I should have blogged about... (#2)

As most have you will realise by now, these days my blog tends to be reactive - something strikes my fancy and it sets me off down a path of further research or (more likely) a stream of consciousness.

So, if I'd been around to blog last week what would you have been reading?

When Franz and Sophie Met Gavrilo

I had intended to mark the centenary of the Sarajevo assassination by doing profiles of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Duchess Sophie and Gavrilo Princip.   Well, frankly, you'll have read all that elsewhere if you'd wanted to.

In an aside, the BBC kept referring to the assassination as 'the shot heard around the world'.  Well it might have been, but it jarred with me: the phrase was coined by Ralph Waldo Emerson to describe the first shot of the American War of Independence at Concord, MA.  It's that kind of pedantry which you missed...  Oh what fun we would have had!

Flying Saucers to Mars...

NASA tested its saucer-shaped 'landing system', the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD).  They did this by attaching it to a stadium-sized balloon and dropping it 180,000 above Hawaii.  The idea is to use this system to deliver robotic missions to Mars in advance of human exploration.

But Are Chas and Nailbrush Included?

Plasticine hero Morph returned from the dead, albeit on a YouTube channel, following a Kickstarter campaign.

Damn, Big Ship!

HM Queen Elizabeth wasted a single malt launching HMS Queen Elizabeth, a very fine looking aircraft carrier.  Unfortunately there aren't any planes to go on it and without a decent destroyer screen it's nothing but a very large target.  It seems HMS Prince of Wales will be mothballed before she (yes, she) is launched.

Told You So!

It was announced that Nurse Edith Cavell will be commemorated on a new £5.00 coin to be issued next year.

You Scratch Mine, I'll...

Famous tennis dress sold for £15,500.  Who would buy something like that?  I have my own theory.