On the 14th of February, 2005, YouTube was launched. As you can see, I have never really got the hang of posting on YouTube, but I do seek a lot of help from it in improving my golf swing and technique. YouTube is one of the defining cultural and technological...

On the 13th of February, 1692, the MacDonald Clan were massacred in Glen Coe. Glen Coe is one of Scotland’s most dramatic and evocative landscapes, a place where raw natural beauty and dark human history are inseparably intertwined. Situated in the western Highlands,...

On the 12th of February, 1974, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, was exiled from the Soviet Union. Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) was one of the most formidable moral and literary voices of the twentieth century. A...

On the 11th of February, 1144, Robert of Chester completed the translation from Arabic into Latin of Testamenti Morieni, a textbook on alchemy. Alchemy in medieval Europe was not merely a proto-chemistry obsessed with gold-making, but a rich intellectual tradition...

The feast day of Saint Scholastica is the 10th of February. In Fire and Earth, the second book in the Sir Anthony Standen Adventures, Anthony has to solve a series of murders occurring on Saints’ feast days. I don’t think I used Saint Scholastica, but it would have...

On the 9th of February, 1555, John Hooper the Bishop of Gloucester was burnt at the stake. John Hooper (c.1495–1555), Bishop of Gloucester and later Worcester, was among the most resolute and uncompromising figures of the English Reformation. A theologian shaped by...

On the 8th of February, 1950, the secret police of East Germany were established. They were called the Stasi. Having recently read the George Smiley series by John Le Carré, I feel I know a fair amount about the Stasi, but I’m sure there must be more to learn. The...

I heard the term Barbenheimer for the first time yesterday. I haven’t seen Barbie but I watched Oppenheimer on the flight to Lima in 2024. I thought it was absolutely brilliant, and a very worthy Oscar winner. In a rare cultural moment dubbed “Barbenheimer,” Barbie...

I posted yesterday about Singapore. It seems to me that Raffles gets rather too much credit in Singapore’s story, because the day after signing the treaty, Raffles took his leave and left Singapore in the hands of William Farquhar. William Farquhar (1774–1839) was a...

On the 14th of February, 2005, YouTube was launched. As you can see, I have never really got the hang of posting on YouTube, but I do seek a lot of help from it in improving my golf swing and technique. YouTube is one of the defining cultural and technological...

On the 13th of February, 1692, the MacDonald Clan were massacred in Glen Coe. Glen Coe is one of Scotland’s most dramatic and evocative landscapes, a place where raw natural beauty and dark human history are inseparably intertwined. Situated in the western Highlands,...

On the 12th of February, 1974, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, was exiled from the Soviet Union. Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) was one of the most formidable moral and literary voices of the twentieth century. A...

On the 11th of February, 1144, Robert of Chester completed the translation from Arabic into Latin of Testamenti Morieni, a textbook on alchemy. Alchemy in medieval Europe was not merely a proto-chemistry obsessed with gold-making, but a rich intellectual tradition...

The feast day of Saint Scholastica is the 10th of February. In Fire and Earth, the second book in the Sir Anthony Standen Adventures, Anthony has to solve a series of murders occurring on Saints’ feast days. I don’t think I used Saint Scholastica, but it would have...

On the 9th of February, 1555, John Hooper the Bishop of Gloucester was burnt at the stake. John Hooper (c.1495–1555), Bishop of Gloucester and later Worcester, was among the most resolute and uncompromising figures of the English Reformation. A theologian shaped by...

On the 8th of February, 1950, the secret police of East Germany were established. They were called the Stasi. Having recently read the George Smiley series by John Le Carré, I feel I know a fair amount about the Stasi, but I’m sure there must be more to learn. The...

I heard the term Barbenheimer for the first time yesterday. I haven’t seen Barbie but I watched Oppenheimer on the flight to Lima in 2024. I thought it was absolutely brilliant, and a very worthy Oscar winner. In a rare cultural moment dubbed “Barbenheimer,” Barbie...

I posted yesterday about Singapore. It seems to me that Raffles gets rather too much credit in Singapore’s story, because the day after signing the treaty, Raffles took his leave and left Singapore in the hands of William Farquhar. William Farquhar (1774–1839) was a...