Pigeon Chess

In all the many times I have discussed the Boer War with people over the years, I struggle to remember many who have approached the subject with anything resembling an open mind: instead, entrenched dogma is the order of the day. As the saying...

Entertaining hyperbole

Anyone who spends any time in South Africa will soon learn that the mere mention of the Boer War sparks normally rational people to spout all manner of exaggerated rubbish. One will be earnestly assured that it was the ‘most expensive war Britain...

Nothing succeeds like Newspeak

‘By 2050 — earlier, probably — all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron — they’ll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely...