Hill Hill Hill Hill May 4, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary, Medieval, Modern
Placenames, like history, are as much a product of human incompetence as human genius. Take the phenomenon of pleonastic placenames – an intimidating word signalling the limitations of language and understanding. Rather than explain what is meant it is best to give an example, the Yorkshire placenames of Seamer Water (pictured above). Working backwards, generally […]
Black Cats: Unlucky for Some May 3, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : Actualite, Modern
Beachcombing’s mother has flown in from the Dominions to visit her grandchildren and generally cause confusion – arguments over restaurant bills, dietary controversies and black cats… On the last point Beachcombing has to admit though that his mater has a point, one worth sharing with a wider audience. It would hardly be worth worrying about […]
From Ox Carts to Railways May 2, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern, Prehistoric
Archaeologists love the idea of continuity, the notion that little really changes, that from generation to generation, though the forms, languages and professions of faith may alter, the substance remains the same. Historians are, generally speaking, the opposite. They fixate on change and have little patience with the archaeological fraternity – Beachcombing wrote for many […]
Beachcombed 11 May 1, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : Beachcombed
Dear Readers, 1 May Here is Beachcombing’s round up of exceptional emails and comments from the month of April. He cannot list here all the many ideas for posts he has received. However, he hopes to come to these with time. The most popular post this month was the Meson del Fierro and there are […]
Crowning Corpses in Portugal April 30, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : Medieval
Beachcombing’s site has a long and honourable tradition of screwing up anniversaries and today will be no different: a celebration of the most bizarre royal ceremony in history, a full twenty four hours after the fairly modest William-Kate affair drew to its uncontroversial conclusion. Bizarrists will already have anticipated. Beachcombing is, of course, referring to […]
Misplacing Masterpieces at Railway Stations April 29, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary
Beachcombing heard today that his father – pater Beachcombing – will soon be coming for a visit to the Beachcombing house in Little Snoring – the first time in a couple of years, so a cause of celebration. Beachcombing’s favourite story about his father is that once while travelling by train to his publisher in […]
A Book about Spitting April 28, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : Actualite, Contemporary
Jerry Lembcke, The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam (New York University Press 1998) Beachcombing was never going to let a book about spitting in history pass him by. And so when he heard that Jerry Lembcke had given over two hundred pages […]
An Early Sighting of the Loch Ness Monster? April 27, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : Medieval
Medieval saints were famous for their encounters with dangerous animals. In their Lives we read of confrontations with wolves, bears, stags and snakes; but also of meetings with more exotic creatures. Beachcombing thinks of St George facing down a dragon or St Brendan and his monks celebrating communion on the back of an enormous sea […]
Stealing Swords in the Congo April 26, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary
This post is dedicated to Ricardo R. whose father was there in Kinshasa on the day This famous image from the camera of Robert Lebeck is much anthologized as the ‘ African moment’. A gutsy young Congolese has jogged along the limousine of King Baudouin of Belgium and the Belgian Congo as then was. […]
Sink or Swim: Infanticide and ‘Baptism’ on the Ancient Rhine April 25, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : Ancient
Portentous day in the Beachcombing household as Tiny Miss B, the new arrival, was baptised with a select group of friends and in-laws looking on. Unlike Little Miss B – a chip off the Beachcombing block, who screamed her way through her welcoming into the church – the younger Beachcombing, who takes, instead, after her […]
Immortal Champagne Toast April 24, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary
Beachcombing continues his series of Immortal Meals with a mere liquid lunch, a short champagne party from 29 August 1991 in Whitehall, London. Of course, champagne parties in London are two a penny: but this one was rather unusual as all those in attendance were (i) ostensibly at work and (ii) they were members of […]
The Monster of Mondoñedo April 23, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : Actualite
Summer madness approaches in Little Snoring – just the exams and marking to go and term is over. By way of celebration Beachcombing thought that today he would leave conventional (sic) history behind and partake in recipes for the madness of crowds. Think of what follows as a twenty-first-century entry for the Anarchist’s Cookbook inspired […]
Heavenly Bodies in the Pacific April 22, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
The meetings between Western explorers and Pacific peoples in the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries saw a whole host of misunderstandings. And among the most interesting of these was, on the Polynesian side, the question of where the outsiders – with their great sailing boats and white skins – came from. Curiously, there are a rash […]
The Football Charge of the Somme April 21, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary
Beachcombing found himself thinking about sport and war last night. Polo teams racing at machine guns came flitting into his mind. Then there were the cinematic surfing scenes from Apocalypse Now, Empire thugs walking around ‘taming’ the natives with cricket bats (there was a post-war comic strip), the Central American Soccer War, British bill boards […]
Cellini’s Canon April 20, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
Beachcombing has been thinking in the last hour about objects that are far travelled – for example the Indian buddhas that made it to Viking Scandinavia or, say, the Viking coin that (allegedly) ended up in pre-Columbian Maine. And it was while musing on these far-flung things that Cellini’s canon came to mind. Now admittedly […]