Blog Posts

A Nude Horse…

Today’s tale begins on a flash forward to Monday January 21st 1985. The setting, a television set at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York. Phil Donahue, a television interviewer who cut his teeth interviewing everyone from presidential candidate John F Kennedy to the atheist Madeline Murray O’Hair was treading the boards, microphone in hand. Donahue was…


The Latest 100 (will manually add at bottom as we cross 100)

Olive Thomas – the poisoned chalice

Trigger Warning: This episode deals with premature death (I know, not unusual in this blog)… and sexually transmitted infections (somewhat more unusual in this blog). Situated northwest…

Keep reading

Somebody’s Darling…

Hi all just a quick blog post today. I’ve got a trilogy of older blog posts set to run on the podcast in the coming weeks, so…

Keep reading

Railway War!

This week we’re riding the rails through Colorado. The date, February 26th 1878.  Just before 7am, on a chilly winter day, two groups of men boarded a…

Keep reading

The Diaspora

In the year 751 AD an epic battle was fought between two mighty powers. We don’t know for certain if it happened in Taraz, modern day Kazakhstan;…

Keep reading

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…

Keep reading

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…

Keep reading

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…

Keep reading

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…

Keep reading

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…

Keep reading

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…

Keep reading

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…

Keep reading

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.…

Keep reading

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…

Keep reading

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…

Keep reading

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…

Keep reading

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,…

Keep reading

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…

Keep reading

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…

Keep reading

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…

Keep reading

Spencer Perceval

Trigger Warning: The following episode discusses gun violence – particularly the assassination of a head of state. Note for the readers, I’ll get a blog only post…

Keep reading

The Carrington Event

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” ―…

Keep reading

Bearcat

Hey all I’m ‘taking a break’ for a month – well, more accurately going into writing and recording mode for a month. On the podcasts front I’m…

Keep reading

The Mongols are Coming!

Hi there this is part two of what will probably be a three part tale. If you haven’t checked out The Cult of Hassan-i Sabbah first, click…

Keep reading

The Cult of Hassan-i Sabbah

This post/podcast episode is part one of a two (edit: probably Three) part Tale. I’ll be dropping part two in a fortnight. There is a shadowy tale…

Keep reading

Alas, poor Tycho…

Hey all, I had something completely new in the works for both the blog and podcast this week… owing to a few things happening in my day…

Keep reading

The Bottle Conjuror

Today’s tale is set on the night of January 16th 1749; the setting, The Haymarket Theatre – on London’s West End. Originally built in 1720, on a…

Keep reading

Beyond the Archway…

Content Warning: This episode discusses Pseudocide – the act of faking one’s own death. I also cut and slashed at this script considerably in the podcast editing…

Keep reading

… A Thousand Words?

Hey all, the podcast episode I’m running this week is from the back catalog of blog posts – so I have new, blog only content this week.…

Keep reading

Njinga of Ndongo

Today’s tale is set in the African kingdom of Ndongo, modern day Angola – we touched upon this kingdom a few weeks back in the Tale of…

Keep reading

The Phantom Airships

Aurora is a small town in Wise country, in the North of Texas. The county came into being in the 1830s, following an armed standoff between 150…

Keep reading

Dr Sweet’s Defence

Content Warning: This week’s post briefly discusses a lynching and other horrific things… Our Tale this week opens on an ugly siege. The date September 9th 1925.…

Keep reading

The Miser of Marcham Park

Hi all, welcome to the official 2020 Christmas Tale of History and Imagination. Merry Christmas all, I hope this post finds you all well. Today’s post begins…

Keep reading

A ’Time Machine’

Hi everyone, apologies for the drop off in new content… I’ve hit the wall, and needed a little time to get my mojo back. It’s all 9…

Keep reading

The Max Headroom Incident

This week’s tale is set in the Windy City – Chicago, Illinois. The time, a very specific 9.14pm on 22nd November 1987. The city’s sports fans are…

Keep reading

The Enfundu

Hey all, as I’ve got a podcast episode for the perennial ’Willie The Wimp (and his Cadillac Coffin) dropping this week, I’d intended to write a new…

Keep reading

The ‘New Atlantis’?

