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A fight with sledgehammers!
Let's have something sensational.A while back, I noticed references to a lost 1902 English short film called A Fight with Sledge Hammers, whose existence is attested in a number of movie books, and...
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Celtpunk!
Musical recommendations...I've always been a fan of folk-rock and punk-folk - for instance, The Pogues - but a bit over a month ago I was getting another tattoo at the excellent Glory Bound in Exmouth,...
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The Cricklewood Greats
Somehow I've managed to miss this on many previous showings, but tonight I finally caught BBC4's The Cricklewood Greats ...Peter Capaldi embarks upon a personal journey to discover the shocking history...
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Salmon fishing around the Exe and beyond
I feel a trifle guilty to be once again picking up and running with a topic by Ralph at Wayland Wordsmith, but I was interested in his recent post Arthur L Salmon's "Sunset by the Exe". I'm familiar...
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Isle of Wight postcards
Some oddments I've been meaning to share. I forgot to mention that on our recent Beer Quarry Caves day out, Clare and I had a brief look in Sidmouth Antiques Centre on All Saint's Road, Sidmouth. If...
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The Diamond Pendant - aka The Black Opal
As part of the continuing Maxwell Gray project, I just finished reading her last novel (though not her last published work): the 1918 The Diamond Pendant, retitled The Black Opal in the USA. Like...
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Exeter Writers Short Story Competition 2013
I promised (via one of my other hats as site maintainer for Exeter Writers) that I'd promote this here. Exeter Writers is running, for the fifth year now, its annual short story competition. It's open...
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A New Englander hates on the Sandrock
I always like historical travelogues, and just ran into an interesting one by the American author and literary critic John Neal (see pp 40-42, The Cambridge History of American Literature: Volume 2,...
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Bayan time (17): back at TOPJAM
TOPJAM - 28th Octphoto by Martin StorkLooking back, I see I haven't posted anything about bayan progress since April. This is not through lack of interest, but just nothing spectacular to tell of; it's...
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Monster Mash
It's Halloween, and I could get literary with Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker and all that, but instead I thought I'd just post this brilliant video compilation for the one-hit wonder, Bobby "Boris"...
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Sweet Water Grapes
As part of my project to read the complete works of Maxwell Gray, I just started on her final book, the 1923 short story collection A Bit of Blue Stone and other stories, starting with the lead story,...
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Muriel ... and After the Crash
Further to the previous Sweet Water Grapes, I just read the two shorter middle stories - Muriel and After the Crash - in Maxwell Gray's 1923 collection A Bit of Blue Stone.Muriel (dated 1923, which...
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A Bit of Blue Stone
Bournemouth, the Square and Gardens from Mount DoreEM Haslehust, 1915. Wikimedia CommonsA bit of a milestone; further to the previous two posts, I just finished Maxwell Gray's final published work, the...
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Bournemouth in fiction
It may be of interest to some readers if I elaborate on the references in the previous post to pre-1915 novels mentioning Bournemouth (not necessarily as a central setting). Apart from a couple of...
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A Chartreuse mystery
I love the way the Internet often brings to the surface dimly-remembered things. I remember from around 1970 coveting a very pretty book about optics in the school library. I can remember nothing about...
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A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment
I just had to share this. The night before last, I was feeling pretty fretful in the small hours with joint pains from the chemotherapy, so eventually gave in and took a couple of co-codamols (what...
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Just chatting
Clare, who's researching World War One topics, just drew my attention to this article: Of Lice and Men: Trench Fever and Trench Life in the A.I.F. by Dr. M. Geoffrey Miller.It's a good article in...
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Alexander Herzen in Ventnor
I apologise for this being a thoroughly second-hand post, but following blog references led in a pleasant direction.Sydney Padua's always excellent 2D Googles just cited an 1840 letter by Thomas...
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Flooding by the Clyst
View Larger MapOn the great scale of things - hurricanes, tsunamis - this isn't much to complain about, but over the last couple of days the English Westcountry has had significant rainfall leading to...
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Haslehust Mystery Painting #2
Three years ago - see EW Haslehust ... and artfight! - I mentioned the work of Ernest William Haslehust (1855-1949), a watercolourist who specialised in slightly prettified, but nevertheless skilful...
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