> Gregorio Allegri’s ‘Miserere mei, Deus’ is one of the most devastatingly beautiful pieces of choral works ever composed. It is perhaps the best known example of late-Renaissance music, but, if the strictures of the Papacy had been followed, it would have been unknown outside of the confines of the Sistine Chapel. The piece was written sometime before 1638 and hadbecome so famous in the next […]
Monthly Archives: September 2011
> 6 June 1944 was D-Day.Operation Neptune saw the Allied forces of the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, NewZealand and Free France cross an unusually calm English Channel and begin theinvasion of Europe. The Normandy landings saw some of the most intense andbrutal fighting of the Second World War as over 150,000 Allied troopslanded across five beaches. Amidst the chaos and confusion, the death anddestruction there was […]
>Leading from the front
> Amidsta Scottish legislative programme consisting of 15 Bills, a single policy caughtthe media’s attention. Alex Salmond announced plans for the creationof a single Scottish police force and fire and emergency service. This wouldamalgamate today’s eight police forces and eight fire services into one nationalbody for each. Thepush for amalgamation is not peculiar to the SNP, to Scotland or to the currentclimate of budget constraints. The […]
>The urge to amalgamate
> On 12 September 2011 the final reportof the Independent Commission on Banking under Sir John Vickers will be issued.It is likely to recommend the ring fencing of the UK’s retail banks, and thusthe separation of the riskier investment banking operations. Whether this willbe accepted by the government has been castinto doubt amidst strong lobbying that it will impact on economic recoveryand Britain’s future growth prospects. […]
>Breaking up is so very hard to do
> The Financial Times and the Guardian have both published original statistical and cartographical work based on the Londonriots. TheFinancial Times has plotted the home addresses of 332 people charged withriot-related offences in London over the past month. These were then applied toa map with neighbourhoods shaded to represent one of five quintiles ofdeprivation (based on the Index of Multiple Deprivation). The researchreveals that two-thirds of […]
>Mapping the riots
The English Civil War pitted fathers against sons,brothers against brothers in the bitter conflict between King and Parliament thatdivided the country. The enmity spread far beyond the borders of England. Althoughroutinely referred to as the English Civil War, its effects were felt inScotland, Ireland and England’s overseas colonies. Eventhe Channel Islands would succumb to intrigue and division. Jersey, the largestof the islands, remainedin the hands […]
An island divided dividing islands
> An interesting graph on the front page of the Financial Times shows the turbulent history of Britain’s 20th century finances through the yields of UK Gilts. The graph serves to illustrate the relatively benign treatment of the UK’s current sovereign debt. Whilst Britain is hardly in the most robust fiscal condition it is being compared to the Eurozone and the USA. A decisive government decision to […]
>Gilty secret
Ferdinand Foch was undoubtedly the military colossus of the western front in the First World War. He rose through the ranks of command in the French Army, becoming first Chief of the General Staff and then Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies with the title of Généralissime. Together with General Haig he planned the Great Offensive of September 1918 which triggered the collapse and defeat of Germany. […]
The disappointments and prophecy of Généralissime Foch
> At the Second Quebec Conference in the middle ofSeptember 1944, President Roosevelt and the US Secretary of the Treasury HenryMorgenthau tried to persuade Winston Churchill and the British delegation on a radicalplan for post-war Germany. The militaristic, Prussian tradition would bedestroyed once and for all, ensuring that Germany could never again threatenthe peace in Europe and the world. Part of this would be achieved by […]
>A controversial plan for post-war Germany
> The ravages of HIV / AIDS have had a catastrophiceffect on life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa. Swaziland has the world’slowest life expectancy at 39.6 years according to the UN’sworld population report and is joined at the lower reaches of the table byMozambique, Zambia and Sierra Leone. But even Swaziland’s tragic figures aresignificantly higher than Manchester, Lancashire in the first half of the 19thcentury. Szreter and […]
>It really was tough up north
> For a shortbut significant period of time on 10 August 2011, Apple Inc. was theworld’s largest corporation by market capitalisation. Wresting the top spotfrom Exxon Mobil is no mean feat for a company that flirtedwith bankruptcy only 14 years ago. The ‘top spot’ in the global peckingorder has become increasingly volatile this century, with no less than 14changes in the last decade. Recently there have […]