Annie Londonderry: The Woman Who Cycled Around the World
Annie Londonderry (born Annie Cohen in Latvia in 1870) has been largely forgotten by history, but at the end of the 19th century she was widely celebrated as a trail-blazer, a modern woman who wrote: "I believe I can do anything that any man can do."She proved it by becoming the first woman to cycle around the world, ...
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A short, esoteric history of eye protection down the ages
Nothing captures the fickle nature of fashion and cultural trends better than this humble accessory. Sunglasses came to us en masse only because of a capricious combination of technology, market opportunism and coiffure. Here's how it went down. Hollywood movie stars—seeking to avoid the harsh Southern Californian ...
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Bartitsu—The Compendium Approach to Martial Arts
Bartitsu is the martial art your weird Uncle Archibald practices every evening after he's watered his collection of rare orchids, and fed his Azawakh, which he's named Eunice, after his long-dead wife, because she has Eunice's winsome looks.It's hard to take Bartitsu* seriously. There's a Pythonesque quality about ...
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Pank-A-Squith: The Board Game of the Political Movement
Aunt Lavinia has made the tea—Lady Grey, as befits a late Autumn evening with the nights drawing in and frost crackling underfoot—and set out the toasted tea-cakes. It's time to settle in for a genteel game of Pank-a-Squith, the game that celebrates mass arrests, hunger strikes, and the growing militancy of the ...
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