Clown with young child in bed, ? hospital Biomedical ScienceMedical clowns in a U.S hospital health-care team started when a professional clown at NY’s Big Apple Circus founded Clown Care in 1986. Cl­own­ing became a well-established way of helping patients of all ages during their recov­ery. Clowning in health-care sett­ings called for a special way of inter­acting with…

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Stourton's book was published in 2017I knew Kenneth Clark (1903-83) from watching his Civil­is­at­ion series on tv in 1969 and from his involvement with one of my favour­ite art historians Bern­ard Beren­son. And more recently I read Kenneth Clark: Life, Art and Civil­isation by James Stourton (Collins, 2016). Born in 1903 into a wealthy textile-based family, Clark…

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The evidence. A witch kissed the arse of the DevilWitch-hunting plagued Europe, as soon as the idea that witches worshipped the devil took hold. Read an excellent book, Scottish Witches and Witch-Hunters by Julian Goodare ed, 2013. In Scotland, this was common by the late 1500s. Locals talked about Satan’s ability to raise storms, kill livestock…

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The Kingdom of Armenia adopted Christianity as its national religion in the C4th, loyal to the Armenian Apostolic Church. Armenian Christ­ians were just one of many ethnic groups in the Ottoman Empire. But in the late 1880s, some polit­ical organisations seeking greater autonomy for Armenians, reinforcing Ot­to­man doubts about the loyalty of the wider Armenian…

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Irina Antonova (1922-2020) was born in working-class Moscow. Dad Alexander Antonov trained as an electrician, and was an early member of the Bolshevik party from 1906. Her Lithuanian mother, Ida Heifetz, studied to be a singer then met Alexander in Kharkov Ukraine in the Civil War. Alexander was frequently absent and unfaithful. In 1929 he took…

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Turussa on Itäinen ja Läntinen Pitkäkatu, mutta ruutukaava-alueen ehdottomasti pisin katu on Kupittaankatu. Se rajasi Engelin piirtämää asemakaava-aluetta kaakossa, ja nimenä oli silloin Itäinen Linjakatu (Östra Linjegatan). Kupittaankaduksi se muuttui sata vuotta sitten 1924.Katu on pitkä, mutta itse asiassa sen sekä alku- että loppupäässä on eräänlaiset pidentymät, alkupäässä lähes Kupittaan asemalta saakka, eli Joukahaisenkadulta alkaen.…

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The first London coffee house was opened in 1652 by Pasqua Roseé, a member the English Levant Co. that traded with Turkey. In Smyrna-Izmir, he found a taste for the dark stim­ulant drink. With time, each British coffee house  developed its own partic­ul­ar clientele, literary, political, financial and shipping-related. From the coffee house came the Gentle­man’s Clubs and City instit­utions…

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The first Indian Pacific, a great transcontinental rail adventure, first left Sydney for Perth in 1970. Thous­ands of well-wishers gat­h­ered a few days later to welcome its safe arrival in Perth, cap­it­al of Western Aust­ralia. It was the first time one train had been ab­le to complete the 4,352 ks journey from ocean to ocean,…

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StKilda once celebrated its reputation as a centre of privilege and taste, the wealthiest suburb in C19th Melbourne. Although spouse and I lived in St­Kilda from 1976 on, I knew nothing of this cool C19th history. So I was very pl­eased to connect old StKilda to a broader context, apprec­ia­t­ing the way C19th StKilda reflected…

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Shakshuka probably came from Africa’s Maghreb, the regions of North Africa along the Mediterranean Sea. Plus note that the word meaning shaken comes from the Tunisian dialect. An alternative history is that shakshuka came from Yemen or Ottoman Emp­ire in the C16th when Hernan Cortés brought tomatoes to the area as part of the Columbian exchange.…

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Construction on India’s mag­nificent Amber Fort began in 1592 by Mahar­aja Man Singh, a commander in the army of the Mughal emperor Akbar. It was built so the Mughal ruler could spread his power to cover the king­doms of Udaipur and Jodh­pur. So when Mah­ar­aja Bishan Singh (1672-99) later took the throne, he was the…

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Violins built by Italian master luthier/stringed instrument maker Antonio St­rad­ivari (1644–1737) have a special mystique in the cl­as­­sical music world. Antonio established a shop in Cremona where  he remained active, all his life. The earliest known Stradiv­arius violin was made in 1666, when the lad was only 22. He may have been an apprentice of…

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Mother and Child Reunion is a song by Paul Simon on his 1972 album. It was released as a single, reaching #4 on the U.S Billboard Hot 100 chart. In the Weekly charts, the song reached a peak position of #1 place in South Afr­ica, #4 place in New Zealand and #5 place in Australia.…

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Lise Meitner (1878-1968) was the Vienna-born daughter of a large Jew­ish family. Because girls weren’t allowed tertiary education, the family gave Lise a private tutor at 14. She entered the Uni of Vienna in 1901, study­ing physics under Ludwig Boltzmann. Later she received her doct­or­ate in 1906, only the second woman to receive one from…

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English and German fans crowd outside the turnstilesWhite Hart Lane, 1935History TodayDespite the War To End All Wars/WW1 and despite tension rising between the countries, Brit­ain maintained st­rong links with Germany; visits between sports clubs and societies were common. German-English football has been important since the 2 nations played their first full international in Berlin…

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Heti kesäkuun alussa oltiin taas, jo osin tutulla porukalla, Mikko Laaksosen opastamalla kierroksella, tällä kertaa Pohjolan kaupunginosassa, joka on saanut nimensä Turkuun kuuluneesta "pohjoisesta takamaasta". Nyt kokoonnuttiin Martinsillan grillin luona. Yrjänänkadun takana häämötti kadulle nimensä antanut Yrjänän tila, myös lasten työhuoneena aikoinaan toiminut, ja siten seudun vanhinta rakennuskantaa.Louhenpolun puolelle kierrettyä avautui näkymä pariin vanhaan puutaloon,…

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Street Libraries are homes for books, planted in families’ front yard. They are accessible from the street, and are an invitation to share the joys of reading with neighbours. Street Libraries’ books come and go without checking them in or out. People can sim­­ply reach in and take what interests them; when they are done,…

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Jo toukokuussa tehtiin Mikko Laaksosen opastamana arkkitehtuurikävely Linnanfältille, jossa myös Turun museokeskuksen toimitilat vielä toistaiseksi sijaitsevat. Aloitettiin uudemmasta päästä, viime vuosien aikana rakennetuista puukerrostaloista. Mukaan tullut paikallinen kertoi materiaalin huomioidun huonekohtaisissa sprinklereissa. Talojen välistä häämöttää Linnankadun varren autiona oleva empirepuutalo.Piippunäkymiä Fleminginkadulta. Vasemmalla oleva talo airbnb-käytössä, oikealla taas saman omistajan viime vuoden keväällä tulipalosta kärsinyt 1800-luvun…

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When the old royal resid­ence in what is now Praça do Comércio on Lisbon's waterfront was destroyed by an earthquake in 1755, the Portuguese king decided that it was safer to live on a hill. The chosen location was Ajuda which had been less affected by the dis­aster. The palace's rebuilding was an expen­s­ive series…

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The discovery of gold in 1851 attracted Chinese imm­ig­ration to Vic­toria. Ships sailed to Australia from Hong Kong with their cargo of men who had come in search of the new gold fields. From 1853-5, thousands of Chinese disembarked here. Very few Chin­ese women came to Australia during this period so by 1861, 38,000+ Chinese…

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