The Bakewell tart, despite it being dearly loved by Brits, was originally made as a cheap, dumbed-down version of the rich Derbyshire pudding: the puff pastry swapped for shortcrust, and the buttery almond filling swapped for an almond-flavoured sponge cake. I write about the histories of the...
If you're looking for a site that typifies the multi-layered nature of British history, look no farther than Old Sarum. Situated just north of the city of Salisbury and west of Castle Road (A345), the mound known today as Old Sarum has been the site of a Neolithic settlement, an Iron...
who got into the very sensible habit of watering down their wine to avoid getting too drunk of an evening. They still wantedsomethingto drink though. It is named after Colonel Francis Negus (1660-1732), ‘a well-connected gentleman’, who, aside from being a noted member of the officer...
Many, however, remember the phrase “lashings of ginger beer,” associated with her picnics that seems to exist in her Famous Five novels. The Famous Five drink... Russell Lee’s San Benito County, California. Japanese-American girls prepare picnic lunch for members of the Japanese-American...
An idiom is a phrase whose meaning is unclear based on the words used. For example, if you say,I’m going to hit the sack,most people will know that you aren’t literally beating up cloth bags. They understand that it’s an expression meaning you are going to bed. ...
Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments in the 1970s noted graffiti in two out-of-the-way places, on the crest of the great fifteenth century reredos behind the altar and on the piers that support the fan vaulting in the South Transept, accessible only from the catwalk below the vaulting. ...
I wouldn’t say that vinyl production returned to normal, but maybe to borrow a phrase from the early COVID times, “a new normal.” Pre-orders were months out, and while that isn’t unusual, most of the preorders I had missed original estimates, and often months from the original es...
In the same way, industry was refitted to produce vital supplies and the phrase “make-do and mend,” which was already a part of daily life from the Great Depression, extended into the war years as production of non-essential items was stopped. And here we are with our light and some...
“Cutting down jungles,” as I understand that phrase, means helping students with passionate convictions to evaluate critically their world views, to examine what lies beneath the personal beliefs they profess. “Irrigating deserts,” conversely, involves nurturing in apathetic or cynical students the...
There were 16 kingdoms altogether, each having their own set of rulers, each fighting other states. No one can really make good sense of it, should this be the approach taken. Among the wars and conflicts, the northern and southern dynasties is not a period of dark ages. It was a ...