In the great city of Moscow lies an ancient monastery-fortress, whose origins go back through time to the fourteenth century. And in the tiny English village of Alresford lies a small set of public toilets. And the two are inextricably linked. Linked by a story of subterfuge, intelligence and counterintelligence, the two buildings each hold … Continue reading »
Madeleine sat in her geography lesson, attending carefully to the slide show. She was learning about how man could shape his environment to make it safer. Open places, buildings which overlooked each other, wide open, light spaces: these were all less likely to shield criminal activity. And then the geography teacher showed a picture of … Continue reading »
Imagine – just for a moment – that you found a treasure box in a sea-cave, buried deep in a pool. And just suppose it was hundreds of years old, from the time of bluff King Hal himself. You wouldn’t want to go drying it out. Because wood gets used to water. The two become … Continue reading »
People and their dogs. We see them every day, walking down the street, messing about in gardens and parks, living lives alongside each other. We know it has always been thus. We know dogs have been living with men since caves were desirable residences. There was Gerald of Wales, who wrote in the 12th century: ”A … Continue reading »
There are still wild barren places in this little set of islands, made less hospitable by England and its weather. And the chalk wolds which form an arc from the Humber estuary to the North Sea at Scarborough qualify as a wilderness of sorts. In prehisoric days they were forested and finding the way was … Continue reading »
Our British aristocrats are lovely, but oh, so predictable. You know what they’re going to wear, what they’re going to say, when they’re going to wave. And what they have done in the annals of history: even Henry and his wives lead like an anti-fairy tale. I know what’s coming next. Those Russian Romanovs, not … Continue reading »
Half way up a tower in the middle of the University town of Oxford hangs a door. Not unusual, you might say. All towers need doors. Or the pigeons get in and create havoc. But this door doesn’t go anywhere. It hangs on the ancient wall, half way up the bell-tower of the church of … Continue reading »
“Do not be so open minded,” GK Chesterton once said, “that your brains fall out.” Excellent advice. Yet it so often goes unheeded. Today I relate a short tale of woe and the bad behaviour of British crowds. The country that latterly brought you football loutishnness has been practicing mass mayhem for centuries, as my … Continue reading »
Sometimes, one is just out of place. We’ve all been there. Square peg in a round hole, we stick out like a sore thumb; and our whole demeanour shouts awkward. The song puts it so well. So there I was, strolling through the Ashmolean, looking at the history of mankind with undisguised awe, when I … Continue reading »
It takes a great stride of perception to imagine what it must have been like, before the first man stepped on the moon. That day, when Neil Armstrong took his first giant step for mankind, he drew us through the looking-glass. For millennia we had been gazing at this great beauty, and now one of … Continue reading »
