Download or read book Caledonication written by John Kv Eunson and published by Headline. This book was released on 2014-03-27 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: So, you thought you knew everything you needed to about Scotland and its chequered history? Well, think again. Did you know that tobacco made up half of Scotland's exports in the eighteenth century? Did you know that JM Barrie created the name 'Wendy' for his play Peter Pan in 1904, meaning that there are no Wendys over the age of 104...? Did you know that The Beatles played at Dingwall Town Hall in 1963? See? John KV Eunson leads us through the history of the Scots in this accurate but none-too-heavy look at the great country. On a journey of almost breakneck speed full of chuckles, we still have enough time to stop and smell the heather, taste the fudge and feel the ghosties.
Download or read book Caledonia Dreaming written by John Kv Eunson and published by Headline. This book was released on 2012-03-01 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: So what have the Scots ever done for the world then? Well, most people will know about John Logie Baird (inventor of television), Alexander Graham Bell (the telephone) and Alexander Fleming (penicillin). But what about Alexander Cummings from Edinburgh? It would be hard to imagine getting through the day without using his invention - the flushing toilet. Or how about William Cullen from Glasgow? There would be a lot of sour milk (and warm beer) without the first man to demonstrate artificial refrigeration. And then there's Alexander Bain from Caithness? Can anyone really imagine a world without his invention - the fax machine? The list goes on and on; Janet Keillor from Dundee (marmalade), James Clerk Maxwell from Edinburgh (radio waves), John Reith from Stonehaven (the BBC), James Black from Uddingston (beta-blockers) James Bowman Lindsay from Angus (light bulbs), James Goodfellow from Paisley (the ATM), Dugald Clerk from Glasgow (the two-stroke engine), Alexander McRae from the Kyle of Lochalsh (speedos), James Blyth from Kincardineshire (the first electricity producing wind turbine). Caledonia Dreaming tells the often frankly unbelievable stories behind these discoveries and looks at how they, along with the writers, philosophers, philanthropists and bankers of Scotland have left their unique, indelible mark on the modern world.
Download or read book Dad Jokes The Cheesy Edition written by Dad Says Jokes and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2020-09-03 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE THIRD COLLECTION FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERS @DADSAYSJOKES The most followed dad jokes page on Instagram, @DadSaysJokes, returns with another collection of hilariously cringe-inducing gags for you to share with friends and family. @DadSaysJokes is a community-run Dad jokes network on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, with over 5 million followers, inspired by the daily jokes of author Kit Chilvers' dad, Andrew. Every day, followers submit their jokes and the team picks their favourites - or Dad just drops in his own zinger! Kit, a young social networking influencer, started his career at the tender age of 14 when he created his original platform, Football.Newz. He has since added another fourteen platforms, including @PubityPets and monster meme page @Pubity with its 31 million followers. This is his third book. I TOLD MY WIFE SHE SHOULD EMBRACE HER MISTAKES. SHE GAVE ME A HUG.
Download or read book China s Maritime Disputes in the East and South China Seas written by U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2014-04-18 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today's hearing will cover China's maritime disputes in the East and South China Seas. We'll examine the security, political, legal, and economic drivers of these disputes in our three panels today. The first panel will begin by discussing the broad security situation on the high seas. As China's maritime forces have become more capable over the past decade, Beijing has become more confident in its ability to assert its claims in the disputed areas. Beyond China's "hard" security concerns, however, other domestic, political, and legal elements shape China's policy in the East and South China Seas. Our second panel will consider popular nationalism as one of these elements. It has become a key driver of Chinese foreign policy as personality politics in Beijing has given way to a collective leadership seeking Party legitimacy. We'll conclude with a panel on how resources and economic drivers shape China's maritime disputes. Security of China's near seas is critical to the unimpeded flow of trade and imported energy resources. Though the natural resources in the East and South China Sea undoubtedly shape the security landscape, there appears to be a debate on the centrality of oil and gas resources to the dispute.
Download or read book Chappelli Has the Last Laugh written by Ian Chappell and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 79 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Best of the Chap written by The Chap and published by Boxtree, Limited. This book was released on 2005 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PUT THAT IN YOUR PIPE AND SMOKE IT Whatever happened to the English gentleman? Wasn't his doctrine of good manners, elegant dress and chivalry towards the ladies once the yardstick by which all human behaviour was measured? How could "road rage" have become the social norm in a country where simply not raising one's hat was once considered an act of aggression? When did men stop wearing cravats, shaking hands with each other and allowing ladies to take the most comfortable seats?And why? The Chap is the long-running magazine with a mission to revive gentlemanly behaviour and sartorial elegance. From the beauty of a tweed jacket to the simple pleasure derived from smoking a pipe, the renaissance of dandyism is celebrated here in the finest articles selected from The Chap, with all the panache one would expect from the splendid fellows behind The Chap Manifesto and The Chap Almanac. From the Philosophy of Grooming to the Semiotics of Eyewear, from Stephen Fry's thoughts on being made Pipe Smoker of the Year to the abiding horror of the ready-to-wear suit, The Best of the Chap is for all those who prefer a trilby to a baseball cap, and a brogue to a trainer. So sink into your deepest armchair, pour yourself a gin and tonic, fire up your briar and prepare to join the sophisticated world of The Chap.
