Author Archives: dgm

Back in 2015 I blogged about the taking down of the statue of Cecil Rhodes outside of UCT in Cape Town. Now again, the question as to what to do about colonial era monuments has raised its head again. They … Continue reading →

A nineteenth century British politician – I think it was Disraeli – once referred to the ‘ten thousand’ – essentially the mixture of upper middle class people and members of the aristocracy who actually ran things. And it’s true – … Continue reading →

The Victorians loved a good murder, especially where one involved the aristocracy, financial malfeasance, and a dash of illicit sex. And murders like these were reported in the newspapers of the day with great gusto, because murders sold newspapers, especially … Continue reading →

When I was researching the murder of Sophia Lewis I came across a couple of English newspaper cuttings that linked the murder to supposed aristocratic misbehaviour and the Waterloo Bridge mystery. My first thought was that this was some nineteenth … Continue reading →

In December 1856 a young prostitute, Sophia Lewis, was found murdered in her house in Stephen Street (now Exhibition Street) Melbourne. Sophia’s throat had been cut, and her jewellery stolen, and the money she was reputed to keep in her … Continue reading →

Remember coins? These funny round bits of metal that we used to use to pay for things. Now superseded by tap’n’go since corona virus killed the use of cash – and possibly never to return. I can honestly say we … Continue reading →

Nowadays computers are ubiquitous, but when I was a spotty teenager in the seventies they were rare and unusual beasts, often locked away in air conditioned vaults and ministered to by priesthood of strange specialists who  got the beast to … Continue reading →

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere we’ve been watching Unorthodox on Netflix. I won’t rehearse the story here, but watching reminded me of something that I used to find  fascinating. I used to live in York in England, and in the mid … Continue reading →

Being a slightly silly person at heart, I recently bought myself some socks featuring Australian Bush Turkeys. The designs not quite right – while admittedly I have what J once described as ‘short fat feet’ – the bush turkeys look … Continue reading →

A long time ago, like almost fifty years ago, I read Norman Cohn’s The Pursuit of the Millenium, which introduced me to the ranters and other European millenarian cults, which I found so weird it was fascinating. Around the same … Continue reading →