D-Day 70
click to enlarge watch big and make sure it’s in HD Curtsy: CDR Salamander for that Stock Footage video. The best story today: [A]n 89-year-old veteran was reported missing by his care home after being told that he couldn’t go to Normandy. … Sussex police say that the man, who has not been named, was […]
Categories: War and Peace
Peter Recommends CXLVII
Formula 1 Pit Stops 1950 & Today Very funny.
Categories: Sports and Leisure
Chickens! In Versailles!
A la Française | Graduation movie from Supinfocom Arles 2012 A la Française from à la Française on Vimeo. By Julien Hazebroucq, Emmanuelle Leleu, Morrigane Boyer, William Lorton, and Ren Hsien Hsu. I just think it’s wonderful. (This would have been a Funniest Item but I’ve had it open for more than a week. Got […]
Categories: History
Sid Caesar
Well, we seem to have come to that point in history where all my new discoveries are from people dying. Before it was classic movie stars, and I knew all about them, but now it’s the TV stars that came after the classic movies, and I’m terrible with classic TV (except Get Smart and F-Troop, […]
Categories: Entertainment
Absolutely the Funniest Item of the Day CCCVIII
I heard this for the first time yesterday, and it’s just fantastic. Play it loud so you can hear: Flanders And Swann – The Gnu Song
Categories: Entertainment
Young Man’s Fancy; Young Girl’s Blaring Klaxon of Change
This was linked to on Lilek’s work blog a week ago or so, I think, and it is amazing: Young Man’s Fancy – 1952 American Consumers & Family Values Documentary Sitcom-style film produced for the Edison Electric Institute. The film encouraged increased consumption of electricity through the ever increasing number of ‘must have’ household appliances. […]
Categories: Electronics
Dagmar!
Thanks and curtsies to Wheat & Weeds for posting this picture I found on Twitter the other day, because it reminded me that I really need this saved on my hard drive (I can’t count the number of times I’ve needed something from Twitter but was too lazy/distracted to have done the responsible thing and […]
Categories: History
Pause… For Christina Rossetti
Back in In Our Time did a show/podcast on Christina Rossetti, and since then I feel like I’ve noticed her everywhere. This is lovely: American Digest – Pause…. and Begin Again Gloucester Cathedral Choir – In the Bleak Midwinter
Categories: Art and Literature
That Scottish Diaspora
Is Red still here ever? The Independent – Like it or not, the Scots and the English are flesh and blood Inspect the details of this diluted nationalism and one thing becomes clear. It embraces, even celebrates, a cross-border world. By Boyd Tonkin The best bit: Elements of bathos accompanied the unveiling of Alex Salmond’s […]
Categories: History
Absolutely the Funniest Item of the Day CCCV
Peter sent this to me sometime last week but it’s still the funniest thing I’ve seen today: A History of English (in under 12 minutes!)
Categories: History
Jackie’s Strength
I wasn’t planning on posting anything to mark the 50th anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination (but lord if you’ve seen the Zapruder Film Stabilized…) because I wasn’t alive during the 60s and I don’t think it often contributes much to over-romantisize that particular decade, even at it’s most tragic. What would I say, as I have […]
Categories: History
We All Need A Cursing Stone Sometimes
I would put this in my front yard, and give it a little settling pat after one of my errand-running drives (as documented the other day on Twitter . . .). American Digest – The Curse Carved Into the Cursing Stone Read it. It’s very therapeutic.
Categories: History
Pity My Poor Unhappy Swimming Pool
Yeah! Finally! wait but why – Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy (I like this post’s style. It’s sort of Hyperbole and a Half meets Quora.) So yes, now that you’ve gone away and read the whole thing, I agree with all of it, and read the whole thing, except: • I think it’s overstating […]
Categories: People and Current Events
Aethelflaed, the Lady of Mercia
See, the trouble with the entire world, really, is that we live with the internet, wherein I know that there’s this TV documentary airing, even if it is airing in a different country, but I still know about it, and I still see people’s reactions to it, and I can still Google it and see […]
Categories: History
Becoming Chinese
So this is very good, and although it’s long (although, not as long as I thought it would be; I was reading it this morning on my phone and emailed it to myself to finish later because I thought I was less than halfway but it turned out I had one paragraph left and the […]
Categories: Geography and Foreign Affairs