February 2012
American Civil War I →
American Civil War II →
American Civil War III →
Peking in the '40s →
NYC in the '80s →
Inside Hitler's home →
Words
The Words of Dickens
Tuesday, 7 February, is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens. It has been impossible to avoid knowing about this impending event for several months because of way that the British media has anticipated it, with its usual concern to get ahead of its competitors. Boredom has set in for many British readers and viewers, few of whom these days read him. I...
Titanic survivors →
London during WWII →
Battle of the Bulge →
What people did in the Middle Ages
Governmental Occupations
These are the people who run things. They keep society moving smoothly, if they’re good at what they do, and can bring society to a crunching halt, if they’re not. Rife for corruption, government officials can play a significant role in many campaigns.
bailiff - the man who makes arrests and executions. Bailiff was not primarily used for the office...
Outpatient
When I lived at Durham, I was walking one evening in a park belonging to the Earl of Stamford, along the bank of a lake where fishes abounded. My attention was turned towards a fine jack of about 6 lbs., which, seeing me, darted into the middle of the water. In its flight it struck its head against the stump of a post, fractured its skull, and wounded a part of the optic nerve. The animal...
Sibling rivalry
“Supposing some unfortunate lady was confined with twins and one child was born 10 minutes before 1 o’clock; if the clock was put back, the registration of the time of birth of the two children would be reversed. … Such an alteration might conceivably affect the property and titles in that house.” — Lord Balfour of Burleigh, opposing daylight saving time, House of Lords, May 1916
The day JFK died
Culturally, on the evening before President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, America was an astonishingly monolithic country when compared to today: “On this Thursday, November 21, television’s prime-time lineup included The Flintstones, The Donna Reed Show, My Three Sons, Perry Mason, and The Perry Como Show, but it was the fourteenth-rated show, Dr. Kildare, that made Time...
How cats are making us crazy →
Literally: that much misused word
It’s like literally so misoverused. But whereas Jamie Redknapp gets the word nonsensically wrong, writers such as James Joyce knew exactly what they were doing with it
I was sitting in a cafe – one of those generic pain au raisin and latte joints, with an earnest singer-songwriter soundtrack to boot – when a kid to my left piped up: “My school gym is like literally 500 years...
20 common grammar mistakes
I’ve edited a monthly magazine for more than six years, and it’s a job that’s come with more frustration than reward. If there’s one thing I am grateful for — and it sure isn’t the pay — it’s that my work has allowed endless time to hone my craft to Louis Skolnick levels of grammar geekery.
As someone who slings red ink for a living, let me tell you: grammar is an ultra-micro component in the...
The pokies war
The approval on Friday of the Maryborough Highland Society’s application to build a new sports club in the country-Victorian town of Castlemaine was sadly expected by the cynical. The Society’s intent is to convert an existing unused state-owned railway shed, on state-owned land, into another revenue-raiser for both themselves, and the state of Victoria.
It regrettably comes as...
Us Do Part
The will of John George, of Lambeth, who died in London in June, 1791, contained the following words: ‘Seeing that I have had the misfortune to be married to the aforesaid Elizabeth, who ever since our union has tormented me in every possible way; that, not content with making game of all my remonstrances, she has done all she could to render my life miserable; that heaven seems to have...
