Author Archives: dgm

Well it was Christmas Day Chez Moncur. We had feasted, talked, skyped those we should skype, phoned others and by mid evening we were heading for that Christmas day slump provoked by a combination of turkey, ham, champagne and mince … Continue reading →

Earlier today, I tweeted a link to a New Scientist report that a monkey in a Minoan wall painting from Thera had been identified as possibly a Grey langur from the Indus valley, a couple of thousand kilometres from Thera … Continue reading →

Saturday night, and what to do? Well last night J and I went to a concert – the Lofty Viol of English early music in the old town hall, just 5 minutes walk from our house. And it was a … Continue reading →

A long time ago, I became fascinated with the story of Sighelm the ealdorman and whether he ever made it to India. This minor obsession broadened into a wider fascination with early travel and a possible pilgrim route via the … Continue reading →

I’ve written elsewhere about doing family history online, but that was using publicly available resources in Scotland. This weekend the time came to see what could be done in Victoria. A couple of years ago we took advantage of ANZAC … Continue reading →

When I look at collections of indigenous wood spears, like the ones on display at MAMA in Albury, I often wonder how effective they were, especially the hardened native wood precontact items. The answer: Very, frighteningly so. What you see … Continue reading →

Undoubtedly, the heyday of the bicycle was between about 1890 and sometime around the end of the nineteen twenties when cars began to we widely adopted as the preferred mode of personal transport. This period of time coincides (at least … Continue reading →

I was talking about toilet parlours with J, and she mentioned that when she was a teenager there was still an old fashioned Ladies’ Retreat in Melbourne where, not only could you go to the toilet, you could change if … Continue reading →

In quite a few places in Victoria you can come across old colonial post boxes – sometimes even still in use as in the early example I spotted in Port Fairy. Well, Beechworth we don’t have any old pattern boxes … Continue reading →

There, I was innocently working away documenting old pharmacy bottles when I came across one that caused me quite a degree of puzzlement: it’s from Lane’s Pharmacy in Wangaratta. It’s difficult to see from the picture but underneath the Lane’s … Continue reading →