Category: History

I Believe

Belief is an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially without proof.

Silk Roads

Samarkand, spices, caravanserai, camels; we are on the Silk Road. So much more romantic then its modern manifestation: China’s Belt and Road project.

Old and Young Remember

Chelsea Pensioners prepare for the Service of Remembrance at the Royal Hospital Chelsea yesterday. The Governor of the Royal Hospital, General Sir Adrian Bradshaw KCB OBE DL, is third from right.

Tick the Box

This ballot box was used in a ministerial by-election in Pontefract in 1872.

Otter Things

There may be a few otters depicted in churches but they are usually relatively modern; like this window in Newcastle Cathedral. It references a legend that St Cuthbert prayed standing up to his neck in the North Sea at night and in the morning was warmed up on the shore by otters.

Winter

I have read a lot of first hand accounts, not exhaustively, of European history 1918 – 1990.

Atishoo!

I read The Lord of The Rings and associated Mordor’s black volcanic plain with Morden at the end of the black Northern Line – somewhere to be avoided, at least by me as I am not a brave Hobbit.

Castles & Walled Gardens

Government backed “levelling up” has mixed results. That’s my way of saying taxpayers’ money is usually spent as ineffectively in this area as it is for overseas aid.