell, film, France, Germans, incarceration, James Kingford Carson, Kent, livery companies, love, moustaches, Nazis, Normandy, Royal Artillery, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, sea-faring, St Valery-en-Caux, The Oldie, war, women, Yorkshire | Comments (0)