An Understanding

16/01/2020

The 16 January marks the 100th Anniversary of the first assembly of the Council of the League of Nations. The League was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. https://www.britishpathe.com/workspaces/df699ffd537d4e0c74710ad015dfd64d/9BnZvLdL

14/01/2020

Fabulous resource ...

We’re pleased to announce that our social media archive is now the first in the UK to be fully searchable, allowing users to navigate our growing collection of tweets, Flickr images and YouTube videos from a range of government departments.

Learn more here: socsi.in/A37pm

27/11/2019

So farewell Clive James -

'If you don't know the exact moment when the lights will go out, you might as well read until they do ... '

Rest easy great man of letters.

Clive James reading his poem Japanese Maple, filmed exclusively by QPF in his Cambridge home in March 2016. Presented by Queensland Poetry Festival, in assoc...

26/11/2019

Important deadlines (for England, Scotland & Wales) :

23:59 tonight to register online to vote
&
17:00 this evening to apply online for a postal vote

(All you "need" is your National Insurance number, date of birth & address. Citizens of the UK, Ireland and all Commonwealth countries (Australia, India, South Africa etc.) can vote in these elections) ...

Get on the electoral register so you can vote in elections and referendums.

04/09/2019

We are expanding the exhibition space for OpenWalls Arles 2020. As part of this second open call, we are highlighting photographers whose work relates to the theme: Daily Life. More information will be available soon. “In 2001, I was living in New York and staying less than a mile from the World

04/09/2019

Please find herewith - Thomas Frognall Dibdin's symptoms of Bibliomania,

"There is, first, a passion for Large Paper Copies; secondly, for Uncut Copies; thirdly, for illustrated Copies; fourthly, for Unique Copies; fifthly, for Copies Printed upon Vellum; sixthly for First Editions; seventhly, for True Editions; and eighthly, for Books printed in the Black-Letter."

However, the Bibliomaniacs at An Understanding dare to take issue with the great man - they report that 'a passion for Books printed in the Black-Letter' identified as their primary symptom; as was the case with your humble editor ...

On bibliomania.

26/08/2019

We've all promised to read it for years and years and never quite rustled up the stamina to do it. So now you can listen to Proust's In Search of Lost Time courtesy of Auntie Beeb's new adaptation - ten episodes (c9hrs) available for 28 days only ...

Marcel Proust’s allegorical contemplation on time, memory, art and love.

22/08/2019

The glorious gnomes on the Lit & Lang Desk at An Understanding have been arguing over this little monster for years ; and now that they have discovered that the hallowed Aldus Manutius invented the d**n thing, they are currently prone with the vapours ... !

President Abraham Lincoln was a big fan: “it’s a very useful little chap.”

30/07/2019

Shocking yet fascinating story of the theft of Alfred Russel Wallace's bird specimens from the Natural History Museum ...

A flute player steals a million dollars worth of dead birds.

24/07/2019

Stunning pictures sent via our birding friends on the Flora & Fauna Desk ...

24/07/2019

All agog at the Shipping Desk this morning ...

An international team of scientists have announced the discovery of the remains of a 500-year-old ship that remains pristinely intact in the cold, dark depths of the Baltic Sea.  Scientists say the shipwreck is perhaps the best preserved shipwreck of its period yet to be discovered. It was first d...

17/07/2019

Here at An Understanding's Literature Desk we have always been a little snooty about Emojis. Well, we've been proved wrong again - the following couldn't be more succinct ...

02/07/2019

Here here for Alfred Russell Wallace ... !

10/06/2019

Thought for would-be prime-ministers : use your hustings to advocate re-funding the Public Broadcasting Service so that the BBC life-line for the elders will not be placed out of reach ...

Households with one over-75 who gets Pension Credit will continue to receive a free TV licence.

08/06/2019

The sports desk at An Understanding is notoriously depleted these days with not much of an interest in football - nevertheless we cannot let the Women's World Cup go by un-noticed ... (Warning : - contains cringing misogyny)

THE BEAUTIFUL GAME - FOOTBALL MONTH ON BRITISH PATHÉ (JUNE 2016): Newsreels of the Week: Women's Football. A selection of films from the twentieth century sh...

07/06/2019

In London ... ?
In the 21st Century ... ?
Nauseating ...

A woman has described a terrifying attack on her and her girlfriend by a group of men while they were on their way home on a night bus in north London.  Melania Geymonat, a 28-year-old air hostess, and her girlfriend Chris were left bloodied and in shock after the attack on May 30 that she said st...

06/06/2019

Excellent blog from The National Archive ...

Seventy-five years ago today, the largest air and seaborne invasion force in history crossed the English Channel and successfully conducted an opposed landing on the beaches of Normandy, establishing a foothold in occupied France. An extraordinary feat of combined operations and logistics, this was....

02/06/2019

Stylish medieval winkle-pickers ... !

Going to foolish lengths for fashion.

16/05/2019

The inestimable Erik Kwakkel dispenses his wisdom - all you need to know about books before print in less than one breath-taking hour ...

Episode 2 of The Medieval Podcast - How were books made and used in the Middle Ages? Danièle is joined by Professor Erik Kwakkel from the University of Briti...

13/05/2019

So, farewell then Doris Day - "Make mine a Sasperilly ... "

This is our first introduction to the boisterous Calamity Jane (Doris Day) as she arrives in Deadwood City with a wagon full of goods. The sequence extends t...

07/05/2019

Yes, we've heard the date mutterer ... !

I began to suspect I was too susceptible to the idea of the “writer’s desk” and decided it might be better to do without one. Somewhere along the way, I began to work in libraries. More important, I began to get work done in libraries.

28/04/2019

Would you cross the English Channel inside a wooden box with lots of wires and a massive engine attached to the outside ... ?

Lost & Found Nº1: The Imperial Airway: The Work Of The British Airways (1924) This British Pathé film, missing from our archive for decades, has just been di...

10/02/2019

"Mindlessness of Occidental Mindfullness ... "

Will Self at his coruscating best ...

Will Self asks why our relationship with our bodies has become such a distant one.

28/07/2018

The advent of the title page (and, some useful intext links) ...

Before books have title pages, how did they announce who was the author, what is the title and when was the publication date?

21/07/2018

Yes, we are familiar with that sentiment ...

13/04/2018

.... stop and consider ...

You've heard that palm oil can cause deforestation, but how do you know if the palm oil in the products you use is linked to chopping down rainforests? We tried to find out.