Category: Uncategorized

What went into 19th century beer

Who does not like a cool beer after a hard day’s work on a summer’s day…? ok, not everyone, but those that do enjoy more than just the taste. It is a drink that since earliest times has signified the purest and mildest form of the drug alcohol. Purest? The Germans enacted a law in… Continue reading What went into 19th century beer

The case of the wandering organ

Can you imagine a pipe organ that took up 900 square feet, was 70 feet high, 54 feet deep, weighed 87 tons and had 4,209 pipes, the largest of which was some 38 feet long. Large, but not unexceptional for a public concert hall. More surprising is that this behemoth of an organ was originally… Continue reading The case of the wandering organ

John Hassall: the poster man

I’m a sucker for this Fauvist palette of sludge greens contrasted with pure tones, picked out with non-realist black outlines. Enjoy…

If you want to get ahead get a headline

Please say a prayer to your favorite god for the soul of Vincent Musetto, who has died, but whose memory will live on for ever and ever amen among sub-editors because in April 1983 he was blessed with the concatenation of circumstance to allow him to write this headline

New superhero… The Tackler

I’m learning to hate the verb “to tackle”. Everybody, in the UK at least, seems to be “tackling” something. We are “tackling climate change”, though of course we aren’t, unless you count tut-tutting about China and India’s power stations, or massaging the figures to ignore what Al “the no-climate-change denier” Gore would never consider the… Continue reading New superhero… The Tackler

She went down big in Leamington

You have to feel sorry for the grieving relatives of Lady Wheeler, as she was carried to her grave in the English town of Leamington in 1893. The funeral attracted hundreds of gawpers from miles around. You also have to feel sorry for the dozen strong men who had to carry her to her grave.… Continue reading She went down big in Leamington

Do not cross the Amazons

The hit theatrical act in Europe during 1892 and 1893 was the “famous Amazon Warriors of Dahomey”. These were ladies that you did not want to mess with. Part of the 6,000 or so strong female contingent of Dahomey’s (now Benin’s) army, on and off engaged in fighting the French Foreign Legion. The Legion often… Continue reading Do not cross the Amazons