NOT-SO-NEW NEWS

My mentor, Mr Kininmonth (the elder) ...
...politely requests that you leave this site - and the rest of our fragile planet - as tidy as (or tidier than) you found it; but, as in the matters of the rising price of snuff and the declining standard of pickled herring, is resigned to disappointment.

But here we have, picked fresh from the midden, a dusty heap of old excitements, bits of nostalgia to bring a tear to your eye, opiniated opinions and words from when a man was younger than he is now.

New artwork showing Müntzer (June 2023)

The Berlin artist Stefan Klausewitz has, over the past few years, created some wonderful and quirky images of Thomas Müntzer and Martin Luther. He has kindly allowed me to show some of them on my website. For more details, click here.

What's in a Name? (23 May 2023)

For children of a serious disposition... (5 January 2023)

I am pleased to announce the publication of my translation into Volapük of the children's book entitled "Am I Small?" (Binob-li-smalik?) by Philipp Winterberg. My lengthy and expensive education has not been in vain!
The book appears in paperback, hardback or - for the technologically sophisticated - a Kindle version.
Those of you with access to small children who have a passionate interest in artificial languages, and a firm grasp of grammatical structures, will no doubt be pleased to acquire a copy for them, to be read at bedtime or studied each morning before that cold shower and gruel. Those of you without such appendages, or having only sight of children of a less serious disposition, can always buy a copy for yourselves.
Click here for more details and (UK) purchasing opportunities. (Paperback versions can also be bought or ordered from other suppliers, in due course...)
And you can read far more about Volapük, that challenging, and sadly neglected, language ... here .

Wikipedia and the Hungarian Pole from Slovakia (21 September 2022)

Benyovszky Polish-style! (May/June 2022)

The Napier Report - a radical read (13 April 2022)

A True Discourse (July 2021)

Another of those whimsical books is now available on Amazon. It is an adventure, or True Discourse, set in the year 1669 involving divers and aeronauts, mechanics, witches and charlatans, linguists, time-travellers and traitors Click here to see why you should even care...

Lockdown stories (more of) (January 2021)

A Railway to Aultbea, via Gairloch? Also impossible! (November 2020)

The award-winning Gairloch Museum suggested to me, many months ago, that I should give a talk on the abridged history of the railway-line from Achnasheen to Aultbea. And, at last, some troubled months later (but perhaps now without Trump overseeing the end of the world?), here we are, on 10th November at 7:30pm. Visit the Gairloch Museum YouTube channel for the recording of the talk

A Quite Impossible online talk (October 2020)

A Quite Impossible Proposal? (September 2020)

Cave Beck - his Universal Character (August 2020)

An Impossible Journey ! (May 2020)

The King of Madagascar? (February 2020)

The good people of the British Czech and Slovak Association in London are holding an event on the 26th February 2020, to take a look at Moric Benyovszky. To that end, they have invited me to give a talk on the man. The event is open to all comers, and will be held in the rather grand Slovak Embassy in the heart of Kensington.
Full details are available on the BCSA's website, which you can reach by clicking on Count Benyovszky's portrait here on the right.

What a stushie in Edinburgh ... (July 2019)

An archivist working for Edinburgh City Council has uncovered a letter from 1705, in which a baker living in the Old Town complains to the City Fathers about an elephant which is being lodged in a room above his bakery. Unsurprisingly, dung and urine come into the tale... It doesn't sound very pleasant. And, of course, this was our Dundee Elephant shortly before she left for Dundee. To read more, click here, then reflect on Trading Standards...
Also here...(The Herald newspaper) and here...(The Scottish Sun newspaper)

Another Oversight ... (June 2019)

To complete the re-release of my first four novels, this month sees the publication on Amazon of Novgorod the Great.
It contains a small number of typographical corrections, and is embellished with a new cover. But all else is much the same: Ksenia is still torn, Horatio still love-lorn, John still dying, and his father still raging against the world at large. But more so.
You can view it - and, I would strongly recommend, also purchase it - just by clicking here, or the equivalent site in (say) the USA. It is, of course, now available in Kindle format as well.

It's Ullapool - it must be a Railway (February 2019)

Kautö ! (August 2018)

Responding to worldwide demand (muted, perhaps, but nonetheless...), we have released a new edition of A Hand-book of Volapük. Unsurprisingly there are very few changes from the first edition: some tightening up of the exercises, some new 'paid content' at the back (the new edition has been subsidised by the esteemed Polton and Loanhead Chronicle and Weekly District Advertiser) and a rather fetching new cover. You can view - and purchase it - just by clicking here, or the equivalent site in (say) the USA. And... in an unprecedented nod to the technology of the imminent 20th century, we have issued it in Kindle format as well. (Kindle: smafiledilöm ? Who can tell?)
Enjoy it while you still can.

