culture
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Well, ladies and gentlemen, if you’re looking for something exciting to do and are in the vicinity of Leicester on Saturday, 20 April, 2024, there’s to be a grand celebration of St George’s Day. Saturdays aren’t always conveniently placed on anniversaries, so the 20th is the closest one! To quote from this site City gets…
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The fenland around Peterborough is a liminal place, a world of still, deep water, rustling reeds, flat land and a big sky. A place full old legends of the Lantern Man and the Toad Man and the spectral dogs known as Black Shuck. A place full of memories, of hidden secrets… In 1999, a major…
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We laugh today at magazine/TV/whatever advertisements (see here) that show housewives dressed up to the nines, waiting hand and foot on their menfolk, and sobbing ecstatically when given a Hoover or new iron for Christmas. Oh, he’s so thoughtful! Like…y-e-s…. 😏Just let him try it today! Well I have just come upon an item from…
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This interesting article by Deanna Rodriguez gives details of many of Christine’s works, some of which are readily available to the modern reader in translated form. Christine de Pizan (or Pisan) was born in Venice but moved to France at an early age and spent the rest of her life there. After her husband’s death,…
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Throughout history Easter has been the most solemn time of the Christian calendar, a time when sorrow and death are vanquished by triumph and life, of Christ rising from the tomb and ascending to Heaven. But in these more profane modern times, the sacred side of the great festival has been rather pushed aside by…
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Medieval cooking is always a fascinating subject, and I don’t doubt that we’ve all seen the word “coffin/coffyn” applied to pastries and pies. Well yes, coffin is a coffin in the usual meaning, but it also seems a sensible enough word to use for a well-filled pie! What we call raised pies, e.g. pork pies…
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While I am no Marilyn Monroe, nor ever have been, in one respect I am just like her….beneath my (faux!) fur coat, I am likely to only be wearing one perfume. In her case Chanel Number Five; in mine Diorissimo. I have worn it since I was sixteen and still love it. It’s been…
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The treasures of the West Riding
armour, Charles “III”, Chatsworth, Claire Cross, Colonel Blood, Earls of Harewood, Edward Duke of Kent, Edward IV, Gawthorpe Hall, Harewood House, Harrogate, Headingley, Henry Earl of Huntingdon, Leeds, Leeds Dock, Lumleys, main roads, motorways, Pennines, Powderham Castle, Reformation, Royal Armouries, weapons, YorkshireWhile I have visited Yorkshire reasonably frequently in the past, there is one patch with which I was unfamiliar. The Leeds sub-region is south and a little west of York, where a significant branch line bifurcates at Doncaster and goes through Wakefield, whilst a suburban line from Leeds passes through Harrogate and returns to York.…
The New Murrey and Blue blog 