Recently, chatting to a friend in the pub, I heard the story of sailor Donald Crowhurst for the first time. Said friend loaned me the DVD Deep Water which tells his story using vintage footage and contemporary interviews. It a tragic but fascinating story. When I mentioned it to author Mark Chisn...
There are different echelons in the fame that men win. For his work on evolution, Charles Darwin is among the gods, who, however assailed my true believers of the fundamentalist religious persuasion, will be remembered alongside Newton, Galileo, and Harvey. But what of the man who was the Captain...
In the late afternoon, the sun came out and dried the darkened patio tiles and the flower beds and bougainvillea of the Rocks, and brought out the guests who had been weather-bound in their rooms, tired of their books, scouring old newspapers for anything left unread, staving off or finally succu...
There was no more certain sign of the Fuegians’ anglicization than their clothing. The first thing FitzRoy had done after kidnapping them, even before feeding them, was to dress them in English clothing. This, he assured the Admiralty in his first communication concerning his protégés, made them ...
The fleet of whaleships continued navigating their way through the channel that lay between the low, sandy coast and the ice pack five miles offshore. This was the accepted tactic, seeking the leads through the ice that would continue to open—it was believed—as the prevailing northeasterlies push...
