Springboard Reading II: The River Congo

So we’re off on the 2008 Reading Challenge. I’m off the springboard and it’s juddering in the air behind me as I plunge into the pool for the first length. Following on from The Mission Song dealing with the bloody truth behind geopolitics as it influences the Congo, today I picked up Blood River: A [...]

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X-Files Ireland

The Irish Times has an interesting one today, about the Irish Defence Force’s dossier on UFOs, which has just been released.
In 1947, while many eyes were on the heavens looking for little green men, An Garda Síochána (the Irish cops) maintained a classically cynical Irish approach.
“The pressmen in Killarney like to keep abreast of [...]

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Britain’s last WWI veteran

An interesting article about Harry Patch, Britain’s (the world’s?) last surviving World War One veteran, whose life story has just been published. It seems like he hasn’t entirely forgotten his training:
To help jog his memory, a young major in his party fumblingly demonstrated how to change the magazine. ‘I said: “Major, you’d have to [...]

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