“On dit que l’un fut sauvé”

My last folksy yarn about the mad as hell Italians who wanted to scatter bits of Mr and Mrs Napoleon III across Paris that winter evening in 1858 left us in a bad place. We learnt that two of the three condemned men sentenced to die were executed by guillotine, shoeless and in long nightshirts… Continue reading “On dit que l’un fut sauvé”

The lunatic who stole Trump’s stationery

I am probably the last person on the planet to begin to binge watch the TV series about the New York agency industry, Mad Men, which is altogether strange as I met many of those who were prototypes for the series, from David Ogilvy on down. So I Googled some… and found this  from Steve… Continue reading The lunatic who stole Trump’s stationery

Don’t remove a fly from your friend’s forehead with an axe

  I bet that there were myriads that thought George Washington was a bad thing, that Lincoln was probably not American, that FDR sucked up to the Commies, or that Hillary wasn’t fitted to be President, but the “look at me, no, over here, look at me” crowd is, let’s face it, amorphously self-possessed in a… Continue reading Don’t remove a fly from your friend’s forehead with an axe

Bang bang, that awful sound

In the early 1850s, in what is now Italy, the soon-to-be-country’s revolutionary nationalists hated in equal measure the Austrians for occupying much of the north and the Pope who was sustained by the Austrians, for retaining his distinctly worldly hold on the bit in the middle he claimed as The Papal States. Garibaldi, Mazzini and… Continue reading Bang bang, that awful sound

No s***, Sherlock!

Sometimes the similarities of circumstance and reaction bring our ancestors very close to us — sometimes it’s as if they were alien beings. Here’s a report that shows — for good or bad — that we are nowadays less naive but maybe quicker to think the worst than this kindly reporter in San Francisco was. However, for… Continue reading No s***, Sherlock!