“The profession’s overcrowded and the struggle’s pretty tough…” Noel Coward’s advice to stage mother Mrs Worthington on thespian ambition for her young Mam’selle applies equally to getting work published. There are just too many books these days. And if there is any justice in this life, a number of published authors have totted up more… Continue reading Ice cold in Bloomsbury
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Hey son, would you mind risking your life?
In 1886, when photographic pioneer Henry Hamilton Bennett wanted an action shot to demonstrate his new camera shutter truly captured fast action motion, he got his son Ashley to do this. These days he’d be arrested for child endangerment, but you sort of feel that Ashley loved it too. You wonder what Mrs Bennett had… Continue reading Hey son, would you mind risking your life?
Are we drowning in news?
If your street is the ever at the epicentre of a breaking news story, there you will find them — reporters with nothing to report. Lined up like fairground barkers, their arms flapping uncontrollably, as if playing an imaginary concertina to a Stockhausen refrain that sounds somewhere deep in their brain stem, they deliver fact-light,… Continue reading Are we drowning in news?
How 19th-century color dictionaries painted the language of hues used today
Who knew…? How 19th-century color dictionaries painted the language of hues used today.
From a Distance
It is easy to forget the state of research in the 19th century — a world that would be so unfamiliar to us now. Information was local and only held in someone’s memory, or on paper. Much information was so local it tended to stay local. A story might appear in a local paper, but… Continue reading From a Distance
Amor vincit omnia
In my formative years I first encountered the phrase amor vincit omnia – love conquers all. I found the expression in Chaucer. (I tried to apply the incantation, though I could not make it work for me. These truths we hold to be self-evident that amor non vincit Judith Gibbons – unless foreplay counted). As… Continue reading Amor vincit omnia
What did Ponzi do wrong?
When the government robs Peter to pay Paul, it is your taxes and someone else’s handout. When private enterprise has a go, it’s called a Ponzi scheme. Introduction to The Day They Hanged a Banker If you would like to read a free, yes, free, copy of the book The Day They Hanged A Banker,… Continue reading What did Ponzi do wrong?
A tinker’s dam and history’s bunk
I guarantee that you have yet to read a history book which, no matter how well-researched, recorded and double-checked, does not contain error. That is the very nature of the sources of history and biography. The protagonists themselves get simple things like dates wrong, even when they record such details at the time. Reminiscence messes… Continue reading A tinker’s dam and history’s bunk