Monthly Archives: May 2019

Yesterday I tweeted a link to an article from the Atlantic about how libraries, and we really mean university and research libraries, are seeing a massive decline in the use of the books on their shelves. No real surprises there. … Continue reading →

Well about the Polish origins of the name anyway. The name Petropaulowski was in use in English long before the Crimean war. Searching GoogleBooks for the name shows it is used in an account of Cook’s voyages published in Manchester … Continue reading →

The Crimean War has been referred to as the first modern war, by which people usually mean that there was something very like modern trench warfare during the siege of Sebastapol, few large set piece battles with the exception of … Continue reading →

We’ve just had brunch – baked beans (Watties’ from NZ), toast, bacon and the last of our home grown tomatoes. And it struck me that everywhere we’ve been that was governed by Britain in colonial times has a local brand … Continue reading →

Early photography, and we’re talking 1850’s and early 1860’s here, was a cumbersome process. Photgraphic plates had to be prepared almost immediately before use – in itself a messy fume laden business, and then processed almost after exposure, so unstable … Continue reading →

Mount Buffalo was Victoria’s first National park, and really where winter sports began in  Victoria in the late 1800’s. So popular was the park that in 1910 someone had a plan to build a hotel for skiers and summer walkers … Continue reading →