Fresh off the ship from England, five, yes count them, five, different varieties of asparagus seed and 23 different melon varieties. Things weren’t so bad in Philadelphia after the war as long as you could feast on 13 different kinds of radish, or 26 different cabbages. For the previous year’s catalogue in full go to… Continue reading Your seed catalogue for 1797 has arrived
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A Moat Defensive
It’s a truth self-evident that history is about questions. Some of them have answers, such as when did so and so live or die. Some are Donald Rumsfeld’s known unknowns; we know that someone was Jack the Ripper but not who, or that the Princes in the Tower disappeared but not why. And some questions… Continue reading A Moat Defensive
I thought you died alone… A long long time ago
Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door! How about, let’s see, how about adding to that wretched refuse list, convicted assassin. We last encountered the fiery revolutionary Carlo… Continue reading I thought you died alone… A long long time ago
“We had the goods — he knew it”
The Boston Clothing Store, Devil’s Lake, ND, 1906. A more compelling piece of copy writing would be hard to find even today…
“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”
“everything in the forest has its season.” – bambi’s mother
Tyrus Wong, the artist whose works inspired the Disney film Bambi, has died at home. surrounded by family, at age 106. A Chinese immigrant, Mr Wong’s vibrant paintings captured Walt Disney… Source: “everything in the forest has its season.” – bambi’s mother
“americans love popcorn, and their love doesn’t quit.” – rosecrans baldwin
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