Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

When Beach was a strapping young man he had heart-felt, thought-out views on everything from abortion to zoophilia. By now in very advanced middle age there are only a couple of things that really get him going: and one of these is the digitalisation of humanity’s books; the possibility, in short, of making all knowledge [...]

**The pages published here are typically historical ephemera written for fun. This present post matters, however. Please circulate** Imagine a visit to the universal library: a building in which all books, manuscripts, scrolls, rolls and tablets from all civilisations and all ages have been placed next to each other on shelves running for tens and [...]

‘Mary Beard’, ‘Mary Beard’..: even now, twenty years on from the beginning of Beachcombing’s infatuation (naturally unfulfilled), the words are enough to send a lightening bolt into that blogger’s overstrained central cortex. Beachcombing still remembers seeing Mary’s swan-like body for the first time, in the reading room at the UL: indeed, Beachcombing trembled as Britain’s most beautiful [...]