NB: With Russia's unprovoked murderous assault on Ukraine, I am actively looking at alternative hosts for this journal, preferably those which will retain as much content as possible. I am very uncomfortable with being part of the Russian economic system at present, in however small a way. In the meantime:

Second paragraph of third chapter of The ( Read more... )

NB: With Russia's unprovoked murderous assault on Ukraine, I am actively looking at alternative hosts for this journal, preferably those which will retain as much content as possible. I am very uncomfortable with being part of the Russian economic system at present, in however small a way. In the meantime:

Second frame of third section of Scherven ( Read more... )

Sometimes in my browsing of family history I hit grimly interesting coincidences or anniversaries, and so it was this morning, when I realised that today is the 77th anniversary of the death of my second cousin once removed Gerard Ryan, aged 21, fighting in the Netherlands during the Second World War. His mother, Aileen Ryan née Grehan, lived to an ( Read more... )

CONTENT WARNING: DISCUSSION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT

Second paragraph of third chapter (Sunday 22 April 1945):

Halsbrecherischer Treppenabstieg. Ich blieb einmal mit dem Absatz an einer Stufenkante hängen. Todesschreck, konnte mich eben noch am Geländer fangen. Weiter, mit weichen Knien. Ich suchte und tastete lange und herzklopfend in dem ( Read more... )

Schindler's List won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1993, and six others: Best Director (Steven Spielberg), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score (John Williams), Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction. It lost in another five categories, all to different films, including one to that year's Hugo winner, Jurassic Park.

( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third section:I travelled with my mother (sceptical. anxious), my widowed aunt Annie, who had been married to my mother’s brother (calm), and my fifteen-year-old son (curious). In Vienna we boarded a smaller plane for the 650-kilometre trip east, across the invisible line that once marked the Iron Curtain. To the north of ( Read more... )

One of the less well-remembered episodes at the end of the second world war was the capture of the Italian city of Trieste by the 2nd New Zealand Division when the German garrison surrendered to them in preference to the 8th Dalmatian Shock Corps of the Yugoslav Partisans. The two armies uneasily held the city jointly for a few weeks until the ( Read more... )

I've been getting into the great 1970s Belgian/British TV series "Secret Army". But it turns out that we have a local story of the Resistance...

Patton won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1970, and picked up another six - Best Actor was famously declined by George C. Scott as the title character, but its makers took home awards for Best Director (Franklin J. Schaffner), Best Original Screenplay (Francis Ford Coppola), Best Film Editing, Best Sound and Best Art Direction. It lost Best Original ( Read more... )

The Sound of Music won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1965, and picked up another four: Best Director (Robert Wise), Best Music (Irwin Kostal), Best Sound Recording and Best Film Editing. Doctor Zhivago also won five Oscars that year, beating The Sound of Music for three of them.

( Read more... )