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Modern Australian architecture in the tropics - going green
This post was inspired in the first place by the Australian Government’s own history of modern residential architecture. They noted that architects and builders had to make new and old buildings...
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Kelvingrove, Glasgow and Whitney, New York - two impressive exhibitions
How Glasgow Flourished 1714-1837 was an exhibition that charted the rise of Glasgow from King George I until the start of Queen Victoria’s reign. This was a very significant period in Glasgow’s...
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British ex-servicemen fight against Fascism - at home!
In this blog I have discussed the Fascists’ activities in Britain in the 1930s, in particular their infamous battle against London’s East Enders in Cable St in 1936. And I would have expected that...
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Boer War - anti German sentiment in Australia
Your Brisbane tells a sorry tale. Karl Ernst Eschenhagen (born 1850) was a baker who emigrated from Germany in the 1880s and established one of Brisbane's best hospitality businesses. He started in a...
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Dutch pottery, tulips, British royalty and an Australian gallery
Early in the 17th century, the Dutch East India Company really did have a vigorous trade with the East and imported beautiful and very expensive Chinese porcelain. Of course only the richest of the...
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Can People Power save treasured London churches?
Two thirds of the Anglican churches in the City of London should be closed, said a 1994 commission chaired by Lord Templeman. His commission was one of many set up to solve the problems which arose...
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Art hotels in Hobart, Vancouver and New York
Art hotels provide traditional hotel accommodation and amenities, but they also offer something special. They display an interior of creative exhibits, paintings, photos and drawings from a...
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Too many babies, grinding poverty, arsenic poisoning and a hanging in Sydney
In the book Last Woman Hanged, Caroline Overington exhaustively researched the case of Louisa Andrews Collins. She was a 41-year-old working-class mother of 10 children who was tried for murder four...
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The vexed relationship between Hollywood film companies and Nazi Germany
In writing about Ben Urwand’s important book The Collaboration: Hollywood’s Pact with Hitler (Harvard UP 2013), Taylor Downing agreed that Hitler enjoyed watching films. As we can see from the photo....
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Otto Dix and the catastrophic World War One.
In July 2014 the Albertinum in Dresden had an exhibition called Otto Dix. The War. The Dresden Triptych. Note the date - the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of war.Prior to 1914, Expressionism in art...
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Chagall Vs Malevich in Vitebsk
Directed by Alexander Mitta, a film dramatisation of Marc Chagall’s life is being shown at the Australian Centre for Moving Images in Melbourne. The film Chagall-Malevich is based on the era of...
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Remembering Ruhleben prisoner of war camp, Berlin 1914-8
Of course prisoners of war and interned civilians are going to try to keep themselves busy and productive, throughout the years of their captivity. Otherwise they would go insane from mind-numbing...
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Daphne du Maurier's Cornwall
I have cited Daphne du Maurier (1907–1989) twice in recent blog posts. Firstly du Maurier was the cousin of the Llewelyn Davies boys, who served as JM Barrie's inspiration for the characters in the...
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Gifts to soldiers in the WW1 trenches, from the royal family
Princess Mary (1897–1965), Princess Royal and later Countess of Harewood, was the third child and only daughter of King George V and Queen Mary, and granddaughter of King Edward VII.The Sailors and...
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Viennese refuge Richard Goldner and Musica Viva Australia
Richard Goldner (1908-1991) moved with his family to Vienna as an infant where he quickly learned to play the violin. After leaving school, he studied architecture at university. But he also enrolled...
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The Grand Budapest Hotel - film review
First let me cite a glowing review that seems to represent the typical published response to Grand Budapest Hotel . My own response, as you will see, was very different.Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian...
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Medicine and literature - "Riding a Crocodile"
My husband, a doctor who has been in hospitals and in private practice since 1970, has given me every film and book review that has medicine as its central theme. It does not matter if the story was...
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The life and creative times of Dr Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) was born in Lichfield near Birmingham. The family house, facing the market square, was built by his bookselling father as both a home and a bookshop. He was a very unhealthy...
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Lord Haw Haw - Britain's most vile Fascist?
The rise and rise of Fascism in inter-war Britain was both powerful and nightmarish. I had little trouble researching Sir Oswald Mosley, the BUF and its organised opposition, The 43 Group; the Battle...
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1942 - American soldiers, Australian women, nylon stockings
My mother’s final year of high school was 1942, the very year American soldiers and sailors first arrived in Australia. Mum's sole knowledge of American men until that point came from seeing Spencer...
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