Goatman: Flesh or Folklore November 26, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Actualite, Contemporary***warning, Beach worked on a goat farm for six long months…*** Let’s first of all get one thing out of the way. Goatman: Flesh or Folklore was brought out by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. In other words, it is a privately published work. In 1990 this would have been a strong negative signal and old […]
Daily History Picture: Deportation From Greece November 25, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesThe Oldest Record of an Escaped Slave? November 25, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : AncientConsider this record reporting an escaped slave named Hermon or alternatively Nilus. About 18 years old, of medium stature, beardless, with good legs, a dimple on the chin, a mole by the left side of the nose, a scar above the left corner of the mouth, tattooed on the right wrist with two barbarian letters. […]
Daily History Picture: Dog Fight November 24, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesDog fight in the London sky in the summer of 1940: Though many brave unwritten tales Were simply told in vapour trails
Three Forgotten Democratic Tools from History November 24, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Ancient, MedievalWestern democracies run on a fairly limited model with relatively little variety from country to country. There follow three features that have disappeared from our contemporary democracies but that worked (and worked well) in the three most significant strands of historical democracies: ancient Greece, the medieval Italian communes and Viking ‘controlled anarchy’. Ostracisim Ancient Athens […]
Daily History Picture: Chasing Gnome? November 23, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesIn Praise of North Korean Pop Music November 23, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Actualite, ContemporaryWe need to be grateful for North Korea. In a world where communism has crumbled like a biscuit in milk, where even Cuba is getting excited about the market, where there are scores of Chinese billionaires, then good old North Korea is there to remind us of just how god awful state run life can […]
The Misericordia Polyptych Meets Allied Bombs November 22, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary, MedievalThe Misericordia Polyptych is a talismanic work of art by Piero della Francesca, today, and for most of its history, kept at Sanselpolcro in eastern Tuscany near the border with Umbria (Italy). It took PF seventeen years to complete the polyptych, yet it would have only taken a second for an Allied bomb to blow […]
Daily History Picture: Hungarian Execution November 21, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesSunk Three Times in an Hour November 21, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : ContemporaryBeachcombing’s grandfather was sunk three times in the last World War. But the three times in question were spread out over seven years… Imagine, instead, being sunk three times in just under an hour, not only that, we are not talking about lonely frigates or minesweepers, these were three British battleships: HMS Cressy, Aboukir and […]
Daily History Picture: Bad Cats November 20, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesEthiopian Boat Arrives in the Mediterranean?! November 20, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : MedievalHere’s a strange text to say the least. It appears in that remarkable tenth-century Arab work Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems by Abu Zayd, the kind of miscellany of marvels that only the Arabs could write: the non-fiction reflex of Sinbad. In the Sea of Rum [the Mediterranean] near the island of Iqritish […]
Daily History Picture: Ali Love Pele November 19, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesJoan of Arc and the Genesis of Her Voices November 19, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : MedievalJoan of Arc has appeared once before on this blog in that fascinating moment where she apparently picked out the Dauphin with psychic antennae. Today, two years on, Beach is turning instead to another part of Joan’s paranormal life, her voices. Joan heard, from her early adolescence onwards, voices. These voices gave her instruction and […]
The Children Tree November 18, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : MedievalThere are some rare accounts from the middle ages (though not from antiquity?) of trees that are alive. The following comes from the great eighth-century Chinese geographer Du You. Du You is talking here of the Dashi, the Chinese word for the Arabs, that have just started to come onto the horizon with the Islamic […]