It’s not often that I happen across a discussion of knock-out blow novels outside specialist literature, so I was interested to see that Gideon Haigh (probably best known as a cricket writer, but also a fine essayist) talks about Nevil Shute’s What Happened to the Corbetts (1939) in the current issue of The Monthly. The […]
During the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, British newspapers regularly published official German statements about the progress of the air war. Those relating to the war over Britain could be checked against both British communiques and, to an extent, personal experience. There were large discrepancies: for example, for 7 September 1940, the Luftwaffe claimed
This post is an exercise in — well, I’m not sure if there’s a name for it, but I found some medium-resolution images on eBay of a pamphlet printed by the Hands Off Britain Air Defence League in 1934. (The seller says 1933, but all other evidence I have on this group is from 1934;
The title relates to both the content of a paper I gave yesterday at the School’s Work In Progress Day, and to my own state of mind beforehand! I think it went well, though — at least there was no rotten fruit thrown at the end! — which is good because it was the first
[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.] Here’s a confession: I don’t really get Guernica — the painting, that is, not the event (which is why I haven’t mentioned it in this series until now). I understand that it’s a passionate reaction by a great artist to the tragedy unfolding in his own country. It’s physically imposing,
This post is about a revelation I had a while back, which those of you with a firmer grasp of the English language than I will think is nothing at all new (and you’re right!) The thing is that I’d always been puzzled by the word barrage. This gets used a lot by journalists: ‘the
The latest Fortean Times (June 2007) has a great article by Kim Newman on Hammer Films, the much-loved British horror film production company. While discussing the early 1970s, when Hammer’s fortunes were declining, he refers in passing to ‘the tragically unmade Zeppelin vs Pterodactyls‘. That’s all he said, but it was enough … could it
The other day I was wondering why Winston Churchill wanted the soon-to-be-blitzed British to bear themselves like the ‘brave men of Barcelona’, and not the equally brave men1 of Madrid or Chungking, which had also undergone heavy bombardments for long periods of time. I must admit I didn’t actually think it was ever likely that
… all those years of habitually talking like a pilot to the consternation of all and sundry, then somebody goes along and organises The First International Talk Like A Pilot Day and I go and miss it! It was yesterday, 19 May 2007. Wizard idea though, what — absolutely spiffing. Next year I’ll be there
The following quote is from Winston Churchill’s famous “their finest hour” speech, delivered in the House of Commons on 18 June 1940 (and repeated for radio that evening). It’s four days after the occupation of Paris: ‘the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin’. After assuring
