Whatever’s happening in Najaf today, it’s never going to be half as frightening as South Africa. IOL tells of a newsreader trying to interview an on-the-spot reporter while, unbeknown to her, the latter is being robbed by a gunman: As Katopodis crossed live to Thaw at the first take, his cellphone stayed on – with…
I haven’t seen anything in the Japanese press, but this Straits Times story is a giggle anyway. According to the ST, Japanese pundits were expecting to concentrate on one thing when Mr Jenkins stepped off his flight in Jakarta: If Mr Jenkins brought the dog, it meant he intended to stay for some time in…
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a highly talented Somali immigrant who started as a cleaning lady and, although still only in her mid-30s, was elected last time round to the lower chamber of the Dutch parliament on the VVD (liberal-right) ticket. She has been threatened frequently since being elected for describing Islam as a backward religion,…
Kofi Abrampah was born in Ghana and studied molecular science at Rhode Island College, from which school he subsequently obtained his doctorate. He is currently employed by Amersham as a nuclear pharmacist which, according to Africa’s finest portal, GhanaWeb, means that “he compounds and prepares radio pharmaceutics (radioactive drugs).” So what do you think he…
This cemetery photo was taken near the beginning of an as yet undocumented walk which culminates in a bath in a 30m waterfall. It’s interesting because the flying beast rather resembles a dragon in dove’s clothing. Offhand I can’t think of any dove dragon myths, but there are plenty of references to pigeons and dragons…
Localisation – like most developments in publishing – has benefited greatly from the needs of the porn industry. “I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men and German to my horse,” said Charles V of Spain, without, alas, going into detail. I assume, however, that his Italian will not have been the…
In the Middle Ages anyone of any commercial talent (and his/her mum) had visions and stored some human bones in the new toilet chapel extension of the pig shed nave of the temple next to that handy spring holy source on the hillside. Here, extracted by moderately cunning device from Amazon, is the relevant part of the ToC of Eileen Gardiner’s (not completely exhaustive) Medieval Visions of Heaven and Hell: A Sourcebook:
