The long road to EPUB support

Worcestershire, Teme stop line, GHQ stop line, WW2 Worcestershire, home guard

I said in my original blog on Kilpeck I should return and learn more. Well a year after my original visit and 8 months since I wrote the original blog, I thought it was time. That, however isn't the only reason; Fresh from our visit to the Templar church of Welsh Newton where Mrs Yunzi has relations buried, it appears as if she has family in all the amazing churches of Herefordshire, after her brother casually informed us about past generations of her family in the graveyard of Kilpeck. Back to…

T. H. Benner’s thesis, Die Syrisch-Jakobitische Kirche under Byzantiner Herrschaft im 10. und 11. Jahrhundert, contains a translation into German of both the Greek text of Demetrius of Cyzicus against the Armenian Jacobites, and of an Arabic version of the same text. I fear that the pseudo-theological noodling is something that I will not turn into English, particularly as the statements about Armenian beliefs are largely false. But Dr B.’s introduction caught my eye. 12.3. The Treatise of…

Four days ago marked 157 years since nineteen unarmed Métis riders, led by Louis Riel, confronted a Canadian government survey crew south of the Forks and compelled it to withdraw. The crew had been running a base line across Métis river lots for a township north of Ste. Anne. Nobody fired a shot. No weapons were seen. According to the surveyor's own memorandum, the riders stopped the work "by standing on the chain." The riders put their boots down on a length of metal meant to ensure the land…

As a fairly regular 'stone botherer' I'll always try to see some stone circles, burial mounds, landscape features etc when I'm out and about somewhere. This time my travels took me to the beautiful south west of Ireland and despite limited time, I was able to see something really special. The 'Ballycrovane stone' is the tallest ogham stone in Ireland, stands 4.7m (or 5m something depending on what website you read) in height in an area with amazing views of the surrounding hills and water…

“Albertans made a clear choice. They chose unity, to build together, and to take care of each other.” –Prime Minister Mark Carney After devastating the Sotoan fleet moored at Newfield island, Joker Squadron is deployed to participate in providing air support for ground forces as the FCU attempt to retake their capital city, Theve. On […]

Beneath the gaslit streets of nineteenth-century Paris, beneath the clatter of carriages over cobblestones and the cries of marchands ambulants, lay another city altogether — silent, cold, and made entirely of bones. The Paris catacombs were not ancient in the way visitors sometimes imagined: they were a creation of modernity, a bureaucratic solution to a very modern kind of crisis. And yet, once made, they took on a life — or rather, an afterlife — entirely their own. A City Built on Its Own…

In my previous post, I mentioned that we would take a closer look at a small sample of 34 letters that Adam Smith signed in his official capacity as Commissioner of Scotland’s Board of Customs. The first piece of official correspondence in my sample is Letter #109, which is dated 16 September 1784 and is signed by three members of the Board of Customs: Basil Cochrane, Adam Smith, and James Edgar. In this letter, the Board instructs the Collector to account for a sum of money from a recent…

Following on the the intro blog this is actually about the Tomar horde of Templar artifacts. Some is undoubtedly true, some likely/possibly/maybe isn't, but I'm presenting the facts as told to me. When I saw the advert on Insta for a Knights Templar hoard being displayed in Kidderminster just up the road from me, I had to check twice. Turns out, absolutely the case. The antique dealer, sometime TV star and eccentric, Hamilton White was displaying his hoard from the Portuguese city of Tomar in…

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How a Soviet Spy Helped Change the Course of the War F. W. Meredith was an Irish aeronautical genius working at the Royal Aeronautical Establishment in England. In the 1930s, the RAE was not the fusty organisation we might imagine but a hotbed of radical ideas. Meredith’s fears for Europe, which proved prophetic, led him […]

The active four-year period of the Mau Mau Rebellion in British Colonial Kenya wrapped up 70 years ago this week on 21 October 1956 with the capture of wounded Kenya Land and Freedom Army Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi. The 36-year-old revolutionary, whose formal military training amounted to a month “taking the King’s shilling” in 1940 before being discharged for drunkenness, was subsequently tried and hanged. Speaking of taking the schilling… Official period caption: “At the Naivasha Rifle…

As you know by following this page, the original game-changing battleship whose form would dominate all its type moving forward, HMS Dreadnought (00), entered service some 120 years ago, launched at HM Dockyard Portsmouth on 10 February 1906 and commissioned on 2 December. The 18,000-ton juggernaut (21,000 tons deep load) was swathed in as much as 12 inches of Krupp cemented armor produced under license at William Beardmore’s mill in Dalmuir, Scotland. The warship was held together by nearly 2…

Some 110 years ago this week at the New York Navy Yard, Brooklyn, the 15,000-ton, 455-foot USS Maumee (Fuel Ship No. 14) was commissioned. She was not very appealing in profile. USS Maumee (Fuel Ship # 14, later AO-2) photographed circa 1917 in her original configuration with the bridge near the bow. The unusually small smokestack is for her early-model Diesel engines. In both this ship and her near sister Kanawha, the bridge soon had to be moved aft of the foremast. Collection of Hubert C.…

He was trusted by Emperor Heraclius to support the emperor's son, Constans II, and he did, even going so far as to eliminate the young emperor's rivals. A few years later, however, Valentinus decided that the power he had used to be "king-maker" could be used to be "king" himself.Valentinus started as an administrative officer in the army. Heraclius had sent him over two million gold solidi to pay to the army to ensure their loyalty. The attempted takeover after Heraclius' death by his…

Charlotte Drummond is barely 17 when her grandfather dies, and because the estate is entailed and thus goes to a male heir, she and her mother go on living at Clonmara, despite knowing they will have to leave when their distant cousin, Richard Selwin, the new Lord Blodmore, takes possession.Read more »

DAZ 1516 is a 1994 Volvo B10M-16 with an Alexander Q body. Entered service with Ulsterbus as fleet number 1516, now preserved at the Scottish Vintage Bus Museum.

