All Purls. No Swine.
Courtesy of my sister–who offered me a challenge–I’ve been on a bit of an “Ancestry” kick lately. She mentioned an old family mystery, a story oft told by my mother, about a much-loved relative who’d died–it was said–under suspicious circumstances, and whose husband the family (my family) had always suspected of being a fortune hunter… Continue reading Finding Maudie
You were born in Australia on July 8, 1882, and you'd have been 143 years old today, had you not unfortunately died at the age of 78, in White Plains, New York, on February 20, 1961. Oh, well. Can't have everything. What I can have, though, is an enduring memory of your music, and your… Continue reading Happy Birthday, Percy Grainger!
In 1885, Louis Pasteur (not a doctor) was convinced by Jacques Joseph Grancher, (who was a doctor), to administer his then-experimental rabies vaccine to a young French boy, Joesph Meister, who had been bitten numerous times by a rabid dog. Pasteur and his team were reluctant, as the vaccine was--at the time--still in the experimental… Continue reading A Useful and Effective Vaccine: For Rabies
Oh, not all that Wimbledon nonsense that's going on at the moment. Emma Raducanu in tears (again). Who's wearing "what" bling, and how much it cost. Arguments about the electronic line-calling system, and the sad exit from the courts of the old style, beautifully dressed, "line judges" in favor of an electronic eye that already… Continue reading July 5, 2025: This day in Tennis History
I wrote a post, five years ago, about my husband, who died five years ago, on July 3, 2020. His family story exemplified the American Dream: Grandparents on both sides who immigrated legally from Eastern Europe in the early 20th century, and who worked like hell at whatever work they could find, to survive, and… Continue reading Happy 249th Birthday, United States of America!
A few years ago, I wrote a post about the book many still refer to as the "Great American Novel." Gone With the Wind was published eighty-nine years ago today, on June 30, 1936. Its author, Margaret Mitchell, was a reporter for the Atlanta Journal who'd been sidelined from her job while she recovered from… Continue reading June 30, 1936: Gone…Gone With the Wind
She died in 2003, 22 years ago today, at the age of 96. A good age. One that many close members of my own family have made it to, and beyond. I guess I have another almost two-and-a-half decades to live through, if I intend to keep the side up. Which--absent adverse entanglements--I am determined… Continue reading In Memoriam: Katharine Hepburn
I doubt that there are many British females of my generation (so sue me, I'm a Boomer, perhaps the last generation with some fairly comprehensive understanding of historical facts, context and consequences that the world may ever see), who wasn't stirred to her bones, in her youth, by the story of Bonnie Prince Charlie and… Continue reading Speed, Bonny Boat: At least Bonnie Price Charlie Didn’t Have to Worry About the Quangos or the Disatrously Incompetent CalMac Ferries, Back in the Day
Is it possible to defend Western Civilization without defending, and standing for, Christianity and the West? I happen not to think so. Sadly, some of the more disheveled among my own generation appear to disagree with me. Every time I see some half-wit, lack-wit, want-wit, fuck-wit, or any other sort of missing-wit propounding the notion… Continue reading For the (Remaining) Men of the West
I’d like to think that my message to the Telegraph yesterday was the straw that broke the camel’s back: Infuriated by this from the first line of this article: “Seven Asian men have been convicted of the sexual exploitation of two white teenage schoolgirls in Rochdale.” Gosh. I’m so old that I remember the remarks of Labour minister Lucy… Continue reading “Two Tier Keir” Finally Caves and Announces a “National Inquiry” into Britain’s Grooming Gang Scandal