Vaguely Interesting Snippets | 31 December 2013 According to Popb!tch, there hasn’t been an instrumental (i.e. no vocals) Number 1 in any major music market in 21st Century. The last one? Mr Oizo, Flat Beat in UK, 1999. Many people can guess the world’s best selling singles – Bing Crosbie’s “White Christmas” (50 million), Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind 1997” (33 million) and USA for […]
Monthly Archives: December 2013
How many were killed on the first few days of the Allied invasion of Japan? Tens of thousands of bodies lay mangled on the blood soaked beaches. The sea churned, frothing pink-tinged waves pounding the sticky, red sand. Memories of the D-Day landings were eclipsed by this new slaughter, the desperate defence producing a suicidal savagery that surprised leaders on all sides. Waves of devoted but […]
The Downfall that never was
The arrival of the railway heralded a new age more than almost any other technological development. But the idea of combining fixed paths with wheeled vehicles was much older than the great nineteenth century inventors and the age of steam. Christopher Woolmer opens his book Fire and Steam, a history of the railways, with this quite arresting story: “One of the least known facts about Louis XIV […]
Ahead of their time
Vaguely Interesting Snippets | 17 December 2013 Only one cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church has ever been executed whilst serving in office. Cardinal Fisher wore the distinctive scarlet robes of the most senior ‘princes of the Church’. The scarlet is intended to remind the cardinals that they must be willing to sacrifice themselves completely to the church, even if that means shedding their blood. Few have […]
There are far more famous painters, celebrated sculptors and renowned architects than Grinling Gibbons. He is not as well known as Turner, Moore or Wren. But few craftsmen or artists have so completely mastered their medium as Gibbons. Along two sides of the Victoria and Albert Museum are 32 statues representing a pantheon of British artistic greats, master craftsmen and visionary architects. The figures are labelled […]
No instance of a man before Gibbons
It was to be an engineering feat to surpass the Pyramids and be a wonder for all ages. The sea would be tamed, harnessed to produce abundant electricity and lowered to create vast new fertile plains. Europe would be linked to Africa, fresh water would make the desert bloom and there would be almost unlimited living space for a new generation of European pioneers. Atlantropa would […]
Draining the Mediterranean
It is now over four years since the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers heralded the credit crunch and the start of the one of the deepest global recessions in history. We are well versed in warning stores of booms, busts and bubbles. The South Sea Bubble and the Wall Street Crash are well known examples of speculative bubbles bursting with catastrophic effect. Less well known, but similarly […]