The painting above by John Turnbull is entitled “The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis” but it actually depicts Cornwallis’ adjutant; Charles O’Hara as Cornwallis pleaded too sic…

We all know that Germans love the wurst. That’s wurst, not worst. It is the German word for sausage. The German language has many idioms based on sausages, reflecting the importance of this f…

Since 2023 is the year of the water rabbit in the Chinese 60 year zodiac cycle, it is a noteable year to those of us born back in 1963. We won’t very likely be seeing another Water-Rabbit in …

These days it takes quite a stretch of imagination to appreciate how a dried ready meal containing a very iffy curry could be the height of sophistication. So I need to set the scene of the Ireland…

Badajoz was founded as a fortress in the 9th Century by Ibn Marwan who was a Muladi nobleman, that is an Iberian who converted to Islam. He used the city to establish the Taifa of Badajoz, a powerf…

Welcome to my magpie mind where I steal shiny things from other people. I’m learning Spanish, again, for my trip in October. I need a shave this morning, but Occam’s razor might cut me …

After the second battle of El Alamein the commander of the Afrika Corps, Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma was invited to dinner by the CIC of the British Eighth Army, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. It c…

If you visit old woodlands you may see trees with three axe marks arranged to look like an arrowhead. This is the Broad Arrow mark of the Royal Navy, also known as the Kings Mark. I previously wrot…

Constantine the Great was the architect of the downfall of the Tetrarchy system established by Diocletian. It might be seen as nigh on incredible that he attempted to revive the Tetrarchy as a mean…

I visited Prague Castle in the last weekend in March 2026. We flew in on the Thursday when Ireland played Czechia in the World Cup qualifiers, and on the Saturday Jerry ran the Prague half marathon…

If you have delved deeply into this blog you know I love nominative determinism. How could I resist posting about the 2025 winner of the World Food Prize: Dr. Hungria? I previously mentioned the Ha…

I have four consecutive “bring your daughter to work days” starting today.  Should be interesting. The original “Take our daughters to work day” initiative was started in 19…

Yesterday I wrote about crumble, arguably the major culinary success story of British wartime ration cooking. Today I am writing about one of the great failures. Created by no less than Maître Chef…

Crumble is a dessert little known outside of the UK and Ireland, but is a huge favourite in these islands. The history of the crumble is rooted in World War 2 and rationing. Although Ireland was ne…

In the history of mankind a lot of emphasis is placed on the foundation of civilizations. The narrative is that once we learned how to farm we could settle down and build cities. But this is a gros…

Pulses are a wonderful example of how humans all over the world found similar types of food, and through selective breeding made it more interesing, more nutritious and more palatable. The pulses w…

Emeritus is a word mostly associated with academics these days. A university will retain a retired academic as a Professor Emeritus; a symbiotic relationship which gives the retired professor a con…

The year was 1981 when I did my leaving cert. As I sat waiting for the results IBM launched their PC. Just to be clear – I had no idea that IBM were launching their PC. I was more interested …

I grew up in an era when there were only two broad styles of mothering: Traditional and Permissive. Most kids were raised in the “traditional” paradigm which stressed respect and obedie…

I am aware of only two government instituions in Ireland that completed their work and closed down. One was the land commission. It had a brief to purchase and redistribute land until the smallest …

August 16th 2026 was a big day in the medieval armoured combat calendar for Ireland. The “1316 – Medieval Fight Club” hosted Ireland’s first official Buhurt International ev…

I am selecting this photo as my symbol of late-stage capitalism. Snoop Dogg is shooting the breeze with Jamie Dimon at a JP Morgan client convention for CEO’s from fashion, entertainment, fil…

If you feel like starting an argument online ask people about turnips. There are more arguments about them than you can possibly believe. What are called Turnips fall into three broad categories. T…

The Crisis of the Third Century was a period of plague and political instability in the Roman Empire marked by a rapid exchange of short-term “barracks” emperors. The roots of the crisi…

In 2024 the Portuguese Defense Minister Nuno Mela revived an old grievance over Spanish control of the Portuguese town of Olivenza. Called Olivença by the Portuguese it is a town with dual signage …

It was on August 1st 902 that the final Byzantine stronghold on Sicily fell to the Muslim invaders. Today Taormina is famous with visitors as the location for season 2 of the White Lotus, but it ha…

When I was in Egypt I wrote about my frustrations with the toxic pricing and haggling culture in Luxor. I commented on how Uber should look at the culture where taxi drivers are cancelling trips an…

This post is about ageism in the workplace – but let me warm it up first. Back in the nineties and the noughties I did a lot of market research with Telecom Eireann, Irish Energy Centre and B…

Carol Rumens used to write the “Poem of the Week” column in the Guardian, and it has been a rich source of inspiration for me. Sadly Carol passed away this year. A poet herself she lect…

The Odyssey, the latest Christopher Nolan epic, was released last Friday. So far the dominant conversation about the movie has been driven by racism. Right wing conservative voices call out the mov…

Back in 2015 when I wrote Eye Contact I was unaware of the Strip Club Study. The 2007 study published in the Journal of Evolution and Human Behavior is properly called: Ovulatory cycle effects on t…

Instantly iconic as a view of the Netherlands; the canal, the windmill and the milkmaid wearing clogs and a dutch cap, carrying jugs of milk on a yoke over her shoulder. This well turned out, order…

The last of the photos from my visit to the Deutsches Museum is an ESA module. I can imagine many American visitors to Munich being puzzled by the idea of a European Space Program. To watch US medi…

Up at the top of the Deutsches museum is the Agri-Science room. This would be a fantastic trip for Irish Leaving Cert Students who take that option. In the photo above I am standing in front of a w…

For me the highlight of the Deutsches Museum was the aircraft exhibit, which tells the story of the development of aviation through a German lens, from Icarus to Ariane. There is no getting away fr…

One of my favourite parts of the Deutsches Museum in Munich was the room containing models of bridges. Since I had only just arrived from Regensburg this is the bridge I sought out. You can see the…

Amenhotep III is best known for the massive statues; the Colossi of Memnon, and for his grand temple projects. But one element of his work I find absolutely fascinating. There was an outbreak of il…

For this exhibit the Deutsches Museum Workshop studied the automated water clock of Ctesbius. The “father of pneumatics” was an Alexandrian Greek who lived in 3rd Century Egypt. He is m…

Originating with a Chinese legend it is said that Emperor Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor, was able to guide his army through fog using a magical chariot that always pointed the way south. Huangdi is a…

The Deutsches Museum is housed in this landmark art deco building on an island on the Isar river. It is the largest museum in Munich and was the brainchild of Oscar von Miller, an engineer who was …

An Artifact (or Artefact) is an object that was shaped, fashioned or constructed by human hand and is generally associated with objects that are uncovered by archeological investigation. The word c…

The headdress on this bust of Ptah is one I commonly associate with the priest class, not only in Egypt but also in Ancient Rome. Ptah was the god of the north part of Egypt, his centre of worship …

When I was in the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo I joked about how a votive offering table looked like an ancient form of beer pong. In Munich visiting the State Museum of Egyptian Art this dish re…

Toni Morrison, the Pulitzer Prize winning and Nobel Laureate author of 11 novels came up with this: The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your wo…

Mummies are one of the world’s great monster horror tropes. You have Vampires, Werewolves, Zombies and Mummies and most horror films are some variant of those. Both Zombies and Mummies are ri…

On this day in 1863 the Battle of Gettysburg began.  For a brief time it looked like the Confederacy  could break out of Virginia and bring the war to Northern soil.  After Gettysburg the South was…