Hot water, soap and shampoo; for most of us this is the start of our day. A shower or bath each morning is a habitual part of modern life that the majority of us couldn’t go without. Since the Victorian era, the British have been obsessed with being clean and the array of products with…
Jane Austen, arguably the greatest novelist of the English language, lived from 1775 to 1817. Her fiction focuses on the gentry and aristocracy, and her heroines are young women looking for love. Yet the comfortable, tranquil country that she brilliantly devised is a complete contrast to the England in which she actually lived. For twenty-nine…
I don’t know about you but I have always wanted to be an archaeologist. As such I wanted to ask one what it was really like to ‘live the dream’. Annie Partridge, a community archaeologist working for Canterbury Archaeological Trust, kindly agreed to answer my questions and shed some light on what it is really…
This week I’ve been questioning the great Samuel Johnson who once said “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life”. I mean, of course he is right. I am constantly grateful to live in a city bursting with life and history. The blood of London runs fast with museums, historic buildings,…
Marching through the British Museum, barging past the gaggles of school groups, I was on a mission. A mission to get through the doors of ‘Vikings’ – the new exhibition housed in the Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery. Like many of us, I had eagerly been waiting for the moment I could…
This week award-winning historical fiction author, Rory Clement, wrote a fantastic article for us looking at what William Shakespeare would’ve been like a teenager. To celebrate the release of the sixth novel, THE QUEEN’S MAN, the sixth in his acclaimed bestselling John Shakespeare Elizabethan mystery series, we are giving away THREE copies to lucky readers. Simply answer…
To commemorate the 102 years since the tragic sinking of the Titanic, we are honoured to be giving away a signed copy of the wonderfully poignant ‘The Girl Who Came Home‘ by contributor, Hazel Gaynor. Inspired by true events surrounding a group of Irish emigrants who sailed on the maiden voyage of R.M.S Titanic, ‘The Girl Who Came…
After stumbling across a great deal on Wowcher’s WOW Go! I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to fly to Venice. Yeah, I’d heard it smelt and I’d been warned the Gondola rides are a bit of a rip off…but when you have two feet and a bellyful of pasta, who needs to take the waterways?! No need for…
Following on from the success of the WOLF BRIDE last year comes the release of a second book in the series, REBEL BRIDE, by the wonderful Elizabeth Moss. Described by The Sunday Times as ‘Fifty Shades of Tudor sex’ we were always going to like these books. To celebrate the release of REBEL BRIDE on the…
It is the Summer of 2011 in Berlin and Adolf Hitler wakes up on a patch of ground, alive and well. Things have changed – no Eva Braun, no Nazi party, no war. Hitler barely recognises his beloved Fatherland, filled with immigrants and run by a woman. People certainly recognise him, though – as a…