Let Us Pray

Increasingly, the BBC World Service provides less provincial and more interesting news than the BBC UK newsroom and their analysis is more intelligent. One such item caught my ear this morning.

The Little Blitz

I wrote recently about the Blitz. The worst of it was over by May 1941 but in 1944 there was what became known as The Little Blitz.

Published
Categorised as History

Soft Power

Lord Bates is a Conservative party Life Peer in the House of Lords. He is a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office.

School Stories

It is striking how many successful authors started off by writing school stories: P G Wodehouse, The Pothunters; Evelyn Waugh, Decline and Fall; Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim, though it is set at university.

Tally Ho!

This is a sambhur. It seems to be taking an intelligent interest in the photo-shoot. When the Ooty (Ootacamund) Hunt was formed in 1835 it was their quarry.

A Room With A View

  Never judge a wine by its label is an adage that doesn’t apply in today’s post. The label in question is pictured above and if you’d like to know the back-story read on.

More Chronicles of War

On the evening of Sunday 29th December 1940, seventy-five years ago, there was low cloud over the English Channel and low tide on the Thames. Being a Sunday evening the buildings in the City were mostly locked up and empty. The Luftwaffe had waited for these conditions to launch a devastating firestorm on the City… Continue reading More Chronicles of War

Dear Judge, Dear Ireland

My sister as a teenager was on her hunter on the road between Grangebellew and Ballymakenny. She may have been going to the blacksmith whose forge was out that way. She was thrown off and lay unconscious on the road until a Good Samaritan, in the form of Frank Rowe, found her and brought her… Continue reading Dear Judge, Dear Ireland

Published
Categorised as Family

Crude Economics

There has been a significant downward move in oil prices – North Sea Brent is around $36. It got up to about $115 in 2014. That’s old hat but there is something else significant happening.

Published
Categorised as Business

Doctor….Who?

Dr. Keel was the star of a TV programme that ran for nine years in the 1960s and was briefly revived in the 1970s. I’m misleading you because he was only the star in the first series after which his side-kick supplanted him and the programme became famous.