Early Modern Whale

“On a bike, your consciousness is small”: a review of The Rider . “ Meyrueis, Lozère, June 26, 1977 . Hot and overcast. I take my ge...

The famous image of John Donne as a melancholy lover, which the National Portrait Gallery has launched an appeal to buy for the nation: http...

I just hauled a fat '1001 things you must see before you die' book back to the library. Yes, looking at pictures again, while trying...

I was putting on a fake rant a couple of days ago to provoke one of my postgraduate students (“Davenant is really the wet rot in mi...

The Sea! The Sea! The new contemplative me increasingly finds books with words in them too taxing... this was my favourite image in a '...

I am reading, with astonished interest, Mark Cocker and Richard Mabey's masterpiece. No, I have never 'twitched', but I am alway...

Dr Roy: pedals through life in an armoured car Posted by Picasa

Continuing with thoughts on whales, this is a Dutch painting of 1639, of whales being flensed and reduced to whale oil in Spitzbergen. It is...

The tagging of last week's stranded whale, SW2006/40, made me think of earlier examples of whales that got into the Thames. On June 3rd,...