Sunday, 31 January 2021

I was a Hon, since my father, like theirs, was a lord. There were also, however, many honorary Hons; it was not necessary to have been born a Hon in order to be one

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On the afternoon of the child hunt Linda called a meeting of the Hons. The Hons was the Radlett secret society, anybody who was not a friend...
Saturday, 30 January 2021

A quarter of all the women who died in Paris were maids

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Statisticians were foxed by their observation that the highest death rates in the French capital were recorded in the wealthiest neighbourho...

But on every other continent – with the possible exception of Antarctica, which both disasters left pristine – more died of flu than war

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War was undoubtedly the main event on that continent [Europe]: France lost six times more souls to the war than to the flu, while in Germany...
Wednesday, 13 January 2021

I should think a Communist would be much tidier, and not make so much extra work for the servants

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Nanny and my mother had often pointed out to me that, if I was really a Communist, I should be more considerate of those members of the work...
Tuesday, 12 January 2021

Starting her list of expenditures with 'Flowers... £490'

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Muv made sporadic efforts to interest us in the subject of household economy, and once offered a prize of half a crown to the child who coul...
Monday, 11 January 2021

The currents were sorting the fat, rich bodies from the poor, lean, ones

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On the other side of the world, on the Ka'u coast of Hawaii, there was once a strange and macabre tradition for those who had lost loved...
Sunday, 10 January 2021

Most insects die from dehydration

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Flying insects live on the edge of death every second of their short lives, the very fact that they are flying at all is a precarious balanc...