Absolute Shambles

'The first draft is just you telling the story'- Terry Pratchett When you have spent a large portion of your life reading, writing and researching, one might term you to be some sort of 'academic'. This humble blogger does have an extensive collection of books and can easily find access to a pipe or smoking jacket, but would certainly not class himself amongst these titans of literature. Yet the pull of being accepted into this cult (surely there are rituals and secret handshakes being conducted in their secret meeting places?) is a strong one. The thought of diverting time and effort into creating a piece of work that someone might actually find useful as either a scholarly work or handy doorstop is intriguing. Writing a dissertation was difficult enough, especially when translating German and Russian documents, but it was good conditioning if you wanted to pursue even higher levels of education. Besides, history is awesome , so it was all totally worth it. This i...

'By all means enjoy the banter and passionate support for your football teams, even passionate opposition of other football teams – it is the lifeblood of football. But sectarianism and other expressions of hate are not acceptable and it is time for it to stop. Those engaging in it will face the full force of the law.'- Roseanna Cunningham (Scottish Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs, 2011-2014) comments on the introduction of the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act, March 2012 Sport tends to bring the more passionate side of human beings to the surface. From glorious euphoria to the depths of total defeat, those games that involve balls of various sizes and numerous methods of scoring points take up a great portion of our lives. It's uplifting to see pictures and videos of fans celebrating wildly at seeing their team triumph, and we all feel a little sorry when the cameras focus on one spectator who looks as if they ...

'The pirates left the boat in the Thames, next to the Palace of Westminster. They deliberately parked across two disabled spaces, because that kind of behaviour was pretty much the whole point of being a pirate'- from Gideon Defoe's The Pirates! in an Adventure with Communists , 2006 After exploring some integral historical events that occurred during one random week , that warm feeling of history is wrapped around this humble blogger as if it were a blanket that has been on the radiator all morning. There are so many eras and periods that create a large amount of excitement that it is hard to fully determine which one can be deemed to be 'the favourite'. That is a future post in itself; one that could cause a civil war in the historical community and become far more violent than the continuous issue over whether Richard III was a hero/villain. For now, it's worth starting off with a group of individuals that have already crossed paths with 'Absolute Shamb...

'History never really says goodbye. History says, 'See you later'- Eduardo Galeano, from his book Children of the Days: A Calendar of Human History , 2012 History is great. This surely comes as no surprise to you all, even if  everyone thinks it's 'pointless' , and the statement 'history is great' has been uttered more than once by this humble blogger. The brilliant thing about history is that something important has happened on every single day of the year. There are dates that are stuck in our minds, such as the Battle of Hastings in 1066 or 11 September 2001. We take note of birthdays, anniversaries and personal events that for some are worth commemorating; one can be assured that a vast majority of people remember the first time that they engaged in sexual activities. No need to be ashamed! Regardless, history has a subtle presence in our daily lives that certainly cannot be underestimated. There is no escape from the grasp of history The wond...