England v Croatia is the World Cup’s only group-stage match where both countries have a UNESCO World Heritage Site named after a Roman emperor.
England has Hadrian’s Wall. Croatia has Diocletian’s Palace in Split.
Stay tuned for more cutting-edge, geography(ish)-based World Cup analysis.
I'm worried that the book I've spent years writing is going to end up as two or three volumes rather than one. Causes of the British Industrial Revolution, but I'm now eight chapters in and still only up to the summer of 1549.
I am currently reading this terrific book, and Cannadine argues that as the old landed classes rapidly lost their economic and political grip from the 1880s, what took its place was the rule of the middle class through bureaucracy. This seems to me highly relevant to now...
This was the moment when I suddenly abstracted myself totally from the interview, & found myself thinking, "OMG, it's really true, I'm sat here in Abbey Road, sitting opposite Paul McCartney, & hearing him talk about Beatles songs". https://t.co/tuCA8jN9en
The Cathedral in the former Mosque in Cordoba is quite astounding. I’ve never seen anything like it. Don’t really know how to describe it. Two thoughts:
It's really interesting to watch the black South African kids, in these clips. They're perfectly friendly towards Mallett, but also distinctly guarded, which is unsurprising: how could any of them, at that date, feel truly relaxed around a white man? An intriguing moment in time.
Britain missed its chance to choose Gaullism because it refused to realise how bad things were after the war. The so-called 'Anglo-Gaullism' of today is vapid piffle. My article in this week's New Statesman. https://t.co/2UcwVkgwAo