Do we have a submerged ‘Doggerland‘ in New Zealand? In 1950 a boat, the HMNZS ‘Lachlan’ dredged a sample of “lignite” from the bottom of Toitoi (or Toetoe) Bay, at the far south end of New Zealand’s South Island, from a depth of nine fathoms… Read more
Monthly archives of “December 2019”
A Nail up the Nose, and another take on Monotheism
You’d have to really dislike someone to bash a nail up their nose. The day before Wanaka’s Alchemy Cafe closed because of the flooding, I was sitting there, watching a doco on YouTube: ‘A Troubled Island – The Minotaur’s Island’, about ancient Crete. I generally… Read more
Sudden Stratospheric Warming Closed my Cafe
The weather around Wanaka, and the broader Otago Lakes area of New Zealand has gone slightly biblical. New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) (tweeted on December 4th “It’s only the 4th, but about a month’s worth of rain has already fallen… Read more
Searching for Smyrna in Izmir, Turkey
So where the heck is Smyrna? I’d heard a little about the awful days of 1922, but despite having made a few trips to Turkey, I’d never noticed Smyrna on a map. It wasn’t until I read Giles Milton’s book: ‘Paradise Lost: The Destruction of… Read more