Country Life Magazine – September 27, 2023: The new issue features The Need For Tweed; A perfect pre-trained gundog; A new Jacobean drawing room is the crowning glory at Shilstone, Devon, and more…
The need for tweed
A true Hebridean hero weaves his magic to create an ‘estate’ Harris tweed for David Profumo
Here’s one I trained earlier
Has your over-excited pup left you red-faced on a shoot day? Katy Birchall has the answer: a perfect, pre-trained gundog
Loved to life
A new Jacobean drawing room is the crowning glory at Shilstone, Devon, discovers John Goodall
Country Life Magazine – September 13, 2023:The new issue features the more outlandish and risqué techniques plants have developed to spread their seed, a magical garden restoration at Aldourie Castle in Inverness-shire, the origins of Spetchley Park, Worcestershire, and more…
Fifty shades of green
John Wright investigates some of the more outlandish and risqué techniques plants have developed to spread their seed
A Scottish fairy tale
George Plumptre is spellbound by a magical garden restoration at Aldourie Castle in Inverness-shire
An architectural accident
In the first of two articles, John Goodall explores the origins of Spetchley Park, Worcestershire
Natural History Museum (September 12, 2023) – The Isle of Wight is full of beautiful landscapes, from rolling hills and luscious vegetation to dramatic cliffs and golden, sandy beaches. But have you ever wondered what it would be like to see it all from a bird’s-eye view? Well now you can! So, sit back and relax as we take to the air and soar across the island’s breathtaking land and seascapes.
Literary Review – September 2023: The new issue features Yoga Goes To Hollywood by Dominic Green; How England Lost France; Who’s Afraid of AI?; Don’t Mention Tiananmen; Anne Boleyn’s Ascent and Tastes of China….
Turning Points: Crisis and Change in Modern Britain, from 1945 to Truss By Steve Richards
In the good old days, dates were for foreigners. France, to take the obvious example, had repeatedly been turned upside down by war, revolution and changes of regime. But the English tourist in Paris rarely bothered to find out which of these distasteful events might be commemorated by, say, the rue du Quatre Septembre. The history of England (this was less true of Scotland and not at all true of Ireland) was a smooth and mostly benign progression. Educated people could tell you what the Glorious Revolution was but might be hazy about when exactly it had happened.
The Handover: How We Gave Control of Our Lives to Corporations, States and AIs By David Runciman
Artificial intelligence, it is commonly acknowledged, will pose one of the gravest challenges to humanity in the coming years. In the minds of some, it is already the most urgent problem we face. While there are a number of possible dangers that might bring about the extinction of our species, AI confronts us with a particularly dire situation, because it may well be that we have only a brief amount of time – perhaps a generation – in which to set up norms and constraints on the development of autonomous, non-human intelligences that may otherwise escape our control.
LADmob Films (August 30, 2023) – Canterbury is an historic town in the county of Kent, southeastern England. Its cathedral has been the primary ecclesiastical centre of England since the early 7th century CE.
The site of the town of Canterbury, which has been occupied since pre-Roman times, was in ancient times the mouth of the River Stour, which broadened into an estuary extending to the Wantsum Channel, the strait that once separated the Isle of Thanet from the mainland.
National Trust (August 23, 2023) – A behind the scenes at Belton House in Lincolnshire, built between 1685 and 1687 by Sir John Brownlow, which is looked after by the National Trust.
A filming location for Queen Charlotte: a Bridgerton Story, this 17th-century home has been used as a set for many popular TV series and movies. Belton can be seen in the 1995 production of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth and, most recently, has featured as King George III’s palace in the Bridgerton universe.
Along with a tour of some familiar scenes from the silver screen, you’ll take a closer look at a jewel in the furniture collection – a one-of-a-kind lapis lazuli cabinet. A deep blue gemstone, lapis lazuli has been used as decoration for centuries – perhaps most notably in the funerary mask of Tutankhamun. For a cabinet to be almost entirely covered in the material makes it an extremely rare object.
THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (July 30, 2023) – In this week’s cover story, David Quammen reports on the ongoing mystery of Covid’s origin, what we do know — and why it matters. Plus, a profile of a poet who was kidnapped from his Black father by his white grandparents and a look at a group of English activists’ fight for the right to access public lands.
We still don’t know how the pandemic started. Here’s what we do know — and why it matters.
By David Quammen
Where did it come from? More than three years into the pandemic and untold millions of people dead, that question about the Covid-19 coronavirus remains controversial and fraught, with facts sparkling amid a tangle of analyses and hypotheticals like Christmas lights strung on a dark, thorny tree. One school of thought holds that the virus, known to science as SARS-CoV-2, spilled into humans from a nonhuman animal, probably in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, a messy emporium in Wuhan, China, brimming with fish, meats and wildlife on sale as food. Another school argues that the virus was laboratory-engineered to infect humans and cause them harm — a bioweapon — and was possibly devised in a “shadow project” sponsored by the People’s Liberation Army of China.
A group of English activists want to legally enshrine the “right to roam” — and spread the idea that nature is a common good.
By Brooke Jarvis
The signs on the gateat the entrance to the path and along the edge of the reservoir were clear. “No swimming,” they warned, white letters on a red background.
On a chill mid-April day in northwest England, with low, gray clouds and rain in the forecast, the signs hardly seemed necessary. But then people began arriving, by the dozens and then the hundreds. Some walked only from nearby Hayfield, while others came by train or bus or foot from many hours away. In a long, trailing line, they tramped up the hill beside the dam and around the shore of the reservoir, slipping in mud and jumping over puddles. Above them rose a long, curving hill of open moorland, its heather still winter brown. When they came to a gap between a stone wall and a metal fence, they squeezed through it, one by one, slipping under strings of barbed wire toward the water below.
HISTORY TODAY MAGAZINE (AUGUST 2023) – Queens of the Crusades, What happened to the Lost Vikings of Greenland, When Hitler’s civilians fought the Red Army, and more…
Architectural Digest (July 6, 2023) – A tour of Denham Place, a 17th-century country estate situated just 30 minutes from central London. Built in 1688, this historic property is on the market for £75,000,000 and has just completed an extensive 8-year restoration.
An incredible 12 reception rooms, 12 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms, and grounds inspired by Versailles, make this stately home palatial–and with past residents including the Bonaparte Imperial family, it is a house truly fit for royalty.
The house was constructed in 1688–1701 for Sir Roger Hill, and the architect was probably William Stanton.
HISTORY TODAY MAGAZINE (JULY 2023) – Civil war in Ancient Rome, England’s most useless charities, agents of anarchy in the fin de siècle, the battle for the Korean peninsula, a Catholic sympathiser at Elizabeth I’s court, Bardolatry, Hong Kong’s floating population.
Vitellius led through the streets of Rome by the people, by Georges Rochegrosse, 1883.
For citizens of Ancient Rome, the recurrence of brutal civil war was par for the course. For writers, it was an opportunity.
During the Roman Empire, outbreaks of civil war (and the assassinations which often preceded them) were generally intended to change the emperor, not the imperial system. Even though there was a brief moment after the emperor Caligula’s assassination in AD 41 when a change in the political system might have been triggered, the rudderless and leaderless soldiers quickly reverted to the reassuring default mode of imperial rule after conveniently finding Claudius hiding behind a curtain and making him emperor.
Natural History Museum
LADmob
Boomers Daily 