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As my granny would say, “I have a cold in the nose, dear”. She meant, of course, that she had a runny nose, coryza in medical Latin – in other words, she was discharging clear mucus from the nares, arising from acutely inflamed mucosal epithelium of the respiratory…

  Le Bon Genre No4, 1801  A CHRISTMASSY SORT OF STORY ABOUT ICE CREAM Nobody sensible in Europe had given a tinker’s cuss about any sort of use for ice. In the English winterland, cold killed. It was difficult for most to eat enough to generate…

Une marmite Deeply embedded in our culture, but mostly half-forgotten, Marmite has recently become a press phenomenon: open any paper and there is a mention of its unique properties. Love it or hate it; it will have been your parents’ fault most likely, and their parents and…

 This is not Cinderella’s slipper lost on her run down the steps from the prince’s palace at midnight. This is Marie Antoinette’s slipper lost on her stumble up the steps to the guillotine at midday. On 16 October 1793, it was bought on the spot by Monsieur…

“Catching COVID-19 was a blessing from God” President Donald Trump  WILL YOU BE ALLOWED ACCESS TO THE COVID CURES? The newly accessible COVID-19 treatments are – Ronapreve is administered by a single intravenous infusion which can be given at home under medical…

Merry Old Santa, Thomas Nast, 1881 SHOCK HORROR – FATHER CHRISTMAS IS AMERICAN! Actually, Father Christmas was Greek, born in 270 in today’s Turkey. He died at the enormous age of 73 on December 6TH, 343. AKA Saint Nikolaos, Father Christmas was also enormously wealthy. As…

Should ‘Refuseniks’ be forced to vaccinate   As you will probably know by now, the New Zealand Government has made COVID vaccination mandatory for doctors, pharmacists, and all other health care workers – each and every one to be fully vaccinated by December; teachers and other…

Florentia Lady Sale by Richard Thomas Bott, 1844   What remained of Napoleon on St Helena was about to be ceremoniously shipped back to France aboard the blacked-up frigate Belle-Poule – ‘Le Retour des Cendres’. A devastated Europe had yet to reconfigure itself. In between…

JOHN BULL taking a Luncheon: -or- British Cooks, cramming Old Grumble-Gizzard, with Bonne-Chére,  James Gillray 24 October 1798   The 29-year-old General Bonaparte was not quite ready to burn himself in his own flame. With his citizen army, he had trounced the Austrian…

The Nightmare, Henry Fuseli RA 1781 “… in the night time, when she was composing her self to sleep, sometimes she believed the devil lay upon her and held her down, sometimes that she was choaked by a great dog or thief lying upon her breast, so…