Within the past week the Queen has launched the first of the Royal Navy’s two eye-wateringly expensive aircraft carriers, the Fleet Air Arm’s PR campaign only going amiss when the Americans refused to allow an F35 strike aircraft to fly into the Farnborough Air Show – as on the Clyde, a large scale model was a rather sad substitute …

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Before plunging back into 1914 centenary activities I finally had an extended period of work back on Fairey, with a fair old chunk of chapter one now written – my man is just about to commence his premium apprenticeship at Jandus, a company in Holloway that manufactured arc lights under licence from America, with complementary …

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Even before getting home from running the marathon in Boston and  then visiting my faculty’s partner institution in Ontario, Huron University College/Western University (a vast campus on the edge of London, a city far larger than I had envisaged located at the very heart of Anglophone Canada), I was aware that my plans for a swift return to Fairey would …

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Easter and the First World War is for many synonymous with Dublin in 1916, and on a day when Gerry Adams is being held in custody with reference to PSNI inquiries into one of the Provisional IRA’s most notorious killings there is good reason to reflect upon how the centenary of the rising will be …

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A brief update prior to departing for a week’s R and R in the Lake District.  Unfortunately a looming date with Lake Windermere and an unusually busy week on campus (UG/PG dissertation and essay tutorials, plus assorted other activities) stopped me in my tracks, such that I remain tantalisingly close to completion of my chapter on CRF’s creation …

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The BBC continues to mark the commencement of the First World War, and my only explanation for the corporation compressing so many radio and television programmes in to these few weeks is a presumption that no-one would watch in late July/early August.  Alternatively, someone in Broadcasting House was sufficiently prescient as to anticipate a crisis …

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Having completed chapter 2 (the final section re Wittgenstein might not have been anticipated by anyone but Ray Monk, professorial colleague and biographer of the great man), and despatched it to various interested parties, not least members of the Fairey family, I am eager to keep the momentum going – do I move straight on …

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Working up a new MA module to teach in the coming semester and a doctoral viva next week (plus starting to write my inaugural lecture on Keith Douglas, inspired by walking into Canterbury from Wye last Friday – echoes of Powell and Pressburger’s A Canterbury Tale and in my mind relevant thoughts re Edward Thomas …

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Christmas Eve seems an appropriate moment for a brief review of where I’ve got to on this project, but before doing so it’s worth noting that last week I had lunch in West Sussex with Charles Fairey, CRF’s grandson and the son of Richard Fairey.  Charles was both welcoming and charming, and it quickly became …

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Keen readers will note that my last blog entry dates from mid-November but has only just been posted a month later.  Having previewed the entry I foolishly forgot to hit ‘Publish’, and so my polished thoughts have remained in the draft folder for over three weeks.  There’s a lesson there of course, namely always check.  …

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