Disappearance of Harold Holt The PM had been advised to swim less, that day at Cheviot Beach, in Portsea, Harold had often swum there in the past. He wanted relief from the hot day’s blast, to work up an appetite before tea, Harold had often swum there in the past. The doctor medicated his distress: […]

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Chess is the struggle against error.  —GM Johannes Zukertort, 1840 Without error there can be no brilliancy. —GM Emanuel Lasker, 1898 The Queen’s Gambit is a 2020 Netflix series directed by Scott Frank, who also wrote the screenplay. It was produced by Frank, Allan Scott and William Horberg, and adapted from the 1983 novel of […]

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In August 1945 the British government agreed to give refuge to 300 child survivors of the German death camps. The dramatised account of their stories and those of the men and women who helped them rebuild lives that had known nothing but torment is a compelling testament to both the worst and best of the human heart

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Long before COVID-19, pandemics of a far more virulent nature stalked the imaginations of novelists and screenwriters, from 'The Andromeda Strain' to Hollywood's more recent fascination with zombie hordes. In Wiltshire, with the help of Russian assassins and the Novichuk nerve agent, those fancies took flesh

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Uncouth Bacilli as George Bernard Shaw called them. Arguing for redundancy, he spelled cant and hes. Flicks, forming noun plurals, earned nicknames: rogue apostrophes, greengrocer’s apostrophes. The English Journal declared them unnecessary stating context resolved ambiguity. Deppenapostroph (Idiot’s Apostrophe) is the use of correct English apostrophes, incorrectly, in written German, to aid pronunciation, eg. banana’s […]

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The critics didn't fancy 1980's 'Somewhere in Time', but audiences did. Where the solons of the stalls lost their way was in failing to understand the movie's effect on ordinary people. Working in the rarefied world of 'serious' film and theatre criticism, they couldn't quite grasp why it would become a popular cinematic phenomenon

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Booval Tea Ladies During World War I, 35,000 returned soldiers, many wounded and ill, passed through Ipswich. The Booval Comfort Club provided aid to Australian fighting men— motto: Keep the fit man fit. Rationing restricted women’s clothing. Flour bags, old sheets, saved towels, made dresses, under-garments, crocheted with butcher’s twine. At Swanbank Rail Station, with […]

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St Corona Latin for Crown. Patron saint of plagues. Testified for a Roman soldier, named Victor, a Christian, whipped by the Christian-hating judge, Sebastian, during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, eyes gouged out, yet refused to deny Christ. Corona, sixteen, wife of a soldier, knelt and prayed for Victor. Imprisoned, tortured, drawn and quartered, in […]

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I saw my self this morning a little way from the ship one of the Animals before spoke off, it was of a light Mouse colour … with a long tail which it carried like a grey hound, in short I should have taken it for a wild dog, but for its walking or runing […]

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The Netflix series is only four episodes, but that's enough for a revealing peek at New York's insular, secretive and ultra-ultra-orthodox Satmar sect, which opposes the very existence of Israel. 'The only real Jews are Hasids,' they preach, 'even a drop of assimilation instantly disqualifies them from being a real Jew'

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