Category Archives: Uncategorized

A little bit of history in Beechworth

Beechworth, in Victoria, is an old gold town, and quite historical. Hidden in plain sight is a little bit of world war one history. If you go to the public loos from the main street you walk down the side … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Private pictures and public knowledge

A week or three ago I blogged about the great selfie crisis. Since then I’ve come across an interesting little problem. If you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ll know that one of my interests is that chaotic period … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Bradshaw

If you have read any British Victorian era literature, you’ll have come across references to a Bradshaw – a guide to train times. So named because George Bradshaw compiled a compendium of the various and often competing companies train timetables … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Selfies …

Well this week we’ve had a bit of a moral panic over selfies of clothing challenged people, not in the least because a number of pictures of media starlets have been stolen from Apple iCloud servers, perhaps by brute force … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Trains

I’m going to make a confession here. I like trains. Or more exactly, I like the social history of trains and railways. Admitting you like trains is always dangerous. It gets you lumped in with these people who wear unfortunate … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Analog August

There’s a mini meme going around – Analog August which is linked to a book by Michael Harris as to how everything is hyper connected and only anyone born before 1985 remembers life without the internet. There’s enough bits of … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

African Iron age

I’ve already written about pre european contacts in Australia between the indigenous inhabitants and the populations of south east asia. Now, from South Africa a report on a dig at a pre-colonial smithy, which is interesting because among the trade … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

C18 Chinese coin found in Arnhem land

One of the themes of this blog has been pre-european contacts between the Aboriginal populations of Australia and those of neighbouring parts of SE Asia. That’s clumsily expressed, essentially we mean contacts other than those documented contacts by european colonists … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Microhistory

I’m a fan of microhistory, probably because I’ve always liked stories and because, when I was a child in Stirling, the main library had this permanent display of the town records and court transcriptions. They were utterly mundane, but these … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

A neo Romanesque puzzle in Brisbane

As we rattled north out of Brisbane on the Sunlander, the train stopped at Exhibition station, and from the train window I glimpsed what looked to be a rather stunning neo Romanesque church in the distance. And then, in the … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment