The Black Hand
Hi everyone, today I thought we’d go to the opera. What you can hear in the background is Enrico Caruso’s Una Furtiva Lagrima – from Gaetano Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore. (Readers, if you’re adverse to hitting the play button on my podcasts, that’s okay… you can play the track here on YouTube.)Let me pause myself a…
Update: Patreon Bonus Episode (March) is Up.
Hi everyone, just a quick update – I’ll be dropping one of these monthly at the start of each month for a little while. I’ll more likely than not delete the previous month’s update when a new one comes in to avoid clogging the updates page with these. Readers, listeners – I’ve just dropped the…
Roxelana
The following is the tale of a loving wife and mother. A philanthropist and a catalyst for change both within a stuffy old establishment, and among a wider nation. The tale of a figure of great fascination in her own time, especially to Europeans. It is the story of someone who rose from – well…
Update: Cyclone Gabrielle & (Probable) Delays
Hi everyone, just thought I’d drop a quick update. This week’s blog/podcast episode is likely to be a day or two late. You may know, New Zealand was pummelled last week by a tropical cyclone. I came out of it fine – myself and my loved ones are all safe and sound. None of us…
The Island
On January 1st 1739 the French ships Aigle and Marie were fumbling through the lowest, most inhospitable regions of the Southern Atlantic Ocean when they found something quite remarkable. Their captain, a young man named Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier had set off with dreams of wealth, fame and power. He believed that somewhere south…
The Dog Days King
Hi everyone welcome back, to season four of the podcast. This week we’re delving into the picaresque, and the life of one Jorgen Jorgensen – a man whose trajectory in life was akin to the character in Sinatra’s That’s Life. A puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a King. Jorgensen was…
From Patreon: The Salmesbury Witches
Hey there readers and listeners, I’m on holiday till January 25th 2023, so I’ve programmed the following posts to drop weekly until I’m back. In September I went through my Patreon page, and re-recorded the episodes on there with new narration (I’d upgraded my podcasting rig a ways early in 2022.) While doing so I…
From Patreon: Owney Madden
Hey there readers and listeners, I’m going on holiday till January 25th 2023, so I’ve programmed the following posts to drop weekly until I’m back. In September I went through my Patreon page, and re-recorded the episodes on there with new narration (I’d upgraded my podcasting rig a ways early in 2022.) While doing so…
From Patreon: Otzi
Hey there readers and listeners, I’m going on holiday till January 25th 2023, so I’ve programmed the following posts to drop weekly until I’m back. In September I went through my Patreon page, and re-recorded the episodes on there with new narration (I’d upgraded my podcasting rig a ways early in 2022.) While doing so…
From Patreon: Puyi
Hey there readers and listeners, I’m going on holiday till January 25th 2023, so I’ve programmed the following posts to drop weekly until I’m back. In September I went through my Patreon page, and re-recorded the episodes on there with new narration (I’d upgraded my podcasting rig a ways early in 2022.) While doing so…
The Frost Fair
Hey everyone Happy Holidays. I had something in mind for a Christmas episode this year – and that thing ballooned out to around two hours of audio. Apologies all, I’m burned out. I don’t think I could get a two hour episode together before the 25th. I’m going to zoom in on the one…
Madame Fiocca – Part Two
This is Part Two of a Two Part Series. For Part One Click Here. On 17th June 1943, Nancy arrived back in England. German U Boats had taken down a lot of Allied ships of late, so the escapees had to wait till there was cause to send an entire convoy back to Britain. This…
Madame Fiocca – Part One
This is Part One of a Two Part Series. For Part Two, Click Here.To the Nazis she was the White Mouse, a resourceful operative who evaded their clutches after having helped 1037 people escape Nazi territory along the “Pat O’Leary Line”. Britain’s Special Operations Executive called her Hélène. To them she was a member of…
A Short Tale in Honour of Transgender Awareness Week – 2022
Edit: (Monday 21 November 2022) I put a script to bed during Transgender Awareness Week. My original intent was to highlight two points; first, trans people have existed forever (as opposed to garbage far-right takes that we’re an invention of ‘post-modernists’ or ‘cultural Marxists’, invented to undermine traditional society – and other similar dumb things…
Revenge of the Tallysticks
This week I’m starting with a quick anecdote. Please bear with me, this is not going to be a regular thing. Nor is the general tone of this Tale regular. I thought I was making something short and a little strange, to give me extra time on the last couple of episodes for 2022 -…
Who Put Bella in the Wych Elm?
When trying to imagine the lives of Robert Hart, Thomas Willets, Bob Farmer and Fred Payne on April 18th 1943, I get a certain picture in my mind’s eye. Four teenaged schoolboys from Stourbridge in the British Midlands, head off on an adventure into the woods – free from the encumbrances of adult supervision. I…
The Wall Street Coup, Part Two
Hi all the following is Part Two of a Two Part Tale. Part One is Here If I may, folks, I’d like to resume this Tale by doing something totally irresponsible. Before we come back to General Butler, I want to take us on a digression which has no great bearing on, or relation to…
The Wall Street Coup – Part One
Hi all, this is part one of a two-parter. Part Two is Here. This week’s tale opens on a ‘Hooverville’ – a makeshift village of the dispossessed; all in attendance hit hard by the Great Depression of 1929. The location? A swampy, muddy field in Anacostia Flats – near downtown Washington DC. It is July…
Oliver
Hi all, this week is probably the second, and final unplanned episode. If you’re curious, the new day job is going fine. Trigger warning on this one, it gets gory at times. I have an image in my mind of Josiah Wilkinson, that may not be entirely accurate. More a whole scenario than…
The Sin Eater, Wizard of Mauritius & ‘Mr Good Day’ – Three Work Tales
Hi all, I’m starting a new role at my day job, and seeing it is something in a whole new field, with possible homework to do – I’m putting a couple of the more content heavy tales on hold till I’ve settled in. I was planning on podcasting a couple of older blog posts in…
The Many Deaths of Glenn Miller
Glenn Miller was a trombonist, composer, band leader and late 1930s – early 40s musical icon whose work is utterly impenetrable to me. Not that I mean I can’t dissect it, and regurgitate some horrific approximation as background music (podcast listeners, much of the music this episode is stolen from Mr Miller) I mean in…
The Ghost & The Darkness
The human history of Kenya, were we to know it fully, would certainly be one of the longer histories out there. On the continent’s East, below the ‘Horn of Africa’, certain simian ancestors of ours, such as homo habilis and homo erectus have been found to have thrived there. Fossil records in the region show…
The Infernal Machine
Trigger Warning, This Tale discusses gun violence. If an account of a mass shooting is likely to upset, it’s fine to give this one a miss. I’ll be back in a fortnight with a tale of Kenyan wildlife and other things. This week’s Tale begins on the Boulevard du Temple; in Paris, France. The date,…
The Georgia Guidestones
Edit: 8 July 2022 – Hi there I can see a lot of traffic coming to my blog/podcast looking for this post at the moment. The following piece was originally written, on the fly over a couple of hours in late November 2020. It’s not as in depth as I’d like it to be but…
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Tales of History and Imagination 