1165
‘Be careful what you wish for’, they say, and there could be no more endearing example.
Four suburban children (two girls and two boys) have discovered a Phoenix wrapped up in a Persian carpet. The fire-bird, proud of its homeland, has encouraged them to send the magic carpet back to fetch Persia’s ‘most beautiful and delightful’ produce, and the bulging carpet has just returned.
Posted February 14 2017
1166
Railway enthusiast, music lover, and the man who gave us stereo sound.
Alan Blumlein (1903-1942) is the acknowledged father of stereophonic sound recording. There were others working on stereo, notably Arthur Keller in the USA, but Blumlein was the first man to patent stereo recording equipment, and the man whose ideas best stood the test of time.
Posted February 13 2017
1167
A fox terrier spies what looks like a hapless victim – until he gets up close.
Jerome K. Jerome’s comic travelogue ‘Three Men in a Boat’ is subtitled ‘to say nothing of the dog’. In this extract, the dog Montmorency - a fox terrier - plays a starring role, but unfortunately not a particularly glorious one.
Posted February 11 2017
1168
Oedipus flees home in an attempt to escape a dreadful prophecy, unware that it is following at his heels.
One of the great myths of ancient Greece, the tragedy of Oedipus tells how the King of Thebes and a shepherd boy each tried to evade their destinies, and how their destinies refused to be changed.
Posted February 9 2017
1169
A Turkish official was itching to know the secret behind a Russian slave girl’s personal charm.
In 1453, Constantinople, the capital of the Roman Empire, fell to the Ottomon Turks. The new rulers thereafter grudgingly tolerated the conquered people’s religion, but forbade any Muslim to join them under pain of death. That was still true under Sultan Mehmed IV, who ruled from 1648 to 1687 (a contemporary of King Charles II).
Posted February 8 2017
1170
A heartfelt plea for humility at the height of Britain’s Empire.
Kipling wrote ‘Recessional’ for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897, calling for humility at the height of Empire, and warning that control over other nations cannot be held for long through coercive government. Germany was at that very moment arming itself to make a grab for empire, and the consequences would soon bear out Kipling’s words at terrible cost.
Posted February 6 2017