The Adventures of Shylock Holmes

As I mentioned last time, I’ve been listening to Patrick Wyman’s excellent podcast series “ The Fall of Rome ”. One of the things that’s m...

What is gone, but still remembered, is quite vivid and easy to see. What is yet to come is often only perceived dimly, if at all. For a r...

To anyone of a vaguely reactionary persuasion, the fall of Rome is a melancholy and tantalising story. The inescapable conclusion, no matte...

The current Syrian refugee crisis in Europe is a tragedy. Should that sentence strike regular readers as a little trite, bear with me. I ...

It is interesting to compare the fate of two St Paul’s Churches. The one in London was famously and mercifully intact and mostly unharmed a...

-If you want to see how long-lived civic effects can operate, just compare Mannheim and Heidelberg. Both have quite famous universities. One...

-I never tire while in foreign countries of seeing the subtle differences in appearance of people. German men often have a certain demeanor ...

Every time I hear EU politicians speak (other than a few hilarious exceptions ), I like to mentally play a game called 'Six Degrees of &...

Some people think that Europe is a bloated, worthless bureacratic state that has managed to transform an attitude of self-important entitlem...

Venice is a strange place. I get this sense every time you see paintings of it from hundreds of years ago. This, for instance, is St Mark&#...

So Greece has been rioting again, as the parliament passed a set of "austerity measures" designed to combat their rampant budget d...

The French are determined to continue their unofficial national motto of 'Le Ass, Le Gas or Le Grass - Nobody Can Provide Stuff For Free...