American Thanksgiving Explained

Ever wondered why Americans have an enormous family turkey dinner just before having to do it all over again a few weeks later? Author and historian Peter Firstbrook explains Thanksgiving for a British audience, including why it's so close to Christmas... Today, millions of families throughout the United States will sit down ... Read More...

Sandy the Scrapper attends a Seance

'Story Of My Life: The Trials and Triumphs of Sandy the Scrapper' was a tale penned for children by Edith Monro Armstrong in 1914, and revised again for publication in 1949. It gives a dog's eye view of Edwardian Canada. Bill Atkinson, who is working on a new edition of ... Read More...

Sandy the Scrapper – a sweet tale for Edwardian children

Guest contributor Bill Atkinson shares a tale penned by an Edwardian lady about a little dog. It suggests that 100 years ago they had rather different ideas about what was deemed suitable for children's entertainment... Sandy was the favorite pet of Edith Monro Armstrong (b. 1874, d 1960), an Edwardian lady, Doctor's wife, chatelaine, accomplished ... Read More...

Ashes to Angle-Grinders

Terry Stiastny, a new John Murray author, on a visit to her publisher's historic home... Daylight falls into a below-stairs office at 50 Albemarle Street from an elaborate glass rotunda above. The rotunda has a strange quality: if you stand beneath the highest point of the dome and speak, you hear ... Read More...

Dylan Thomas: his part in my downfall

Brisbane-based journalist Ben Atherton reveals how Dylan Thomas led him astray... Back in the good old days, when I was trying to get my first job on newspapers, a standard interview question was: "Why do you want to become a journalist?". The standard answer always began with platitudes about an "enjoyment" of ... Read More...

Chips with Everything: Stephen Potter and Upmanship

Dabblers will know that Noseybonk applied the principles of gamesmanship to the internet age in his Blogmanship book. From our friends at Slightly Foxed magazine, here's author Andrew Martin on the original 'Upmanship' books of Stephen Potter... I first encountered the work of Stephen Potter in a TV sketch show that conflated the great ... Read More...