Hey all, my voice is still very strained, very gravelly – unable to hold together while projecting for more than four words in a row. Were we…

Keep reading

Ungern’s Army

Warning! Today we talk of a monster, doing monstrous things amidst a crumbling empire.    Today’s tale begins in the Mongolian city of Urga – 1st February…

Keep reading

eden ahbez – Nature Boy

Hey all I’m doing something a little different this episode. In the early days of the blog I wrote a piece on the Altamont Free Concert, December…

Keep reading

The Sin-Eater

Hey all, please count the following as week ten of this week’s ten week sprint. I’m taking a four week break, though the podcast will continue with…

Keep reading

Lord Lucan

The following is the Tale of the murder which occurred at 46 Lower Belgrave Street, Belgravia – on Thursday, 7th November 1974. It will be performed in…

Keep reading

Jack Parsons – a prelude

Hey all I don’t know how to tell this prelude without getting into a load of backstory. Thanks in advance for your forbearance. To understand how Jack…

Keep reading

Grace O’Malley, the Pirate Queen

Today’s tale starts with a meeting at Greenwich palace, a now demolished royal residence – the date, September 1593. The ‘fairy Queen’ of England, Elizabeth I, awaits…

Keep reading

The Bagradas Dragon

I want to start this episode with a confession that should surprise no-one – as a kid I was mad for anything remotely described as Fortean. From…

Keep reading

Mithridates – A Prelude

The following snippet is set 73 BC, the setting Otryae – a town in Phrygia – modern day Turkey. Two armies with long standing resentments face off…

Keep reading

Buried Alive!

Content warning! This tale contains macabre, ghoulish subject matter – as one may expect on a Halloween Tale. Proceed with caution. Taphophobia is the name given to…

Keep reading

Shen’s Magnificent Journey

Hi all, this programme differs from the show which was advertised. I spent the better part of three weeks, on and off, on the advertised show -…

Keep reading

Three Short Tales…

Hey folks the internet tells me you all like lists, so I thought I’d fill a gap in the schedule with a short list, of short tales.…

Keep reading

Murder in Hartlepool…

Content warning, the following tale discusses xenophobic folk songs and pamphlets.  Today’s tale is set in Hartlepool – a seaside town in County Durham in the North…

Keep reading

Sophxit

(Originally titled The Deadly Sophxit of Count Konigsmarck and Princess Sophia Dorothea.) Hi all the following tale is something I’ve had rattling round for a little while…

Keep reading

John Frum, messiah

“This ain’t one body’s story. It’s the story of us all.We got it mouth-to-mouth. You got to listen it and ‘member.‘Cause what you hears today you got…

Keep reading

Henry ‘Box’ Brown

Today’s tale is set in a theater in London England, for argument’s sake let’s set the date at some time in 1860. The crowd is enthralled by…

Keep reading

The Beast of Gevaudan

Today’s scene, dear readers, the Southern French province of Gevaudan. The time, between 1764 and 1767, just after the bloody, costly Seven Years War. An unidentified maneater…

Keep reading

Tipu’s Tiger

Local legend in the Kingdom of Mysore tells the following tale. One day, a young prince named Tipu went out hunting in the jungle with a friend…

Keep reading

Hannibal in Bithynia

Today’s tale is set in the Asiatic town of Libyssa, in Bithynia – on the periphery of what is now Turkey. The date, some time around 182…

Keep reading

Martial Bourdin

At 4:45pm precisely, GMT, on 15th February 1894 the grounds of Greenwich Park, London – home of the Royal Observatory, and a clock we’ll discuss later –…

Keep reading

The New Colossus

Hi there folks, I’m doing something different this week. The tale of Dorothy Kilgallen goes on a short pause till I get a chance to review what…

Keep reading

The Gombe Chimpanzee War

From 1974 to 1978 a vicious, sometimes cannibalistic war raged between two tribes in Gombe National Park,Tanzania. On one side was the Kasakela, the other side, the…

Keep reading

Marsha Albert’s Letter

Edward Bulwer Lytton, a man of letters, once wrote ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’. He wrote several other memorable phrases, one of which has led…

Keep reading

Andrew Jackson’s parrot

Hi all just a quick update across all the socials. The final episode of the Batavia saga has been waylaid by needing to move home. The house…

Keep reading

The Wreck of The Batavia

Part One – The Wreck. Hey all, this Tale originally ran over seven episodes – over two months. To find the next part/s scroll to the bottom…

Keep reading

The Older Stuff (more than 101 Episodes ago)

Advertisement