Category Archives: Uncategorized

Found in an old box

I recently shared the following ABC news story to Mastodon: It’s quite an interesting little story about how people opening up an old fireplace found a library book forgotten for 150 years in a box hidden in the fireplace. Kiama, … Continue reading

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Mary Wellstead, telegraphist

Earlier this year, we had a road trip in WA, and the furtherest east we got to was Bremer Bay, at the end of a frayed tarmac road running through scrub for 60km. It was a place so remote it … Continue reading

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Too Late…

About a month ago I blogged about that phenomenon of the Victorian postal service, the ‘Too late’ postmark. Well I couldn’t resist, and ended up buying an example for myself from a dealer in Vienna. It’s a prepaid international postcard … Continue reading

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Gurdjieff and Stalin

George Gurdjieff was a remarkable man. To some he was a mystic and a seeker after truth, to some a charlatan, and perhaps he was something in between. Growing up in Kars, which after the 1877 war between Tsarist Russia … Continue reading

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Fieldwork with Agatha…

About a month ago I wrote about my discovery of Agatha Christie’s mystery novels. I won’t bore you with the details, other than to say that I’ve always enjoyed ‘golden age’ novels both for their stories and their portraits of … Continue reading

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The train to Iraq

A couple of days ago, after the evening news, we watched a repeat of Michael Palin’s travel documentary where he visits Iraq. In the opening few minutes of the programme, he rides the train through a wintry Turkey to Diyarbakir … Continue reading

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A Too Late postmark…

As is well known, I have a bit of a fascination for postal ephemera from the nineteenth century, and I was highly intrigued by this post from the Derbyshire record office … Definitely in the ‘rather interesting’ category, and something … Continue reading

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Mechanics Institute, Athenaeum or School of Arts?

I’ve been reading Shirley Barrett’s Rush Oh!, a story about whaling in Eden in the far south east of New South Wales, and an area which I more or less know. When we lived in Canberra, the coast from Pebbly … Continue reading

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Discovering Agatha Christie

I have never read a novel by Agatha Christie. Sure, I’ve watched documentaries about her, about her nervous breakdown when she ran away to Harrogate after crashing her car, I’ve read about her experiences working in a hospital pharmacy during … Continue reading

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Suffragettes and lipstick

I’ve written before about lipstick and revolution in the context of the Spanish civil war and how, in a famous photograph of Republican milicianas, one of the young women is clearly wearing lipstick. But something I didn’t know, was that … Continue reading

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