Hawk-Eye
Referees and umpires, we all should agree, have a very difficult job. The assistance of digital camera technology entered into the fray, […]
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.
The Chartist Movement
The 1832 Reform Act was a small step towards equal rights, such as they were then perceived, but the oppressed working classes […]
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Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight (IoW) is a diamond-shaped island two miles off England’s south coast and is much favoured by holidaymakers from […]
Read MoreThe Isle of Wight (IoW) is a diamond-shaped island two miles off England’s south coast and is much favoured by holidaymakers from the mainland. Its population is around 142,000 but it happily accommodates 15 times that number each year in tourists, with the trend veering towards short breaks of 4 or 5 days. Queen Victoria (1819-1901) so loved visiting the IoW that Prince Albert (1819-61) had Osborne House built in East Cowes as their private retreat and that is where she died.
The IoW’s position forms a strait atop the English Channel called The Solent, thereby shielding the harbours of Portsmouth, Southampton and Lyminton, these being the departure/return points for 200 IoW ferries daily. There are remains of a WW2 radar station, historic forts and castles, as well as many shipwrecks in its waters. All but one of the island’s towns are seaward, with Ryde being the largest.
Farming accounts for 80% of the interior, some of which lies in the IoW’s Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The island’s 63-mile east-west chalk ridge is most conspicuous at The Needles on the westernmost tip. There was once a 120ft. tall chalk stack in the gap, but this eventually collapsed. Sand of 21 different colours can be found in the bay.
(Top image: Alwyn Ladell at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Sir Roger Moore
Londoner Sir Roger George Moore (1927-2017) was gifted with good looks, quick wits, charm and charisma. In TV interviews RADA-trained Moore would […]
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The Booker Prize
In 1967 Lord Jock Campbell (1912-94) from Dunbartonshire was about to head the development of the new town, Milton Keynes, following his […]
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Triton, Hyperion, Ariel and Umbriel
Lancashire-born William Lassell (1799-1880) grew up in Liverpool within a clock-making family, acquiring the precision engineering skills needed for his lifelong passion […]
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The Royal Festival Hall
After the WW2 bombing of London, the County Council decided that a new, up-to-the-minute, airy, Scandinavian-style concert hall was just the thing […]
Read MoreAfter the WW2 bombing of London, the County Council decided that a new, up-to-the-minute, airy, Scandinavian-style concert hall was just the thing to lift people’s spirits. The Royal Festival Hall was thus sited on the southern bank of the River Thames in Lambeth. It was the only permanent building in the ‘Festival of Britain’ exhibition promoting British scientific and engineering expertise and in 1988 it received Grade I listing.
Some 63,000 cu.yds. of material were excavated and half that amount in concrete was put back during construction. Another major element was steel, 260 tons of it in the roof alone. Critics wondered whether the time and resources would be better used for much-needed homes and factories instead, especially during the severe winter of 1949/50 when no expense was spared to maintain the temperature required for concreting operations to continue.
Nevertheless, King George VI (1895-1952) opened it in May 1951 and it has hosted countless world-class concerts ever since. It currently has 2,410 auditorium seats, plus bars and dining areas off its large foyer and riverside balconies. The original contract price of £1,628,260 is dwarfed by the cost of several refurbishments (or ‘restorations’) it has undergone, but these have preserved its status as an uplifting refuge from city bustle.
(Top image: Paul Robinson at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Plough Monday/Sunday
Before industrialisation, Plough Monday was a popular event in farming communities on the first or second Monday of the year, between 7th-13th […]
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Running the sub-4-minute mile
Sometimes called ‘The Dream Mile’, this feat is said to have begun with aristocrats betting on their respective footmen to race each […]
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Coalition governments
With its first-past-the-post voting principle, a UK General Election does not often result in no party having a working majority of 326 […]
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Venn diagrams
Yorkshire-born Dr. John Venn (1834-1923) had two obsessions ~ logic and Cambridge University. His deep interest and skill in mathematics, probability and […]
Read MoreYorkshire-born Dr. John Venn (1834-1923) had two obsessions ~ logic and Cambridge University. His deep interest and skill in mathematics, probability and logic led to his development of what later became known as Venn diagrams. Venn spent most of his life at Cambridge, initially as a student, then a lecturer, professor and compiler of the University’s history.
Whereas ‘Eulerian circles’ show only the known commonalities between categories/sets/classes, Venn diagrams display all possible commonalities, even the non-existent or unlikely ones. Sometimes this results in an empty area in the centre, where all the circles overlap, or there may be less crucial, outer segments that have no takers. Whatever the case, a Venn diagram is an excellent visual aid to sorting out the nuts and bolts of a situation and can be used alongside or even instead of algebra to pinpoint a desired state, taking everything into account.
Venn owned a huge collection of publications on the subject of logic and himself wrote ‘The Logic of Chance’ (1866) and ‘Symbolic Logic’ (1881), the latter containing the first illustrations of his diagrams. He also wrote a history of his College at Cambridge and, with his son John A. Venn (1883-1958), published several volumes detailing all of Cambridge’s alumni.
(Top right image of John Venn [cropped]: Bradford Timeline at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC 2.0)
