The Science of Christmas by Roger Highfield 'The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second . . . .' 'Santa meanwhile will be subjected to forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity.' In this delightful little book, Dr Roger Highfield, one-time editor of the magazine New Scientist, whips up tradition with …
Category: Festivals
Christmas with Mr Selfridge
A Story (In 1918, nine years after opening his famous London Oxford Street department store, Harry Gordon Selfridge commissioned an architect to design a spectacular tower to sit on top of the building ..... ) ^^^ ‘I don’t want to, Jake!’ Kylie’s lower lip trembled as she looked up her brother. Standing on the bottom …
A Thoughtful, Studious Man
A Fathers' Day Tribute John Lockhart Junior, February 1905- July 1987 (adapted and abridged from my family history book Tapestry) My father, John Lockhart Junior, was born in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, in 1905, the third son of John and Georgina Greenfield Lockhart. My grandfather had grown up in London but, with his parents, emigrated to the …
The Taxidermist's Daughter by Kate Mosse
".... Connie lined up the scalpel and cut. At first, a gentle shifting, nothing more. Then the tip of the blade pierced the skin, and the point slipped in." Kate Mosse returns to her native Chichester for the setting of her new novel, The Taxidermist's Daughter. The year is 1912, a time of mackintoshes, umbrellas, …
Gosho, Geisha and Gion
Memories of Japan (Part Four) From the eleventh floor of the Isetan department store in Kyoto station, you can see the whole city. Its rectilinear boulevards of clean, modern buildings - shops, offices and hotels - stretch away into the haze of the hills that surround it on three sides. Criss-crossing them are neat, narrow …
'Tis the Season to be Jolly!
Carols and Other Celebrations Deck the hall with boughs of holly! 'Tis the season to be jolly. Fah-Lah-Lah! Don we now our bright apparel. Sing the ancient yuletide carol! Fah-Lah-Lah! See the blazing yule before us! Strike the harp and join the chorus! Fah-Lah-Lah! Follow me in merry measure, while I tell of yuletide treasure. …