The BBC has
put up a page presenting statistics dealing with deaths on British roads between 1999 and 2010. A slightly older page presenting mostly the same statistics (up to 2008) can be visited
here; this earlier version was published in conjunction with several other articles, including
one looking in-depth at a single crash and its aftermath in Stevenage in 2007.
posted by Dim Siawns
on Dec 28, 2011 -
13 comments
Conquerors 2009 “There are many underhanded ways of making your conker harder. The best is to pass it through a pig." World Conker Champion – Charlie Bray. The World Conker Championships are on this weekend.
All the action from last year.
previously [1] [2]
In other news,
a cure for bleeding canker has been found, with a welcome side effect, leaf miners don't like having garlic breath.
posted by tellurian
on Oct 8, 2009 -
19 comments
The Vinkhuijzen Collection of Military Costume Illustration has drawings of uniforms and regimental regalia from all over the world. Assembled by one of these great, eccentric collectors of the late 19th Century, Dr. H. J. Vinkhuijzen, a Dutch medical doctor who started out as an army physician and eventually rose to the position of official court physician to Prince Alexander of Netherlands. He pulled plates out of books, colored in black and white drawings and painted his own watercolor illustrations. His collection includes pictures of the soldiers of
many different nations and eras, from military superpowers like the
Roman Empire,
France and
Great Britain, to lesser known, but no less formidable forces, like
Byzantium and
Persia and even taking in such minnows as
Luxembourg,
Monaco and Montenegro. Due to Vinkhuijzen's unusual classification system it can be hard to find some of the more interesting images, such as pictures of
Etruscan cavalry,
Spanish military musicians and
1830's Belgian ambulance.
posted by Kattullus
on Aug 4, 2008 -
11 comments
End of Empire : A collaboration of all areas of geopolitics affecting countries of the world in relation to the 'Empire' of the United States of America, and the 'sub-Empires', such as the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia and any other country which seeks to exploit poorer nations and their people in the quest for domination.
posted by adamvasco
on Nov 27, 2007 -
11 comments
Jason Lewis has become the first man to
circumnavigate the Earth using human power alone. It only took him 13 years: he set off from London in July, 1994 and ended his expedition in October, 2007, having travelled 46,505 miles (on foot and by pedal boat, roller blades, kayak, and bicycle). [via
QI]
[more inside]
posted by chuckdarwin
on Oct 12, 2007 -
31 comments
"The German invasion of Britain took place in July 1940, after the British retreat from Dunkirk". We see, documentary-style, members of the Wehrmacht trooping past Big Ben and St Paul's Cathedral, lounging in the parks, having their jackboots shined by old cockneys, and appreciatively visiting the shrine of that good German,
Prince Albert, in Kensington Gardens.
Kevin Brownlow and
Andrew Mollo's film "
It Happened Here", with its
cast of hundreds (.pdf), imagines what a Nazi occupation might have been like — complete with underground resistance, civilian massacres, civil strife, torch-lit rallies, Jewish ghettos, and organized euthanasia. Shot on weekends, eight years in production, made for about $20,000 with nonactors and borrowed equipment and Stanley Kubrick's help, "It Happened Here" was originally envisioned by
Brownlow as a sort of Hammer
horror flick about a Nazi Britain. Thanks in part to
Mollo's fanatical concern with historical accuracy, however,
it became something else. The most remarkable thing about this account of everyday fascism is that it has no period footage.
Brownlow's 1968 book about the film's production, "
How It Happened Here", has recently been
republished. More inside.
posted by matteo
on Feb 12, 2006 -
16 comments
The London Cage. Kensington Palace Gardens is
one of the most exclusive addresses in the world. Between July 1940 and September 1948 three magnificent houses there were home to one of Great Britain'smost secret military establishments: the London office of the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre, known colloquially as the London Cage. It was run by
MI19, the section of the War Office responsible for
gleaning information from enemy prisoners of war, and few outside this organisation knew exactly what went on beyond the single barbed-wire fence that separated the three houses from the busy streets and grand parks of west London.
The London Cage was used partly as a torture centre, inside which large numbers of German officers and soldiers were subjected to systematic ill-treatment. In total 3,573 men passed through the Cage, and more than 1,000 were persuaded to give statements about war crimes. A number of German civilians joined the servicemen who were interrogated there up to 1948. More inside.
posted by matteo
on Nov 12, 2005 -
12 comments
A high IQ is a hindrance for women wanting to get married while it is an asset for men, according to a study by four British universities.
The study found the likelihood of marriage increased by 35 per cent for boys for each 16 point increase in IQ. But for girls, there is a 40 per cent drop for each 16-point rise, according to the survey by the universities of Aberdeen, Bristol, Edinburgh and Glasgow. The study is based on the IQs of 900 men and women between their 10th and 40th birthdays. (
via)
posted by airguitar
on Jan 3, 2005 -
205 comments
It's time to send the team home: "England has bred a contemporary culture of immoderation at every level, with particular reference to drinking and fighting. The recent
Panorama programme on weekend binge-drinking in city centres provided a wake-up call, as should the novelist Andrew O'Hagan's admirable
essay on current British attitudes to masculinity, reprinted in yesterday's G2." (via The Guardian)
posted by n o i s e s
on Jun 17, 2004 -
27 comments
Hippie Atrocities and Beautiful Freaks -- Oz Magazine was, for a ten year run during the Sixties and Seventies, Australia's, and later England's, premier underground satire 'zine. Featuring contributions from (among others) Lenny Bruce and Germain Greere, and subject to two obscenity trials--one in Australia and another, more famous one following the editors' exile to
England--it evolved, in its English incarnation, a
wicked,
witty and of course, thouroughly
psychedelic design aesthetic. There are galleries of cover art
here and
here,
and a Shockwave adaptation of the infamous School Kids issue
here.