The Cincinnati Board of Health was mightily confused in 1915. The board clerk handed president George Fackler a request to approve the purchase of something called “Dimethylparaphenylenediamine.”John O’Neil, clerk of the board, mumbled a shaky attempt at pronunciation. Fackler, a bona fide medical doctor, asked the clerk what that unpronounceable something was. Health Officer John Landis, who was also a physician, and board members Dr. Gustav Zinke and Dr. Samuel Allen confessed ignorance.…

SITE OF THEHOMESTEAD OFCAPTAINMYLES STANDISHTHEMILITARY LEADEROF PLYMOUTH COLONYHERE STOOD THEHOUSE WHERECAPTAINMYLES STANDISHLIVED AND DIEDOn the peninsula called "The Nook" in Duxbury, Massachusetts, on Mayflower Drive, is a small one acre property that looks like an empty lot over looking Duxbury Bay and Plymouth Harbor. At one time most of this peninsula was owned by the Standish family. This is the site of the original home Captain Myles Standish built in 1632. He died here in 1656, and…

On Tuesday, June 18, 1968, 200 people attended the dedication of the then new Snoqualmie Falls Park in Snoqualmie, Washington. As part of a massive renovation, Puget Sound Power had created a covered observation platform overlooking the majestic and sacred Snoqualmie Falls and the roadside Snoqualmie Falls Lodge known for their dining room. At the... The post Snoqualmie Falls, Lodge and Vista Point Postcard by Smith-Western Co. – CT-292 appeared first on TWIN PEAKS BLOG.

Nota bene: Last month (see here), I mentioned that I would begin two new series on Adam Smith. I have already completed my first series on “Adam Smith and the ‘Absurd Prescriptions’ of Doctors“; now, as promised, it’s time to start my other series: “Adam Smith: Bureaucrat“. In an ironic twist of fate, Adam Smith, the champion of free trade, was somehow appointed to the post of Commissioner of Customs(!) in November of 1778 — two years after the publication of his free-market manifesto, The…

Corpus Parisinum 342 (tr. Denis Searby): New wine, new friend. When it grows old, you shall drink it with pleasure. Οἶνος νέος φίλος νέος· ἐὰν δὲ παλαιωθῇ, µετ' εὐφροσύνης πίεσαι αὐτόν. Related post: Proverbs on the Preference for Old Things.

Constantine's arrangement and gift of money to Valentinus for the army, to support Constantine's son in the line of succession, was almost prescient. Constantine died three months after becoming emperor, leaving his step-brother Heraclonas in charge.Valentinus and troops from Asia Minor went on the march. When they reached the strait across from Constantinople, Heraclonas wisely confirmed his nephew Constans II as co-emperor. This was in September of 641, and Constans was ten years old to…

Inspired by a faded picture of the statue of Boadicea and Her Daughters at Westminster in an old travel guide I sent off being guided by my feet. The supposedly random stroll (something was guiding me, but what?) passed through Royal London to the Banksy statue in Waterloo Place. This London drift then goes through the storied streets of Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, Kings Cross then up to Islington ending on Upper Street in search of a reference in an old journal to a residence of Douglas…

Been lots of updates in the past few days. I stopped by the Point in Pascagoula over the weekend and saw these greyhounds in the river. (Photo by Chris Eger) Above, we have the future USS Jeremiah Denton (DDG-129) and George M. Neal DDG-131 in the river, with HII’s 70,000-ton capacity Chinese-built drydock uncharacteristically empty, while the planned Sam Nunn (DDG-133) is fixing to transition (which is likely why the drydock is empty). The planned Thad Cochran (DDG-135) is probably the bridge…

Well, the historic– the only Great War dreadnought preserved– USS Texas (Battleship No. 35) has been in dry dock and ongoing restoration at Gulf Copper in Galveston for just over 4 years (since August 2022). Thankfully, she is looking great and is sporting much of a new deck. The updates from the museum include: New Home? We’re proud to have finalized an agreement with the Galveston Wharves Board securing Pier 15 as the new home of Battleship Texas. Learn more at…

Marine Corps AH-1Z Vipers of Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron (HMLA) 367 “Scarface” execute flight operations aboard USS Canberra (LCS 30), showing off something which a littoral combat ship could excel at—providing a forward lily pad for maritime sea control. A U.S. Marine Corps AH-1Z Viper helicopter, attached to Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron (HMLA) 367, is folded on the flight deck of Independence-variant littoral combat ship USS Canberra (LCS 30) as part of Navy-Marine…