A week or so ago I wrote about the famous mutiny on HMS Bounty and the island of Pitcairn in the South Pacific. It turns out that though at one time the island was home to several hundred people, over the years the number has called away to under 50 and most of them are at… Continue reading No-takers for Paradise?
Month: February 2015
Terra Nullius, enclaves & the strange case of Bir Tawil – The land that nobody wants.
When European nations were looking at empire building there were a number of sham reasons used to justify it. Either religious edicts from Rome, pure Ethnocentrism from France (the belief of one race being superior to all others) or in the case of Great Britain Terra Nullius. It was the Romans who first came up… Continue reading Terra Nullius, enclaves & the strange case of Bir Tawil – The land that nobody wants.
Captain Bligh, Fletcher Christian and The Mutiny on The Bounty
HMS Bounty was a small and rather unremarkable ship that was bought and re-fitted for the Royal Navy for a not particularly exciting mission but little did anyone onboard realise their names would go down in maritime history. It started off as an experiment, to carry Breadfruit plants from Tahiti to the West Indies in… Continue reading Captain Bligh, Fletcher Christian and The Mutiny on The Bounty
Was it something I said? – Accents and dialects of the world and Great Britain
Over the weekend it was a revealed in a Time Magazine survey that we British apparently have the most sexy accent in the world. Whilst not sure how many from Tanzania or Mongolia were surveyed, we sure are grateful to all our English speaking and European friends. I must say though that I find it… Continue reading Was it something I said? – Accents and dialects of the world and Great Britain
Grace Darling – A Victorian Heroine
Not many people know about Grace Darling today but 175 years ago her fame hadn’t just spread around the land but around the world and with good reason. Grace was the daughter of William and Thomasin Darling, just one of nine children born into the family in the early 19th century. Aged just a few… Continue reading Grace Darling – A Victorian Heroine
Making Book Promo Videos
The more observant of you may have noticed this blog post is a day or two later than normal. Partly this is because I’ve been a bit unwell and partly it is because I have been very busy making some book promotional videos. Book promotional videos are a relatively new tool in the authors ever… Continue reading Making Book Promo Videos
#Mugabe Falls
It’s always nice to see politicians make an idiot of themselves. Whether it former President George W. Bush or current London Mayor Boris Johnson, if we have to put up with characters then at least we can laugh at them. Of course that is because in democracies we pretty much get to see everything, warts… Continue reading #Mugabe Falls
Charity begins at home but is it now big business?
Every now and then comes a heartening good news story whether it is one of those homeless people who help a passerby only to end up the centre of a massive fundraising operation or the story I wrote about last year about a man who was about to commit suicide only to be talked out… Continue reading Charity begins at home but is it now big business?