And the Elephant lives in paperback. (July 2018)

We have a spanking new edition of the book about the Dundee (or Dutch, if you prefer) Elephant, Elephantina. It can found, in easily-affordable paperback, just by clicking here.
There are some surprising minor changes to the text, which result from careful investigations by the 21st century editor. So much for previous rigour and editorial care!
Admirers of the elephant will be pleased to learn that her Dutch origins are now plain to see. And, as always, no effort has been spared with the new cover.

Alexander Kininmonth rides out again. (May 2018)

The Abridged History of the Railway Between Garve, Ullapool and Lochinver... has just been re-issued. It can found, in both paperback and Kindle editions, just by clicking here. The new edition corrects a small number of inattentive mistakes perpetrated by the 1901 editor, Alured Marjoribanks, a man considered by many of his contemporaries to be of considerable laxity, a wastrel and a supine fool. The text is otherwise essentially the same as the first edition and the book benefits from a revised cover, created at no small expense, the costs being absorbed by the author.
 
 

Intriguing! Ignominious! Fact? Fiction? Whatever. (August 2017)

Amidst all this perfectly justifiable doom and gloom (see below, and probably above as well, by the time you read this), some glimmering of hope: news of the forthcoming publication of my book on the 18th-century Hungarian (or Slovak, if you incline that way) adventurer, Maurice Benyovszky. You can read more about him here - his amazing adventures amongst the Alaskans and the Aleutians, the Japanese and the Formosans, the French and - not least - the admiring Madagascans. A man quite unstoppable in his breathless - and entirely post-factual - autobiography. For more information about the book which is now available to purchase, click here to view all the details. Surely, in the words of our century's pre-eminent Stable Genius - Fake News?

Thomas Müntzer and the German Reformation (May 2017)

Celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the German Reformation may be far and few between in the UK – it's all that Euro-stuff: rather passé, maybe? - but the trusty old BBC has broadcast a series of talks on the matter at the beginning of May. There are five 15-minute talks, given by a fine collection of respected academics ... and one amateur. All five are currently available for catch-up or download now on the BBC iPlayer website - click here...
Subjects and speakers are as follows :
  Martin Luther.      by Prof Lyndal Roper of Oxford
  Thomas Müntzer      Andy Drummond
  Katarina von Bora (Luther's wife)      Dr Charlotte Woodford of Cambridge
  Johann Walter (Lutheran composer)      Dr Stephen Rose of Royal Holloway, London
  Philipp Melanchthon (Luther's main collaborator)       Prof Brian Cummings of York
Something, then, for almost everyone !
To learn more on Müntzer, click here

Never heard of Volapük ??? (March 2017)

You have a new President? I have a once-used Apocalypse. (December 2016)

The Similarity between a Putting-Green and the White House Lawn (November 2016)

The Hopeless Short-sightedness of Beings (July 2016)

Of Hats, Angels and Remorse (April 2016)

If your interests encompass (as I'm sure they do) : the western isles of Scotland; hat-fashions during the Scottish Enlightenment; Cherubim and godly modes of transport; the Gaelic names for Snow-white and the Seven Dwarves; the fate of the unfortunate Lady Grange; and very irritating poetry: then I now have the very book for you.
Set in the years 1739-1745 in Scotland, it tells two intertwining stories - that of the unfortunate Lady Grange who found herself imprisoned on the island of St Kilda by a well-meaning husband; and that of the Cherub of Desire, who just happened to drop in on her, before taking an ill-fated holiday in Edinburgh.
You can read all about the new book by clicking just here. Or you can just miss out the guff, and go straight to checkout: Available in printed and Kindle formats.

Found a Volapük word, and really don't know what to do with it? (Summer 2015)

Thomas Müntzer - who he? (August 2015)

I've been developing an English-language website in celebration of the 16th-century German radical, Thomas Müntzer. You might not know it yet, but he is a fascinating figure, one I've been pursuing for most of my adult life. To see what's what, just click once here.

Volapük corrected (July 2015)

Elephants from Amsterdam ! (April 2015)

Dutch author Michiel Roscam Abbing has just published his research into the early history of the Dundee Elephant. It makes for fascinating reading. This was a well-travelled Elephant, and one who could do a whole series of tricks for the greater amusement of the 18th century public. Click here for more details...

Yet another Scottish Referendum Fantasy !! (December 2014)

PS !! (November 2014)

A Cock and a Bull Story (September 2012)

Beware ... ! (May 2012)

Neckties? (2012)