History
Not Just ‘Paul’s Granny Music’
John Lennon was never one to hold back an opinion. Lennon’s comments famously ranged from witty to ascerbic: his How Do You Sleep? is one of the most brutal “diss tracks” ever put on vinyl. But Lennon didn’t just reserve his acid tongue for his former bandmate. His
Was the Real Sodom and Gomorrah Destroyed by a Cosmic Bomb?
Sodom and Gomorrah are perhaps the best known of the five “cities of the plain” which feature so prominently in Genesis — and a byword for God’s destructive wrath. The historic city and location of the cities has long been debated. But, the Biblical and other Hebrew sources are clear
Was This the World’s First Predator?
It’s said that “Whenever something eats, something dies”. But this wasn’t always so: the earliest organisms were likely microbes that absorbed nutrients directly from their environment. Even today “extremophile” organisms feast on the chemical soup spewing out of deep-ocean volcanic vents. But, at some point in Earth’
The BFD Food Column: French/Italian Macarons
I ploughed through my work this Friday and left myself enough time to try my hand at macarons, something I hadn’t made since 2015. Macarons are a simple delicacy made from the finely ground flour of almonds, confectioners sugar and egg whites, then combined with the required quantity of
COVID Is the Health of the New Zealand State
Joanna Pennyfeather “War is the health of the state”, declared Randolph Bourne in his essay The State, written during the First World War. The central thesis of the essay is that the state thrives during conflict. Crises and conflicts are the food that fuels the growth of the state, which
Do You Trust Chinese Whispers?
Of all these weekly Wednesday columns I began writing for The BFD many months ago, this is the hardest, because it contains a partial admission of unfairness on my part. Or possibly so: To PM Ardern and her Marxist He Puapua accomplices, and the two members of the Maori Party,
Pre-European Financial Wizardry
Sir Bob Jones nopunchespulled.com A report about the Financial Market Authority lists its Maori name, specifically Te Mana Tatai Hokohoko. Broadly translated Tatai Hokohoko means organised trade. That would be acceptable, if rather infantile, given pre-European Maori were not traders, although they certainly were once Europeans arrived. But
The Damage Done by Robin Cooke
Don Brash bassettbrashandhide.com Don Brash was Reserve Bank Governor from 1988 to 2002, and National Party Leader from 2003 to 2006 In 1987, in the landmark case of New Zealand Maori Council v Attorney-General before the Court of Appeal, the President of the Court, Cooke J., held that
Trial of 100-YEAR-OLD Man in Germany: Why Nazi War Crimes Take So Long to Prosecute
Rainer Schulze University of Essex Rainer Schulze studied History, English and American Literature and Linguistics and Education at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (Germany) and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA). He is Professor of Modern European History at the University of Essex (United Kingdom) and Member
Better Late Than Never
The postal service in Edwardian England was a pinnacle of efficiency: twice-daily deliveries, and even soldiers in the trenches of the Western Front reliably receiving mail from home the next day. But not all postal services are so efficient. A resident of Bagdad, Tasmania, a small town just outside
Just How Bad Was the Black Death?
As we navigate what is likely the endgame of the China virus pandemic (oh boy, let’s see if that sentence comes back to haunt me!), it is worth trying to grasp a little bit of perspective. We live, after all, in a culture with no memory: anything that happened
The BFD Food Column: Chicken Drumsticks
“Home cooked” denotes healthy, tasty and honest food, the kind of food that Mum or Granny used to make. No tricks, no risky flavours, no verve or culinary pirouettes. Simple meat and three veg kind of food, and when you are busy with other things an easy option to fall
Remembering the Black Abolitionists of Slavery in Yorkshire
Emily Zobel Marshall Leeds Beckett University Emily is an academic, author and poet. She is of Martinican and British heritage and has lived in Leeds for twenty years. She is a Reader in Postcolonial Literature at the School of Cultural Studies at Leeds Beckett University. “Cunning better than strong” is