Water levels were 16 feet higher in the flood of 1935 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D. In the context of climate change, is what we are seeing in Houston a new level of disaster which is becoming more common? The flood disaster unfolding in Houston is certainly very unusual. But so are other natural […]… Continue reading E pur si muove, tre
Medals count for little in class warfare
It’s the same the whole world over… it’s the poor what gets the blame
The king in the north
Do you remember that gruesome massacre scene in Game of Thrones when Jamie, the sixth of his name, who would one day rule from the stone throne was out hunting. He is lured to go almost alone to Castle Ruthven, by two young brothers, Earl Gowrie and Alexander Ruthven. They were planning to assassinate him… Continue reading The king in the north
Tehachapi to Tonopah
OK, now it can be told. I do not know too well my left hand from my right. Those that know me may take this as a metaphor for all-round incompetence. But no, I protest. However those classmates for whom I was navigator around the twisting lanes of Cornwall when we were but schoolkids with… Continue reading Tehachapi to Tonopah
At the going down of the sun
World War One has been jogged back into the UK’s collective consciousness once more with the Third Battle of Ypres,aka Passchendaele getting its own Royal Command Performance on British TV. Two thoughts; one pretty much universal and the other pretty much local. The local first. There is a tiny village in Suffolk named Bildeston. A… Continue reading At the going down of the sun
Have our Romans already departed?
Ah, the Dark Ages. That period in British history after the Romans went away where everything just stopped, or seemingly so. It didn’t of course. The record petered out. The accepted wisdom is that because people built in wood, drank from horn and worked in leather our archaeological tools to discover their civilisation become useless.… Continue reading Have our Romans already departed?
The piratical eyes of the magnetic healer
Leamington is a quiet little spa town in Warwickshire near Stratford upon Avon. In the late 1880s it is not difficult to envisage how very Jane Austen it still must have been, with its Pump Room and all, though visitor numbers “taking the waters” had declined drastically. Nearby big city newspaper the Birmingham Post really… Continue reading The piratical eyes of the magnetic healer
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled
Here’s a note of despair from, of all places, the Grauniad, that is to say an English Liberal newspaper, The Guardian, (once famed for its consistently poor proof reading hence the epithet). It ran a story yesterday that proves Western civilization is indeed collapsing. For the Romans it was lead in the water; for the fall… Continue reading I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled
The modern economy of time
You know nothing of progress until you know the 19th century. This was written in 1864. (‘Quicksilver on glass’ by the way is mirroring):-
The cad’s brother
In a Berlin art museum there is a portrait of a family assembled around a rotund, modest-looking little German man. He is uncomfortably seated, apparently shifting his weight. Standing about him is are his English wife, his sons, daughters and even the family dogs. He could be a successful local burgher, but no, he… Continue reading The cad’s brother