Beachcombed 44 February 1, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Beachcombed , trackback
Dear Reader, welcome to February: God knows January had it coming… Here in the Beachcombing household everything footles along. We are still fighting the good fight against dishonest architects (one down, two to go), keeping a leash on father in law (who hired the dishonest architects and even went on holiday with them) and planning this year’s most beautiful garden in central Italy. Other family controversies have included the struggle to find a good school for elder Beachcombing daughter: to the horror of the Catholic Mrs B she’ll be going to a Catholic sentence. No, I don’t understand either.
This month marks an important change to the Beachcombing site as I will now shift from one to sometimes two posts a day. The second post will be a history round up post with links of the best history news interspersed with extra reviews and will go out at midday GMT (subscribers will not receive this as I already have spam guilt). As with all things new it may whither, it may die, it may even flourish. As I’m about to set off on this new tack I’d like to thank all those who send in links and particularly those who send me such high quality links on an almost daily basis: Amanda, Wade, Invisible, Larry and Andy the Mad Monk. Live long and prosper.
There follow below the eleven thousand most interesting words, the emails sent in or at least the links to the same: btw email of the month to Borky who retrieved David Rose’s reputation from where I’d placed it in the crapper – sincere apologies David. But first my favourite offsite reads from this month. In that respect at least it has been a great thirty days: Murder at the Drama Club; Evans on WW1; Mapping Disputed Territories;Nazi slaves in pre war Brazil (no not pseudo history just the sad sordid march of human unprogress); best country in world at…; Spiegel’s WW1 tag; impossible beliefs (new book); brilliant sixteenth-century end of world images; the science (not pseudo science) of alchemy; the dog that came in from the cold (murder, canines and royalty); brilliant spoof bike in archaeology post; the Beach and Pole (executions in Liberia 1980); January fairy news; 6 credible elf incidents [sic]; art of Auschwitz; Dr How Long have I got left; eighteenth century spontaneous combustion; the truth in Dr Strangelove; 11 honest inscriptions; new Salem witch program; key to Voynich mystery (actually convincing); tragedy of Syria ancient and modern; Silk Road (illegal ebay); woman photoshops herself into childhood photos (creepy but interesting); muslim perceptions of the veil (fascinating graphic); ten horrible medical instruments of the past; the right and snooping; whoops apocalypse in the South China Sea; Scottish fairy vampires; what the hell is a fairy knot; sex, death and nirvana; battle of Britain video to Iron Maiden; the Devil on Craiglist; Hollande’s failed handshakes (great graphic); 37 things the dying wish that they had done; academic insults acknowledged; 38 most abandoned places on earth; where are the leftwing Eurosceptics; 15th rule of geopolitics; and do elves have rights?
And comments for SH posts
Be Cool At Academic Conferences: Tacitus from Detritus on prowling and Invisible on partial nudity. ù
Medieval Shamanic Account: Leif writes in with a striking parallel account from later Sami tradition. MC and Wade bring up the rear with pdfs.
Witches and Brambles: Jill keeps the witch blood flowing.
Golden Age: BM and KMH go in search of golden ages via contacts with other cultures and absence of disasters.
Dragon of Dornoch: Borky finds a first rate source that blows all my suspicions about David Rose out of the water. Sorry David…
Pregnant Christ: General scepticism though with good explanations from Invisible and KMH. Ashley adds some thoughts on symbolic pregnancy.
Children of Bjelaja-Zerkow: Robert Kunath writes in with an important correction. My sympathy for HG grows with the years.
ROLFUDRETUS: JH gives a conservative view on the States, LA counters with a liberal view on Canada. Then MCJ and ADE weigh in. Generalised pessimism.
British and Invasions: Borky has a great description of the White Cliffs
Ballast: British historian Mike Dash gives a Kiwi parallel.
Venkov Lenin: 9 Jan 2014: EC gives some Seattle background and Invisible introduces us to Januarius Aloysius MacGahan (in Ohio).
Zeus in China: 16 Jan 2014: RJP gets all semitic and Louis connects the buddha and Alexander!
Newland West: Leif brings in some extra material for Newland pointing towards Greenland (I’m increasingly convinced by this solution).
Leaf Mould: Chris from Haunted Ohio Books writes in with some disturbingly bloody material.
Purring: Wade writes in with a fascinating source in an unstudied field.
Invisible Star Trek Library: Tacitus from Detritus writes in with a couple of other Sci Fi invisible libraries.
Finns, Snow and Magic: Leif and BG has some background to Finns in Norse culture.
Katie King: MC, Nathaniel and Chris from Haunted Ohio Books all write in with thoughts and extra information on Katie, particularly on the relations with Crookes.
Invasion Scare: Some nice emails (thanks to Mike G. Wade and Chris from Haunted Ohio Books) here including from Harry Wood at Invasion Scare blog. We’ll be carrying an interview with Harry next month.
Dragon Goes West: The Count points out that the Chinese idea of the dragon and the Christian idea are hardly compatible. He has a point.
Sphinx: 8 Jan 2013: Several brilliant emails here including Ruththeunstoppablycurious, Lehmansterms (on the Old Man of the Mountain) and CH and NH on Ancient Egypt.
