A meteor with estimated mass of 10,000 tons by NASA (on entry to Earth’s atmosphere) exploded Friday morning over Russia’s Ural region and its shock-wave caused injuries to over 1,000 people. It took out windows and walls in the city of Chelyabinsk.

Some years ago, I personally witnessed a much smaller fireball, and I was convinced I was seeing an airplane crash.

On the same day, Friday 15th February 2013, skimming closer to the earth than any other asteroid of its size,  Asteroid 2012 DA14 missed us by 17,100 miles, a margin closer than some satellites.

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Courage and Peril by Herbert Havens et.al. (1909) Hardbound, 252 pages 10″ x 7.5″

The British public school education of 100 years ago is often remembered for the production of a puritanical breed of adventurers, with a taste for a challenge, whatever the hardships, or risk to life, out in the wildest and loneliest places on the planet. Most especially those under the sway of the British Empire, then nearing its own imperial peak. We may assume that this taste for spartan endurance was enjoyed by the officers as opposed to the troops and servants..

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The Gowrie Conspiracy and Its Official Narrative (1902) by Samuel Cowan

There are two accounts of the Gowrie Conspiracy, the events of the fifth of August 1600 that resulted in the deaths of the third Earl Gowrie, John Ruthven, and his brother, Alexander Ruthven. The ‘orthodox’ version, essentially as presented here first of all, is written by Robert Chambers (1802-1871), and based primarily on the testimony of King James VI of Scotland, whose life was allegedly threatened, and the alternative, here summarized by Rev. Alexander Duff of Tibbermore, in Memorabilia of the City of Perth (1802) , and presented in Samuel Cowan’s book, along with three other papers,  believed by many, especially in Perth,  that the king himself conceived the circumstances of the plot for his own ends. To hold such a view at the time was to invite an accusation of treason, punishable by death, hence all the more remarkable that the alternative accounts persisted from the start. Compare these accounts for yourself..

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Pure coincidence, but two recent posts concerned Black Beauty and Crazy Horse .. Enjoyable though all the jokes have been, in the week many British people may be assessing their relationship with meat,  I include here Barry Gormley’s (condensed) take on the dilemma:

“The vital question concerns how the quality of food is ensured in Ireland and Britain. In a recent investigation it was found that several big-name franchises in Ireland and the UK had been selling burgers which contained traces of horse and pig DNA. The shops involved were Tesco, Iceland, Dunnes Stores, Lidl and Aldi.

The items came from three major process plants – Liffy Meats and Silvercrest Foods in Ireland, and Dalepack Hambleton plant in England. Of the 27 burgers analysed, a surprising 22 were found to contain traces of pig, while 10 contained horse. One sample from Tesco revealed 29% of horse, while 21 other beef products had pig DNA…

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“We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words”.  

We have all heard of this classic novel, but how familiar are you with the book’s impact on animal welfare?

A century after first publication, in 1977, it was rated the favourite book read by ten year olds. Although its popularity is waning, its classic status remains unshaken. The strength of the novel lies in the sincerity and passion with which Anna wrote it, with its good hearted, hard-working hero who makes it against all odds, and incidentally, is a horse..

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Atlanta born Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel, Gone With The Wind, occupies an important place in American literature. After breaking publishing records with one million copies sold within six months, the novel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, has been translated into over forty languages, and remains one of the best-selling novels of all time…

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In the year 1876, medicine man Sitting Bull of the Lakota (one of the three main divisions of the Sioux) was a leader at the famous battle of the Little Bighorn River, in Montana. With 650 soldiers, Lieutenant Colonel “Long Hair” Custer thought he could easily defeat 1,000 Sioux and Cheyenne warriors. This was a gross miscalculation. He was facing probably the largest group of Native American warriors ever assembled—about 3,000.

Custer split the Seventh Cavalry Regiment into three groups. Without waiting for support from the other two, his group attacked what he thought would be a vulnerable part of the Indian camp. Led by headmen Crazy Horse, Gall, and Sitting Bull, the Indians wiped out Custer and his unit of some 225 soldiers. It was a heady, if temporary victory for the Indian nations, and a bitter defeat for the U.S. Army. However, terrible revenge was only 14 years away… Read more »»

Gene scientists claim to have found proof that the Welsh are the “true” Britons. The research supports the idea that Celtic Britain underwent a form of ethnic cleansing by Anglo-Saxon invaders following the Roman withdrawal in the fifth century. It suggests that between 50% and 100% of the indigenous population of what was to become England was wiped out, with Offa’s Dyke acting as a “genetic barrier” protecting those on the Welsh side.  The upheaval can be traced to this day through genetic differences between the English and the Welsh.                                                                       “English and Welsh are races apart”..(BBC News, 30 June 2002)

Offa’s Dyke,Spring Hill, Shropshire

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Starting with one simple notion, familiar motifs as used in heraldry are known to originate from early times. The question is: How early? In researching the links between Britain and the ancient near east, art and architecture, having survived, and easier to understand than cuneiform or other ancient writing forms, is an obvious place to begin.

English form of the Royal Coat of Arms

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