Just in

History

Phew! What a Scorcher!

One of my regular purchase these last fifty years has been Private Eye the satirical magazine founded in 1961 by amongst others comedian Peter Cook, Andrew Osmond and Peter Usbourne. I’m a firm believer in turning over every proverbial stone and exposing the shady dealings, inconsistencies, [...]

May 22, 2019 // 0 Comments

Rendering unto Caesar

According to legend – or rather Plutearch’s Life of Caesar – Julius Caesar used the phrase “Veni, vidi, vici” [translation: “I came, I saw, I conquered”] in a report to his friend Amantius after achieving a swift victory during his war against Pharnaces II of Pontus at the Battle of [...]

May 7, 2019 // 0 Comments

Getting to the nub of it

It will not have escaped sport-loving Rusters that the Easter weekend was loaded to the gills with action across the board – I shall just cite in evidence the fact that the business ends of football’s European Champions and Europa Leagues are in full sway and the English Premiership and [...]

April 23, 2019 // 0 Comments

EDITORIAL – The exciting times we live in

It is incontestable that the average punter on the proverbial Clapham omnibus could be forgiven for thinking that the world has lost both its marbles and bearings and has taken a one-way ticket to Hell in a handcart. These days you can go to bed day-dreaming up the whackiest and most unlikely [...]

April 20, 2019 // 0 Comments

Those “I was there” moments (sort of)

One of the oddities of life are those occasions when one has a brush, however slight or inconsequential, with an event of great historical importance e.g. whilst watching television. Delving back into the mists of time as I begin typing I can think of two representative examples my personal past [...]

April 18, 2019 // 0 Comments

A literary discovery from the 1920s

It was both a little surprising but also perhaps a sign of the times to learn by chance recently that the BBC One’s Antiques Roadshow programme – now occupying the 8.00pm transmission slot on Sunday evenings – is celebrating its fortieth anniversary in this year. I open with that [...]

April 16, 2019 // 0 Comments

Fateful Choices:The Decisions that changed the World 1940-1/Ian Kershaw

Historian Ian Kershaw has analysed the critical decisions that shaped World War Two but whether they changed the world is perhaps another matter. Several are quite obvious: Hitler ‘s decision to launch Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union when Western Europe was under the Nazi jack boot [...]

April 12, 2019 // 0 Comments

A sign of the times, perhaps

A true story. Yesterday, shortly after the hour of noon and the commencement of Prime Minister’s Question Time on BBC1 which I had been watching in furtherance of keeping myself abreast on Brexit matters – under just-issued orders obeyed because my practice is to get my chores out of the way so [...]

April 4, 2019 // 0 Comments

A ‘good in parts’ dose of Sunday night TV

Yesterday I had returned home from a demanding weekend in the country, made myself a late lunch and then retired to my pit. As a result I slept for two and a half hours straight, partly because I felt exhausted and partly because it was going to be my only route to staying up long enough to see the [...]

April 1, 2019 // 0 Comments

Pleased to be back

Over recent years nothing excites me more travel-wise than to return to Nice in spring. In the 1970s and 80s I felt this way about New York. It was a city of vitality and energy living on its commercial, financial and sexual edge. At Plato’s Republic and the flop houses anything and everything [...]

March 28, 2019 // 0 Comments

1 … 76 77 78 79 80 … 90

Copyright © 2026 The National Rust | Design by Premonition