It is nearly 150 years old and the third busiest railway station in the U.K. and only behind London Waterloo and London Victoria Station with around 64 million passengers every year acting as a London gateway and exit to travellers from Cambridgeshire, Essex, Greater London, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. But over the last century it’s… Continue reading 150 years of disasters at Liverpool Street Station
Tag: Iraq
The Trafalgar Square Fourth Plinth
The Fourth Plinth is probably the most famous public art commission in the world and it all began back in 1994 when after 150 years with an empty plinth, Prue Leith, then chair of the Royal Society of Arts wrote a letter to the Evening Standard suggesting that something should be done about the empty… Continue reading The Trafalgar Square Fourth Plinth
Gertrude Bell – The Ketrun – Desert Queen
From time to time, I have written about iconic and pioneering women in relative recent history, well recent by British standards 🙂 I also sometimes write about the Middle-East which is actually the one area of life that I can actually claim to have some academic expertise. So I have finally taken the opportunity to… Continue reading Gertrude Bell – The Ketrun – Desert Queen
Rebuilding the Great Library of Mosul
Libraries are one of the hallmarks of civilisation, the availability of knowledge and ideas has been inherent to our progress as a species for thousands of years. The destruction of such knowledge is also an often repeated and always unforgivable crime of many a tyrant whether it be the destruction of the treasured Great Library of… Continue reading Rebuilding the Great Library of Mosul
WW1 Iraq & The Desert Campaigns
Last week I wrote on how it was the 100th anniversary of the death of my Great Grandfather in Iraq in WW1. In fact just last night I found a bookmark from my Great Grandmother who must have had it made long ago to remember her husband. So much of the history of The Great… Continue reading WW1 Iraq & The Desert Campaigns
Remembering My Great Grandad Ernest Heard Who Died 100 Years Ago Today in Amarah, Iraq.
Today marks the 100th anniversary of one of the biggest moments in 20th century history, if not for many people, at least for myself and perhaps a few others. For on this day, January 25th 1917, my Great Grandad Ernest Heard died in Iraq during WW1. Like many others in that particular campaign, he didn’t… Continue reading Remembering My Great Grandad Ernest Heard Who Died 100 Years Ago Today in Amarah, Iraq.
Visualising the spread of cities throughout time
As I’m really busy with my tours this week and don’t have a great deal of time to do a lot of writing, instead I found neat little video that I found that conveys a fascinating subject. The creation and the spread of cities and hence the spread of civilisation. Even from the graphic below… Continue reading Visualising the spread of cities throughout time
Cultural Vandalism – The destruction of priceless monuments by ISIS / ISIL
One of my most popular blog posts that I have ever written was on the ongoing destruction of historic Mecca by Saudi Arabia and whilst one day soon I hope to write more on the topic, I thought for now it was important to write about some of the destruction of priceless artifacts that is… Continue reading Cultural Vandalism – The destruction of priceless monuments by ISIS / ISIL
21st century genocide – The Yazidi
Few can have escaped seeing the footage in the last week of the “genocide” being inflicted on the Yazidi people in Iraq. To many they are just another bad news story but for various reasons I have always had an affinity for the Yazidi and the closely related Zoroastrians. The recent massacres of the Yazidi… Continue reading 21st century genocide – The Yazidi
Stephen Liddell 