Bruce Springsteen was on Desert Island Discs yesterday. I knew very little about him so found the interview interesting. He spent a lot of time chuckling and being self-deprecating, both attractive traits. He also spoke about bouts of depression he has suffered.
The Lanchester Tradition
Are Brokers Human?
When I lived at Barmeath I was a young dabbler in the stock market using my grandfather’s broker, Dudgeon, in Suffolk Street, Dublin. They were an old-fashioned firm whose partners were all known to my grandfather as friends or relations. On important occasions such as the Irish Derby there would be no partner in the… Continue reading Are Brokers Human?
Hadji Bey’s Turkish Delight
Operation Sea Lion – Part Three
In the summer of 1940 Churchill and his Chiefs of Staff expected an airborne invasion and a seaborne one, most likely on the east coast where the beaches were flatter and the terrain likewise making it easier country for motorised troops. They thought it much less likely that there would be an invasion across the… Continue reading Operation Sea Lion – Part Three
Get me to a Nunnery
Ear to the Ground
Corbin & King
Operation Sea Lion – Part Two
While we fret over whether we can get out of the EU in two years, in 1939 events moved a lot more swiftly. Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3rd September, honouring treaty obligations to Poland that had been invaded two days earlier. On 15th November, Grand-Admiral Erich Raeder, Commander-in -Chief of the… Continue reading Operation Sea Lion – Part Two
Operation Sea Lion – Part One
Walking in England over the years I have been struck by the number of pillboxes built to defend us from a German invasion in World War II. About 28,000 were built all over the country, of which some 6,500 survive. It would have been a dark hour if the ones I have seen along the… Continue reading Operation Sea Lion – Part One