[warning: some images NSFW.]
posted by arto
on Aug 26, 2003 -
6 comments
Diego Garcia islanders await call to go home. 'Cherry and thousands of other islanders were the victims of a brutal depopulation strategy by Britain in the 1960s and 1970s which sought to hand over an empty island to the United States for use as a key military base. The depopulation campaign ended in 1973 with the removal of the last islanders, who were dumped on the quays of the Mauritian capital, Port Louis ... '
The Chagos Islands: A sordid tale. 'The story involves "bribes" from the United States, racism among senior civil servants, and the UK Government deceiving parliament and the United Nations.'
The Chagos archipelago: Decolonisation and human rights., by the Southern African Human Rights NGO Network, includes a brief history of the islands from original settlement by French settlers and African slaves. 'For a people as a whole to be actually victimised by the act of forced eviction from their homeland must be the most humiliating, supreme injustice and degrading treatment any people can be made to undergo. '
posted by plep
on Jul 29, 2003 -
4 comments
where r u? where would u like 2 b? Just answer those questions in the popup window (hit "click here to find out how..." or via email or text message)--your response will live online and will be launched at sunset from the banks of the River Avon on July 13th 2003...Possibly to be discovered by someone, somewhere. More info
here (you can be anonymous if you wish, and javascript and flash are in the popup)
posted by amberglow
on Jul 11, 2003 -
13 comments
Blix: US was bent on war. In a scathing attack on Britain and the US, Mr Blix accused them of planning the war "well in advance" and of "fabricating" evidence against Iraq to justify their campaign.
posted by skallas
on Apr 12, 2003 -
51 comments
My bet is no-one will care, but I'm marrying my fiancee six months today. Who cares, you say. But think about this... Current UK law means you can either be married by an Anglican minister or by a Registrar. Due to ecumenical fun we're getting married in an
Anglican Parish Church with a
URC minister and have to get a registrar to stand in the church. Why the religious difference? Does it matter?
posted by twine42
on Apr 5, 2003 -
27 comments
The Stone Pages. 'Over the last 14 years we have personally visited and photographed all 529 archæological sites you will find in these pages (117 in the six national sections and 412 in our Tours section), creating the first Web guide to European megaliths and other prehistoric sites, online since February 1996.'
Related :-
Ancient Stones, a personal photographic guide
to the stone circles of Britain;
Megalithic Walks, diaries of days out visiting some of these places;
the
Prehistoric Monuments of Wales;
the interactive
Megalith Map. These sites also have great links pages to more megalithic resources.
posted by plep
on Mar 28, 2003 -
13 comments
Amazon UK was taken down for over an hour today after a rush of orders caused by apparently mis-pricing Compaq HP iPAQ H5450 Pocket PCs and HP iPAQ H1910 Pocket PCs at £23 GBP and
£7 GBP respectively (normally priced at over £200 GBP each)!! I know a few people who have ordered one or two ;) - Amazon is back up and running now but we're all a bit in the dark as to whether we'll get our cut-price goods or not. Logic and fair-play (and the Trades Description Act) dicatates that we should get our goods - but I wonder....
(see also
here at
The Register)
posted by andyHollister
on Mar 19, 2003 -
37 comments
Tweedledum and Tweedledee: Two great essays from very opposite sides of the barricades, but embodying the same healthy bloody-mindedness: reverent
Roger Scruton, English, conservative and monarchist ,on the Right, and irreverent
Glen Newey, Scottish, socialist and republican, on the Left. The differences are plain to see. But it's the similarities, I think, that point to the enduring strength of the British political spirit.
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Feb 5, 2003 -
9 comments
This stuff is nasty! Have anyone out there ever tried Marmite? It looks like something you might pack your wheel bearings in. The taste isn't much better. Maybe it's just a British thing?
posted by reidfleming
on Nov 29, 2002 -
69 comments
Britain's Pubs to Entertain Longer Hours? Tony Blair Says Yes! In an effort to curb binge drinking and overall ruddy behavior after closing times at 11pm, Parliament has it before them to allow for extended bar hours, rather than fixed open and closing hours. Communities would have some sort of say in which pubs would be able to have which hours, probably based on distance to residential areas, etc.
CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale was one of the formal organizations backing this plan.
Open All Hours? is a group opposing the plan. Check it out!
posted by djspicerack
on Nov 13, 2002 -
32 comments
Should majorities also have a say? Why doesn't Russia get to vote on Chechen independence? Why can't Britain vote on expelling Northern Ireland ... or the English on Scottish devolution? Should minorities be allowed to hold a gun to the heads of the majority?
posted by bonaldi
on Nov 4, 2002 -
35 comments
Cooking the Books The Office of National Statistics feels that the UK population is a little too small - so they're inventing one million people to fill the gap. Why did they do a census if they were going to make it all up?
posted by tabbycat
on Sep 23, 2002 -
9 comments
