This is a wonderful, haunting but small museum, a place that should make you fall down and give thanks to whoever you believe in that modern medicine exists. It’s in the attic to provide maximum light for operations. Everything is so small, especially the operating table which I doubt would be long enough for me. … Continue reading
I like this idea as it offers an alternative to the horrors of fracking rather than just objecting to it. We need new sources of energy. This is from Friday’s i and fits with my growing belief that tough times are inspiring people to get innovative. A renewable energy firm has submitted planning applications for schemes … Continue reading
I’ve always been aware that the Middle Ages in Europe and the Tudor age were colder than the present – with famous ice fairs on the Thames in Tudor times. But it was also a time of gruesome punishments, tortures and plagues and churches seemed to be full of images of skeletons, dances of death … Continue reading
Eighteenth century England produced a lot of child proteges who were often put on display by their partents and guardians in a way that to modern eyes seems like exploitation, but for families of humble birth could provide a welcome income. Some went on to achieve well deserved success such as the future President of … Continue reading
What is it about autumn that is so appealing? We all love the summer, but it’s a time of disruption – people away on holidays, the streets crammed with kids and tourists, it can be a bit much. Autumn feels like a return to normality, to sanity. The students are back, it’s time to slow … Continue reading
This 3 day event linked the Cathedral’s wonderful Glass Exhibition with the annual Doors Open Day, so a brilliant combination. Arrayed outside the cathedral were a number of potters, wood and stone carvers, weavers and others. One woman combined making and teaching felt animals with repairing cane seats on chairs. An impressive mixture. I was … Continue reading
I am fascinated how people invent and perpetuate personal rituals and a few days ago I think I saw one. It was simple, but seemed deliberate. A man walking out of a big carpark stroked a large rosemary bush and smelled his hand. A simple act, but it seemed unconscious, as if he’d done it … Continue reading
This is a wonderfully wry ad from a London paper dated October 1815: WANTED IMMEDIATELY to enable me to leave the house which I have for these last five years inhabited, in the same plight and condition in which I found it, 500 LIVE RATS for which I will gladly pay the sum of £5 … Continue reading
My father was raised a Catholic, but when the church supported conscription in World War II and he was forced to become a soldier, he turned against it, and for the rest of his life railed against all forms of organised religion. As a result I grew up with little understanding of faith beyond singing … Continue reading
Here’s an article from JSTOR on the oldest grain cultivated by man, so representing an intermediary stage in our evolution between hunter-gatherers and settled agriculturalists. Incredibly, it is still being grown, but only just. It’s called einkorn. http://daily.jstor.org/einkorn-the-new-it-wheat/?utm_source=internalhouse&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=jstordaily_05192016&cid=eml_j_jstordaily_dailylist_05192016
texthistory 