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Tag Archives: China

News At A Glance #3

More or less news more-or-less concerning Lord Salisbury, Quakers, and Chaldaean numerology. — For The Emigre

On Commonwealth Day

… my diaries relate a (very positive) diplomatic incident from 15 years ago. — For The Emigre

Insecurities fraud

Get Rich or Lie Trying: Ambition and Deceit in the New Influencer Economy by Symeon Brown, Atlantic Books, £16.99 . Born when we were born, and embarking on writing ‘careers’ (LOL) just as the web ripped the financial guts out of the paper industry, my idea of a good time is to phone my best […]

Beneath the mountains

Review of Alexandria: the Quest for the Lost City, by Edmund Richardson. — For The Spectator

In-line, online, and where to draw the line?

Notes on Colombo’s books and bookmen in the time of Covid-19. — For The Critic

A season in ‘Hell’

Review of Jonathan C Slaght’s compelling Owls of the Eastern Ice: The Quest to Find and Save the World’s Largest Owl. — For Geographical

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. An architect named Firth was found at a Weymouth inquest to have shot himself in the side with a toy cannon while temporarily insane. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Tuesday, December 22 1908 . The SAS have killed some people in Afghanistan. The Veneziana pizza was invented in the 1970s by Pizza Express. In […]

The One That Got Away – David Blacker

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

May Day, May Day…

A lockdown letter from Colombo. — For The Critic

Black samurai

Yasuke: The True Story of an African Samurai by Thomas Lockley and Geoffrey Girard Sphere £20 (hardback) . In late July 1579, an enormous, well-dressed and well-armed African bodyguard stepped off a boat into the southern Japanese port of Kochinotsu. Yasuke – perhaps from ‘Isaac’ in Amharic – had (probably) been abducted as a child […]