“Used in present-day English chiefly by America speakers as a synonym for the aubergine, aubergine was originally applied specifically to the white-skinned, egg-shaped variety of the vegetable. This was in the mid-eighteenth century (available evidence suggests that the term predates aubergine by about 30 years). By the middle of the …
In 1996 the oddly named Maine resident Nancy 3 Hoffman found seven umbrella covers in her wardrobe, so she decided to open a museum. . Hoffman then spent the next year gathering more of them from friends and family, and opened her collection of around 80 covers later that …
More wonderful Victorian health advice…. Nipple shields were made from a variety of materials in the 18th and 19th centuries, wood, ivory and lead(!) the most common. They were intended to protect the mothers sore nipples. They were often perforated allowing the baby to feed through them (probably with considerable difficulty). These unperforated …
Cricket can change the course of history (well, sort of). I bring you the tale of Frederick, Prince of Wales, the son of George II who died in 1751 following a cricketing mishap. He was playing cricket, misjudged a catch and the cricket ball hit him on the head. He …
What with the domestic cricket season drawing to a close and the Ashes series about to begin, I thought that I would tell you about a rather strange match played over 150 years ago. In 1848 at the Priory Ground in Lewisham, a team of men with one leg played …
The greatest Irish writer of his generation who wrote the critically acclaimed Borstal Boy and The Quare Fellow described himself as “a drinker with a writing problem”. Raised on whiskey by his maternal grandmother because “it was good for the worms”, Behan achieved national notoriety with a series of drunken …
Apart from death, one of the few ways one could dissolve a Catholic marriage was proof of impotence. But how on earth could you prove it? .The only valid way at the time was to participate in a “public impotency trial” As bizarre as it may sound, church officials aided …
The Honourable Dorothy Paget (1906-1960) was one of the most successful owners of her era. In all, her horses were to win a total of 1,532 races on the flat and over the jumps, including winning the Cheltenham Gold Cup an incredible seven times, plus owning the winners of the …
Shakespeare was rather keen on onions.Let me explain… In the ‘ Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ Bottom gives final directions before presenting a play before the Duke and his party, tells them to go home and attend to this, that and the other, and says : ” ‘And most dear actors eat …
Despite having a land area the size of Mexico, Greenland has no road or railway system. Travelling between towns and villages is done by plane, helicopter, boat, or dogsled Greenland’s official language, Kalaallisut, is perhaps one of the most difficult languages to speak and learn. The words are hard to …