Download or read book Retromancer written by Robert Rankin and published by Gollancz. This book was released on 2009-12-17 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is big and evil magic abroad upon the face of the Earth. History has been changed. The Germans have won WWII. America is a nuclear wasteland. And worst of all, the breakfast menu at The Wife's Legs Café in Brentford is serving Bratwurst rather than the proper big boys' British banger. Something is Not Right. And when the world's all wrong and it needs setting right, who're you gonna call? Hugo Rune, that's who. A man who offers the world his genius, and asks only, in return, that the world cover his expenses. And so, with the aid of his faithful acolyte and companion Rizla, the guru's guru, also known as the hokus bloke, the Lad Himself and the Retromancer*, sets out to rewrite history the way it should be. Together they return to war-torn London, to solve the twelve cosmic conundra based on Hugo Rune's personal tarot deck, each one leading them closer to a final terrifying confrontation. They must match their wits against beautiful spies, advanced alien technology, killer robots and death rays, do battle with an ancient god, and come face to face once more with Hugo Rune's arch-enemy, the sinister Count Otto Black, all the while finding time to drink ale, talk the toot and dine out in some of London's swankiest eateries. Without ever paying the bill.
Download or read book The Song of the Silvercades written by K. S. Nikakis and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2009-12 with total page 670 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With its sweeping storyline and strong characters, The Song of the Silver cades has the pace and feel of the very best epic fantasy. Beautifully written, it's a brilliant follow-up to the critically acclaimed, The Whisper of Leaves, as it follows its heroine, Kira, on her nail-biting quest to save her people.;...
Download or read book The Japanese Devil Fish Girl and Other Unnatural Attractions written by Robert Rankin and published by Gollancz. This book was released on 2010-09-09 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The pickled Martian's tentacles are fraying at the ends and Professor Coffin's Most Meritorious Unnatural Attraction (the remains of the original alien autopsy, performed by Sir Frederick Treves at the London Hospital) is no longer drawing the crowds. It's 1895; nearly a decade since Mars invaded Earth, chronicled by H.G. Wells in THE WAR OF THE WORLDS. Wrecked Martian spaceships, back-engineered by Charles Babbage and Nikola Tesla, have carried the Queen's Own Electric Fusiliers to the red planet, and Mars is now part of the ever-expanding British Empire. The less-than-scrupulous sideshow proprietor likes Off-worlders' cash, so he needs a sensational new attraction. Word has reached him of the Japanese Devil Fish Girl; nothing quite like her has ever existed before. But Professor Coffin's quest to possess the ultimate showman's exhibit is about to cause considerable friction amongst the folk of other planets. Sufficient, in fact, to spark off Worlds War Two.
Download or read book Yellow Blue Tibia written by Adam Roberts and published by Gollancz. This book was released on 2009-01-22 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Russia, 1946, the Nazis recently defeated. Stalin gathers half a dozen of the top Soviet science fiction authors in a dacha in the countryside somewhere. Convinced that the defeat of America is only a few years away, and equally convinced that the Soviet Union needs a massive external threat to hold it together, to give it purpose and direction, he tells the writers: 'I want you to concoct a story about aliens poised to invade earth ... I want it to be massively detailed, and completely believable. If you need props and evidence to back it up, then we can create them. But when America is defeated, your story must be so convincing that the whole population of Soviet Russia believes in it - the population of the whole world!' The little group of writers gets down to the task and spends months working on it. But then new orders come from Moscow: they are told to drop the project; Stalin has changed his mind; forget everything about it. So they do. They get on with their lives in their various ways; some of them survive the remainder of Stalin's rule, the changes of the 50s and 60s. And then, in the aftermath of Chernobyl, the survivors gather again, because something strange has started to happen. The story they invented in 1946 is starting to come true ... A typically mind-blowing SF novel from one of the genre's literary stars.
