Monthly Archives: April 2017

Jemmy Wood the banker’s banker

Posted on April 20, 2017 by

He was not what you’d call a looker. In profile Jemmy Wood bore a passing resemblance to Mr Punch following a good lunch – but James Wood esq, ‘the eccentric banker, merchant and draper’ of the city of Gloucester, England … Continue reading →

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The final act in Drama

Posted on April 19, 2017 by

Here’s one you may have missed. Firstly, it might make you smile that there is a town of 44,000 people in north eastern Greece where it meets Bulgaria called Drama. The story is a poignant Easter/Passover one of loss, isolation and … Continue reading →

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Off with his ankle!

Posted on April 12, 2017 by

If you recently ate a meal that you’d rather not see back again, look away now. I say that because we are about to closely examine the festering old wound of Italian resistance partisan Giuseppe Garibaldi. The look-see at what … Continue reading →

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This takes all the biscotti

Posted on April 8, 2017 by

From a British daily that once was listed in the realm of ‘quality newspapers’ but has descended the slippery slope of clickbait, The Daily Telegraph, today comes this howl-at-the-moon mad piece of over-interpretation of archaeology based on an agenda. We have previously ventured … Continue reading →

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“She rode to town on her own horse”

Posted on April 7, 2017 by

Just a further thought on the “scandalous practice of wife selling” from the previous story. This idea of an auction was not any brutalising suttee of a marriage where women were subjugated by gnarly unreconstructed men who had tired of the old … Continue reading →

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The end of an un-civil partnership

Posted on April 6, 2017 by

A note of a dubious anniversary from Robert Chambers, writing in his 1869 Book of Days, though history is full of these quasi-divorces throughout the 19th century. Usually they were surprisingly amicable affairs based on village common sense when a marriage … Continue reading →

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