The team is 20 men: not Special Forces, nor even secret agents, just motivated volunteers, officers, NCOs and soldiers, high-ranking administrators and even 2 priests, Fathers Dehon and Pouille, to act as liaison. The British commander in Nigeria is dismissive of the ragtag band. But the British governor in Lagos…
The SS Ussukuma ploughs through the waves of the Canary Islands, the swells just there to reinforce the impression of a race to the stables. It could have been a perfect 10 year anniversary of the First Crossing, but for a year. Anyhow, Tenerife then, Tenerife today, Tenerife tomorrow. The…
Every evening in the savannah, it is the same. The roaming band has to organise for the night. A temporary shelter to protect itself from predators, animals or otherwise. As they move tomorrow, nothing too fancy, and mainly relying greatly on the individuals in the group. That was then, at...
Buried under layers of dust, lace and velvet, something glints briefly. A gilded ceramic cup, with Cyrillic script, a double-headed eagle, angular motif, and a tantalising date, 1896. It’s Nicholas the Second’s Coronation Cup. Also called Khodynka Cup of Sorrows. Or the Blood Cup. A memento of a society broken and cast...
The last piece of furniture has been disposed of. It was the worms that got all of them. Some, most maybe, were 150 years of memories written in wood. Eaten through, shedding little showers of sawdust every now and then, when you nudged them. Hours, weeks, months spent to try...
Once upon a time, eons ago, in the 90s, humanity finally had the support it deserved to store its records. For ever. Or so suggested the advertisements. Away with self-erasing VHS tapes, begone mpeg-1 pixelated VCDs, to the museum, the 30 cm-wide laser discs. Don’t forget to recycle these K7....
We are in March 1949, on deck of the Albertville. The captain’s voice, laced with feedback, sweeps across the windswept decks : “Get ready to salute our sister ship the Gouverneur Galopin. She will pass port-side”. We must be somewhere midway through the trip, then. The Azores and Tenerife. Land ahoy!...
Sail through the Equator, and Neptune himself will welcome you to the seafaring community! Become one of us salty seadogs. Harr. Or something. A short interview by the assembled jury of Neptune, his wife, kid, and the confirmed members of the nautical fraternity. There will be of course a few...
Very little seemed more of an out-of-body experience than listening to my mother, her sisters and their mother talking about “Taking the Boat”. It was never this or that ship, this or that year. Just “On the Boat”. Practically speaking, any of it seemed that special to me. After all,...
We take for granted the copper of our electrical lines, the iron in our concrete, the rare metals that allowed us to engineer mobile phones that fit in a suit pocket. But all of it starts with finding the ore. True enough, digging up ore is a millennia old activity....
August 16, 2024
My Heritage | Travel Trunks and Suitcases
August 2, 2024
August 9, 2024
August 30, 2024
From Ghent to Likasi, the Heart of Darkness
September 20, 2024
November 15, 2024
November 1, 2024
WWI in Soissons, Henri Penotet and the Big Bomb
November 8, 2024
January 3, 2025
November 29, 2024