Inevitably there will be many more words written over Christmas about that unofficial truce during the first year of the First World War, when, to the dismay of their senior officers, British and German soldiers left their trenches swapped cigarettes and played football on Christmas Eve. It has entered the pantheon of sentimental mythology and… Continue reading “War is no sport”
“I’ve got nobody to hug. I’m such an ugly bug”
(Preface note to New Yorkers: Prepare to be disappointed. This is not about your favorite psychedelic rockaboogie band from Brooklyn, also called The Ugly Club. Though to those that have not heard them: Google them, they’re good.) The prayer “God grant me the serenity to accept what cannot be changed” is a statement of the… Continue reading “I’ve got nobody to hug. I’m such an ugly bug”
Not from Cyprus, not so frail
How we call things at any moment in history is an interesting topic. Times change and words are re-chosen to fit the mood of the age. I thought I’d heard every euphemism there was to hear about prostitutes. ‘Ladies of the evening’, ‘women of easy virtue’ and so on were common 19th century code words.… Continue reading Not from Cyprus, not so frail
Dancing in the Dark
Those lines from that song keep echoing in my mind, “I’m sick of sitting ’round here trying to write this book.” Though I have been a tad otherwise engaged trying to finish retelling the stories of two audacious global financial frauds from the early 1870s — a book which now has the title An Infinite… Continue reading Dancing in the Dark
A pebble on his grave: Albert Grant 1831-1899
He was once so eye-wateringly rich, he bought Leicester Square when it was under threat of redevelopment, just to give it to the nation.
“The Fiends We Are Fighting”
Now that the handwringing over the millions killed in the First World War has momentarily quietened, here’s a story that in all probability will not get told again, as it does not play the tidy vision of civilised nations fighting like gentlemen. This was behaviour of medieval barbarity — the kind that ISIL would exact,… Continue reading “The Fiends We Are Fighting”
“In consequence of having had the screw put on…”
Every once in a while you bump into something you weren’t looking for, but the happenstance makes you smile. Although FH Lewisson of Auckland, New Zealand has been dead this many a long year, you have to have hoped that this small businessman’s direct, impassioned and charming appeal from Ocotber 1879 worked and he was… Continue reading “In consequence of having had the screw put on…”
Staff Sargeant Reckless
Mr Ed’s braver brother… http://nypost.com/2014/08/10/meet-the-first-horse-to-become-a-marine-sergeant/
A million men died — and it wasn’t in World War One
A cynic could play cliché bingo in Britain today. “Ultimate sacrifice”, “pals’ battalion”, “over the top”, “the mud”, “No Man’s Land”, “over by Christmas”, “lions led by donkeys”, “four years of trench warfare.” We are treating 100 years’ tick tock like a sentimentalist Victorian treated the deserving poor. It’s like one of those signs as… Continue reading A million men died — and it wasn’t in World War One