This is a fascinating exhibition at London’s Somerset House, which encourages participants to re-think how they engage with perfumes and scents. The display is made up of 10 rooms, each with different scents,presented in displays from bowling balls in black sand to a colourful chaise loungue draped in scented fabric. We are given a card … Continue reading
This is from Kilvert’s Diary, told to him by a Miss Child: She and her sister stranded in London at night went to London Bridge hotel (having missed the last train) with little money and no luggage except the owl in a basket. The owl hooted all night in spite of their putting it up … Continue reading
This is another piece by Frank Cottrell-Boyce on the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford: In the corner was a glass case with a curtain. I pulled the curtain aside and found a vast red and yellow cloak, an ‘ahu ‘ula made in the 1830s for Queen Kekauluoki of Lahina in Hawaii,of hundreds of thousands of … Continue reading
Trowbridge was for centuries a major centre for the wool trade.I think its last weaving factory closed about 1980, and many former mills have been converted to other uses, with one being engulfed into the shopping centre as part of the local history museum. But when I was told about this one, called Handle House, … Continue reading
I have seen a number of these, especially the collection in Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum, but though vaguely aware they served some ritual function, never really pursued what they were about. No images are included as it is not possible to photogrph such human remains. This is from the i paper, by Frank Cottrell-Boyce: The … Continue reading
Here’s a question that someone raised with me – did our ancestors sleep longer in winter? He said he’d been told that our bodies are not meant to sleep for the full winter night, that in Tudor times people would get up in the middle of the night and do their accounts or some housework … 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
Here’s an odd story from last week’s i paper: “Red squirrels in the UK and Ireland carry strains of leprosy similar to those that have afflicted disability and disfigurement on humans for centuries, a study has shown. Experts stress the chances of catching the disease from a squirrel are extremely low. Scientists tested DNA samples … Continue reading
Swifts are fascinating animals.I used to go to a patch of open parkland where the birds would swoop down from the trees and dart across the grass catching insects. I loved lying on my back and watching them streak past a few feet above me. Here’s an article on recent discoveries from Thursday’s i paper: … 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
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