Why you should blog
8 good reasons (via Lifehacker). Besides, everybody’s doing it.
Blogging, tweeting and podcasting
Blogging, tweeting and podcasting
Badge of something
While looking at Airminded’s stats the other day, I noticed that my brief biography of L. E. O. Charlton has been linked to by the Wikipedia entry about him. I guess this is some sort of mark of distinction in this Internet age of ours,It probably just means that I write on such obscure topics
Australia, Contemporary, Pictures
The SLV
I spent most of the last week at the State Library of Victoria. It’s a grand old pile, built in the 1850s when Melbourne was awash with gold money (apparently, it was one of the richest cities in the British Empire). For the last decade or so, it has been undergoing works of some kind
Acquisitions, Books
Acquisitions
A. C. Grayling. Among the Dead Cities: Was the Allied Bombing of Civilians in WWII a Necessity or a Crime? London: Bloomsbury, 2006. I haven’t really come to grips with the moral questions surrounding my subject yet (yes, bombing civilians is bad, but then war is generally not very nice, so …), so I’ll be
1920s, Art, Books, Pictures
‘Quick, Hans — what’s German for “Tally Ho”?’
The Royal Navy is about to pay a high price for its neglect of airpower … Front cover of E. F. Spanner, The Broken Trident (London: E. F. Spanner, 1929). I just like this picture for some reason. Spanner was a retired naval architect who evidently had at least one bee in his bonnet, for
1920s, After 1950, Australia, Before 1900, Books, Music
A tale they won’t believe
Another bit from the Earl of Halsbury’s 1944 (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1926), this time from p. 217. It’s a couple of weeks after a massive Russo-German air strike on London, Paris, and in fact most of the bigger cities of western Europe. Two members of a group making its way to the southern coast of
Acquisitions, Books
Acquisitions
Sebastian Ritchie. Industry and Air Power: The Expansion of British Aircraft Production, 1935-41. London and Portland: Frank Cass, 1997. Just what it says in the title, really. Not, I think, from the declinist school of British historiography.
1920s, Nuclear, biological, chemical
Flies and cockroaches
As everyone knows, cockroaches are supposedly the only creatures able to survive a nuclear explosion.Which may be an exaggeration, but not by much. Well, I think I’ve found the pre-atomic, chemical equivalent! It’s from a novel published in 1926: Poison gas in the open is one thing. Dropped on a densely populated town like London
Acquisitions, Books
Acquisitions
David Oliver. Hendon Aerodrome: A History. Shrewsbury: Airlife, 1994. Hendon was probably THE most important site for the cultivation of airmindedness in Britain up to the Second World War — first as the home base of pioneer aviator Claude Grahame-White and friends, then from the 1920s as the location of the annual RAF Pageant, always
1930s, Other, Rumours
Orwell and the gramophone needle conspiracy
Some years ago someone invented a gramophone needle that would last for decades. One of the big gramophone companies bought up the patent rights, and that was the last that was ever heard of it. That’s Big Grammo for you, I guess. (Or maybe not …) Source: George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier (London: