Rome 2a
After my first day in Rome, I collapsed onto my bed in my little hotel room, watched Italian TV, and got a good night’s sleep. Which was just as well, as I still had a lot to see on my last day …
Pictures, Travel 2007
Pictures
1910s, Books, Contemporary, Other, Pictures
Mark my words
This will end in tears: Zeppelins to make tourist flights over London. (Via Airshipworld.) Image source: from the front cover of Louis Gastine, War in Space: or, an Air-craft War between France and Germany (London and Felling-on-Tyne: Walter Scott Publishing, 1913). (OK, it’s Paris, not London — so I cheated.) The oldest paperback I own,
1940s, Australia, Contemporary, Pictures
Out of the depths
This has been all over the news here today, though I suspect interest is somewhat less outside Australia: the wreck of HMAS Sydney has been found. On 19 November 1941, Sydney was returning to Fremantle, Western Australia, after escorting a troopship north to Sunda Strait. It encountered the German commerce raider Kormoran somewhere out in
Pictures, Travel 2007
Rome 1a
Rome, beautiful Rome! Is there anything I can say about the Eternal City that hasn’t been said before? No, but I won’t let that stop me trying. It was fantastic both in the sense of great and in the sense of unbelievable — it’s almost hard to believe I really was there. But I have
1910s, 1930s, 1940s, Australia, Before 1900, Books, Counterfactuals, Maps, Pictures
The Heligoland Mandate
A curious snippet from Margaret MacMillan’s account of the Paris Peace Conference, Peacemakers (2002): Why not give it to Hughes of Australia, suggested Clemenceau.1 The ‘it’ was Heligoland, a small island in the North Sea, off the north-western coast of Germany. For most of the 19th century it had belonged to Britain, which swapped it
Pictures, Travel 2007
Edinburgh 2
My second (and last) day in Edinburgh was unfortunately pretty much overcast the whole day, so my pictures are a bit dull. But as I spent most of the time indoors, this didn’t matter too much. (Above, Edinburgh Castle from the Princes Street Gardens.)
1900s, 1910s, Archives, Art, Biographies, Pictures
The spirit of grief
I’ve finally gotten around to adding Montagu of Beaulieu (pronounced ‘Bewley’, apparently) to my irregular series of biographies of airpower propagandists. He’s an important, but somewhat neglected figure, some of whose papers I’ve examined (those held at King’s College London). He helped found the Air League of the British Empire in 1909, and devised the
Pictures, Travel 2007
Stirling
After wandering around Edinburgh Castle, I thought: castles are really cool! I wanted to see more, and since I probably should be a confident user of the British transport system by now, I decided that I’d do a day trip out somewhere to see one. A bit of googling led me to Stirling Castle, a
1940s, Contemporary, Pictures
Priorities
[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.] A historic building which once played a key role in saving the free world is about to be lost to posterity, with barely a whimper of protest. The story is of course more complex than that. When I say ‘lost to posterity’, that’s what I might say if I was