William Blake was born on 28 November 1757 in London, the third child of a working class hosier. He would remain an obscure artist and poet while he lived, but would be posthumously recognized as one of the leading artistic figures of the Romantic Age. When he was 11 years old Blake’s parents paid £52.10… Read more In Praise of William Blake
I recently read a really good book, Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant. It is a follow up to her equally awesome novella, Rolling in the Deep, and it is scary as hell. It takes place above the Mariana Trench, and it involves mermaids. Terrifying mermaids. Jaws meets one of H. P. Lovecraft’s beasties… Read more Dragon’s Triangle; Devil’s Sea
Why is Friday 13th unlucky? Because King Philip IV of France strong-armed Pope Clement V into helping him launch a secret attack on the Knights Templar at dawn on Friday, 13 October 1307, leading to their persecution and destruction, which brought down a curse upon the 300-year-old ruling House of Capet. The curse and scandal… Read more The Curse of the Knights Templar
First, let me just say I love the name Mungo. I’ve loved it forever. I first loved it when I found the name St Mungo in a book of Scottish folk tales and saints that I read in high school. I loved it when it popped up in the Harry Potter series as St Mungo’s… Read more Mungo Park, I presume?
The word chuffed is, in my opinion, one of the most British verbs in existence. It comes from a Tudor term meaning “swollen with fat”, but in today’s parlance it means absolutely swollen with delight. Filled with squee. Full of happiness that something really pleasing happened, often in a very flattering context. Frequently one is… Read more Well, I’m Chuffed
In October of 2004, National Geographic published an article by Joel K. Bourne, Jr. entitled Gone With The Water that warned what would happen should a hurricane hit New Orleans. The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the… Read more A Perfect Storm: The Submerged Cities at the Nexus of Climate Change, Political Ideology, and Coastal Development
I was recently reading some fascinating new information about the brain. Recently, a group of “University of California, Berkeley, researchers have shown that chronic stress generates long-term changes in the brain that may explain why people suffering chronic stress are prone to mental problems such as anxiety and mood disorders later in life … conditions… Read more Did Henry Drive Anne Boleyn Crazy?
Lice. AKA cooties. My daughters brought home the wee vermin this week in their hair, necessating a thorough saturation of their hair with a mixture of olive oil and a generous portion of tea tree oil. The olive oil smothers cooties and makes it easier to fine-comb them out, and the tea tree oil kills… Read more A Lousy Time Was Had By All
Happy May Day Birthday to my darling middle daughter, Buttercup! I had heard all my life that “May babies were good babies” (they weren’t fussy and were healthy) and that babies born on Beltane were a particular blessing for their parents … and particularly blessed individuals. This belief may have come to America with the… Read more Beltane Babies Are Best!
(Today I have a video chat up at Diary of an Eccentric, so you should drop by!) Horace (Horatio) Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, passed away on 2 March 1797, leaving behind a literary and architectural legacy that would help shape the nature of Regency England and even the Victorian era. Walpole was the… Read more The Gothic