The Gannet Club: Parachuteless in WW2 December 14, 2013
Author: Beach Combing | in : ContemporaryJumping out of a plane without a parachute is never a good idea. But it is striking that some individuals walk away, or more likely are carried away, with a few token broken bones and a story to dine out on for the rest of their lives. Most modern examples are of parachutists who have […]
The Mysterious End of the Western Settlement January 18, 2013
Author: Beach Combing | in : MedievalImagine a Mary Celeste incident – an empty apparently abandoned ship – but extended instead to an entire land. At least one such account comes down to us and that is the abandonment of the Western Settlement in Greenland, one of the most mysterious events in European – or is it North American? – history. […]
The Future of English December 29, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : ActualiteThere have been various ‘world’ languages, beginning with Greek, moving on to Latin, and from there changing rapidly from Portuguese, to Spanish, to French and more recently to English. Beachcombing spent a lazy moment yesterday browsing a nineteenth-century essay on the ‘inevitable’ triumph of English, the author arguing that not only would English become the […]
Joy Riding on the Moon October 3, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary***This post is dedicated to Larry who pretty much wrote the whole thing himself*** Autumn flu continues, but Larry K came to the rescue this morning saving Beachcombing from having to think too hard or even, if truth be told, from dragging himself out of bed. Beach can do no better than quote from Larry’s […]
Radioactive Japes September 28, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : ContemporaryBeachcombing’s recent reading about secret weapons from the Second World War and cobblers about ancient nuclear wars has got him thinking. He should really, twenty years ago, have put together a file on radioactive folly in human history. But, in the absence of this file, he hopes that reader’s will be able to provide some […]
Irish Fairies in New Hampshire August 29, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : ModernAbout ten days ago Beachcombing put up a post celebrating funny fairy stories, a way, he noted, ‘to kill the fairies with kindness’. Since then he has come across a further fairy story from the other side of the Atlantic. As he is particularly interested in American fairies at the moment – a long and […]
Lincoln’s Prophetic Dream June 23, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : ModernBeachcombing has been having some troubling dreams of trails of gold sovereigns in the snow and a Babylonian Mother Goddess called Lindsey. This got him thinking of famous historical dreams and he settled, for today’s post, on a classic – Lincoln’s dream of his own death. Now, as all good Americans know, 14 April 1865 […]
Review: Farquhar, Foolishly Forgotten Americans October 30, 2010
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary, ModernA small note: today’s the day that Beachcombing’s first Bizarre Bibliography goes up – Mrs B has taken little Miss B to music therapy (truly…) so Beach has a couple of hours to burn. This bibliography should appear on the horizontal tabs above before evening. It will be short. At first. Any contributions or links […]