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The American actor Denzel Washington, 66, mentioned his Christian faith in a recent interview with the New York Times. Washington described himself as God-fearing and warned against the dangers of the digital age. He said: “The Bible says in the last days … we’ll be lovers of ourselves. The No. 1 photograph today is a...

All in the month of January Remembering Sir Ernest Shackleton Remembering Ralph Vaughan Williams 80 years of Desert Island Discs David Bowie and God Animals vanishing from literature as well as nature Covid hits life expectancy levels Name a heatwave No more dog poo at the National Trust What is happening to our public loos?...

It was: 150 years ago, on 14th Jan 1872 that Greyfriars Bobby, a Scottish Skye terrier dog died. He was famous for having guarded his master’s grave in Edinburgh for 14 years. 100 years ago, on 5th Jan 1922 that Sir Ernest Shackleton, the Irish-born British Antarctic explorer, died of a heart attack in South...

One hundred years ago, on 5th January 1922, Sir Ernest Shackleton, the Irish-born British Antarctic explorer, died of a heart attack in his bunk in South Georgia. He had led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was 47. It is now believed he may have had a hole in his heart. His feats of...

One hundred years ago, on 16th January 1922, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ A Pastoral Symphony was performed for the first time, in London. Later designated Symphony No. 3, it was said to be inspired by the composer hearing a bugler practising and is frequently thought of as a memorial for the fallen of the First World...

Some 80 years ago, on 29th January 1942, the BBC radio show Desert Island Discs was first broadcast.  It is Britain’s longest running radio show, and the world’s longest running weekly factual radio programme. Devised and originally presented by Roy Plomley, it was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme, but later switched to Radio...

It was 75 years ago, on 8th January 1947, that David Bowie, pop/glam rock singer, songwriter and actor, was born in London. He became one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, dying in 2016. Born David Robert Jones, he studied art and design before transforming himself into an enigmatic and exploratory singer,...

How many works of literature still contain references to animals?  A study of 16,000 works, written between 1705 and 1969, and including books such as Goethe’s Faust and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, has found that even in literature, animals are fading towards extinction. Professors at Leipzig’s Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research found that 1830 was...

Covid has caused the biggest drop in life expectancy in Western Europe since the Second World War. More than five million people have died worldwide after getting infected. When academics studied death rates from 29 countries, which included most of Europe as well as the US, they found that life expectancy has decreased in 27...

The Met Office is considering whether to begin naming heatwaves, as they are becoming more dangerous. Naming them will make the public pay more attention to them, and take them more seriously. The Met Office says that as the climate warms, so heatwaves will become increasingly likely.  Since 2015, storms have been named in alphabetical...

The National Trust is tired of cleaning up after your dog. It has now removed dog poo waste bins from their sites, to force dog walkers to take the poo bags home for disposal. The National Trust says that the waste bins are filling up faster than they can empty them, and that it costs...

It was George Jennings, an English sanitary engineer and plumber, who in 1851 invented the first public flush toilets.  He said: “the civilisation of a people can be measured by their domestic and sanitary appliances.” Yet now, across the UK, public lavatories are in dismal and steep decline. The number of lavatories maintained by local...