The right of peaceful assembly
Large crowds are desirable for a ticketed or invitation event or meeting, but the right of peaceful assembly, as enshrined in British […]
Read MoreAuthor: Purple Brolly
My aim is to give a flavour of these precious islands we call 'the UK'. All research is based on a minimum of two publicly available sources, usually more.
English billiards
Cleopatra: “Let it alone. Let’s to billiards. Come, Charmian.” ~ from Shakespeare’s ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ (1606) This shows not only that the […]
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The Civil Service
Members of Parliament can be regarded as the front-end, public-facing partners of His/Her Majesty’s Home Civil Service (HCS), an organisation which is tasked […]
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Magistrates’ Courts
There remain around 200 operational UK Magistrates’ Courts (called Justice of the Peace (JP) Courts in Scotland) after many closures in recent […]
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The symphonium and the concertina
Sir Charles Wheatstone (1802-75) from Gloucestershire is best known for the ‘Wheatstone bridge’, a device for measuring electrical resistance, though he can […]
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The Jarrow March
The 1929 ‘Wall Street Crash’ over in the USA had repercussions in the UK which put a halt to big-money investment and […]
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Edinburgh
Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland, complements the surrounding geological heights with its own towering architecture. The extinct volcano of Arthur’s Seat […]
Read MoreEdinburgh, the capital city of Scotland, complements the surrounding geological heights with its own towering architecture. The extinct volcano of Arthur’s Seat and its satellite vent known as Castle Rock, along with other prominences such as the Braid Hills, Craiglockhart Hills, Calton Hill, Blackford Hill, Corstorphine Hill and the Salisbury Crags form its natural setting. The man-made additions, the majority having at least four storeys, crowd into the historic Old and New Towns and the Marchmont districts. Many church spires populate the skyline and lofty Edinburgh Castle, seemingly grown out of Castle Rock, guards the city below.
For some centuries Edinburgh was the northernmost point of the Angle kingdom of Northumbria but it became part of south-east Scotland in a battle in 1018 and was designated the capital by 1437. It sits south of the Firth of Forth, with Leith serving as its gateway port town.
(Top Image of view from Edinburgh Castle towards the Firth of Forth: Kim Traynor at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0)
Working men’s clubs
In 1862 Henry Solly (1813-1903), a Presbyterian clergyman from London, founded the Working Men’s Club & Institute Union to oversee and gain […]
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Received Pronunciation
The relatively modern concept of ‘standard English’ has become known as Received Pronunciation (RP) or even ‘BBC English’. It was originally based […]
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Capt. Henry J. Round, ‘the tame wizard’
Staffordshire-born Henry Joseph Round (1881-1966) lived and breathed engineering and was affectionately nicknamed ‘the tame wizard’ by his colleagues at the Marconi […]
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The Millennium Dome
Where better to build an enormous structure dedicated to a moment in time than on 0° longitude just 3 miles north of […]
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