The Saturday after the IWM, I visited Westminster Abbey, where the kings and queens of England have come for the best part of a thousand years to be crowned, married and buried. (I’m way behind on these travel posts, I’ll still be writing them up a month after I get back.) No photography is allowed […]
For a long, long time, there was only Zeppelin vs. Pterodactyls: the poster. Then there was ZvP: the movie mashup, followed by ZvP: the cartoon mashup. And now there’s ZvP: the webcomic, along with ZvP: the t-shirt! I obviously wasn’t responsible for creating any of this. I wasn’t even the first to blog about ZvP.
I’ve been reading the Daily Mail quite a lot since I’ve been here, but only issues published in 1940 or earlier. So I’m grateful to Jakob for pointing me in the direction of an article in today’s edition about German boardgames from the Second World War. It’s fascinating, but why is it news? Ostensibly because
The fifth Military History Carnival is up. A lot of good stuff; the post I enjoyed most was at History is Elementary, on the evolution of camouflage in the First World War — it’s not only informative but enables us to vicariously share in the pleasure of teaching. And all that camouflage reminds me of
In my recent post on the Imperial War Museum I remarked upon the commemorative function of the museum, or rather the apparent lack of it. So I was interested to come across this comment made in 1922 by Major-General Sir Frederick Maurice (he of the Maurice Affair), explaining what he thought the true value of
While I’m on the topic of Things to Come, I should correct a mistake I made in the talk I gave at the summer school. I said that Things to Come didn’t do particularly well at the box office. I still haven’t found any actual figures for that, but I’ve found what may be better,
The week before last, I had the opportunity to present a talk about my PhD topic at an Open University summer school (cheers Chris!) It was the first time I’ve given a talk about the thesis as a whole and I think it went OK — I don’t know that I’m getting better as a
Sunday no. 4 was the occasion (after the spooky Big Ben) for my visit to the Imperial War Museum London, which of course was always going to be a highlight of my sightseeing here.
Please adjust your watches accordingly.
Yesterday I had occasion to pass Cleopatra’s Needle on the Victoria Embankment. It’s not really Cleopatra’s at all but Thutmose III’s, as it was he who caused it to be erected at Heliopolis, in around 1450 BC. It was eventually transported from Egypt to London and re-erected there in 1878, after trials and tribulations in