Download or read book The Darker Sex written by Mike Ashley and published by Peter Owen Publishers. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ghosts, precognition, suicide, and the afterlife are all themes in these thrilling stories by Britain and America's greatest Victorian women, proving their talent for creating dark, sensational, and horrifying tales of the supernatural. This anthology showcases some of the best and most representative work by female writers during this period, including Emily Bronte, Mary Braddon, George Eliot, and Edith Nesbit, as well as Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte Riddell, Louisa Baldwin, Mary Penn, Violet Quirk, and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Editor Mike Ashley provides valuable insight into the authors' lives. Each story still has the ability to shock, frighten, and show how Victorian women perfected and developed the Gothic genre.
Download or read book The Cry of the Marwing written by K. S. Nikakis and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-09 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The mare snorted, wild-eyed, and danced sideways as a dark shape launched itself at Kira, knocking her off her feet. It leapt on top of her, then a disfigured face thrust close, its lips drawing back in a macabre smile as hands tightened around her throat. With battles raging and Shargh warriors threatening the future of Allogrenia, gold-eyed Kira is forced to betray her every principle by requesting Tremen Protectors fight and kill to defend their homeland. As the sickening carnage continues, Ashmiri treachery threatens to deliver Shargh victory. Realising her love of Tierken is not enough to bridge the gulf between them and their respective people, Kira flees Terak. Reunited with Caledon, her companion of yore, Kira decides to make for her Tremen homeland. But as she and Caledon approach Allogrenia, Caledon's star vision fails him and they're confronted by Shargh.
Download or read book New Model Army written by Adam Roberts and published by Gollancz. This book was released on 2010-04-15 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adam Roberts' new novel is a terrifying vision of a near future war - a civil war that tears the UK apart as new technologies allow the world's first truly democratic army to take on the British army and wrest control from the powers that be. Taking advances in modern communication and the new eagerness for power from the bottom upwards, Adam Roberts has produced a novel that is at once an exciting war novel and a philosophical examination of war and democracy. It shows one of the UK's most exciting and innovative literary voices working at the height of his powers and investing SF with literary significance that is its due.
Download or read book Nina in Utopia written by Miranda Miller and published by Peter Owen Publishers. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A breathtakingly original novel of time travel, Bedlam, and a mad Victorian painter London, 1854: Nina, the wife of an ambitious doctor, is heavily traumatized by the death of her young daughter and finds herself mysteriously transported 150 years into the future. A tourist in the 21st century, she believes she is witnessing a Utopia, with the grime and evil of Victorian London expunged, and while in the future, she embarks upon a brief affair. Returning to her own time, her husband takes fright hearing her experiences and has her committed to Bedlam, where she meets Richard Dadd and finds another Utopia under the charge of a doctor with 21st-century ideas on patient rehabilitation. Meanwhile, her husband is on a collision course with her lover who is traveling to find her from another time, in this mesmerizing blend of time travel, Victoriana, and romance.
Download or read book The Da Da De Da Da Code written by Robert Rankin and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2011-06-02 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jonny Hooker has been picked as a WINNER! and all he has to do to claim his prize is to solve the Da-da-de-da-da Code. Jonny knows that beat; it always turns up in popular music - like 'Waltzing Matilda', or the National Anthem. And it has something to do with the Devil's Chord. And with Robert Johnson (who sold his soul to the Devil), whose blues influenced a generation of musicians. And it definitely has something to do with Elvis, who is still alive and rocking (of course). And with the Secret Parliament of Five, who meet in Gunnersbury Park to dictate world affairs. And when he solves the Da-da-de-da-da Code, Jonny will also discover why all the most famous rock musicians die aged twenty-seven, the truth about raising an ancient god, and the destruction of the world. It's all right there in the music. All Jonny has to do is to crack that code. Before he dies on Monday.
Download or read book The Toyminator written by Robert Rankin and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2011-06-02 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Somewhere over the rainbow and just off the Yellow Brick Road stands Toy City, formerly known as Toy Town. And things are not going well for the city's inhabitants. There have been outbreaks of STC - Spontaneous Toy Combustion - and there are strange signs and portents in the Heavens. Preachers of Toy City's many religions are predicting that the End Times are approaching and that a Toy City Apocalypse will soon come to pass. But can this possibly be true, or is there a simple explanation - an alien invasion, for instance. With the body count rising and the forces of law and order baffled, it is the time for a hero to step forward and attempt to save the day. Well, two heroes actually, Eddie Bear, Toy City Private Eye and his loyal sidekick, Jack: our courageous twosome are about to face their biggest challenge yet, to save not only toykind, but the world of mankind too. Which should keep them out of the pub for a while.
Download or read book The Whisper of Leaves written by K. S. Nikakis and published by Arena. This book was released on 2008 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Treman community, which has long been isolated in the forests, has been breached by intruders, leaving the healer Kira to decide what to do when she suspects it is she the intruders are after.
