Vikings and the Irish

Vikings and the Irish

Brian Boru defeated the Vikings in Ireland on this day in 1014 at the Battle of Clontarf. It must have been quite a battle because all the leaders died. It wasn’t simply a battle between the Irish and the Vikings, because the Vikings were allied to the Irish king of...
Bullying and Parliament

Bullying and Parliament

Dominic Raab has been found to have engaged in bullying as a minister and has resigned. He seems to have some issues with the definition of bullying. As a writer, I always reach for the Oxford English Dictionary when a definition is required. The OED says that a bully...
Scientists of Sir Anthony Standen’s Lifetime

Scientists of Sir Anthony Standen’s Lifetime

I don’t claim that this is an exhaustive list of scientists contemporary with Sir Anthony Standen. It’s more of a tasting menu, with each scientist chosen because they relate to the Sir Anthony Standen Adventures in some way. The place to start must be Galileo...
Pointless and Dying Phrases

Pointless and Dying Phrases

Claire and I often watch Pointless in the afternoon. It’s a quiz show hosted by Alexander Armstrong. The format is to try and choose an answer that is the most obscure correct answer. One of the rounds today were clues to phrases which are rapidly dying out. We were...
Corsham Writers, Raymond Chandler, & Duck Soup

Corsham Writers, Raymond Chandler, & Duck Soup

I attended my second meeting of the Corsham Writers Workshop on Thursday. As with my first meeting, it was a delight to chat with other writers. There were a couple of writers new to the group, and a long standing member who hadn’t been at the first meeting I...
Facebook Friends and Profile Hacking

Facebook Friends and Profile Hacking

Brian Feinblum gave me some book publicity coaching last year. He asked me how many facebook friends I had, to which my reply was around twenty. “That’s hopeless, you need thousands’, he replied. He also gave me some tips on how to achieve that, which I have been...