Author Archives: dgm

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 →

Like much of the world we are in lockdown due to Covid-19. Fortunately we have a garden, and we live in a small town with a reasonably stocked supermarket, and a populace, who, on the whole, observe social distancing measures. … Continue reading →

Needless to say, the project’s currently on hold due to Covid-19 restrictions, so this is perhaps a time to take stock, given that I’m now about three quarters through documenting the contents of the pharmacy. Back in August 2018 I … Continue reading →

Let’s be honest here – almost everyone is secretly fascinated by the question as how people wiped their bottoms in times past, and the recent world wide burst of pandemic inspired panic buying of toilet paper has inspired lots of … Continue reading →

I’ve been looking at the fallout from the Madeleine Smith trial and had come across this summary of the annual report of the Royal Edinburgh Asylum from the Scotsman of 24 February 1858: which is interesting – unfortunately the reports … Continue reading →

I probably need to get out more, but a few days ago, I ran my surname through querypic, looking to see if there were any reports relating to George or Thomas Moncur. I didn’t turn up anything relating to them … Continue reading →

Came across this little curiousity in the West Gippsland times of 1924: two Chinese herbalists (they probably couldn’t call themselves apothecaries) advertising to the white anglo population in rural Victoria. And of course the obvious question is how much use … Continue reading →