MAIL BY MULE
I thought Mail by Mule was an amazing story in this day-and-age of instant communications. It reads like an episode of the old west’s pony …
PANJANDRUM
A Panjandrum was a giant firework built to break Hitler’s Atlantic Wall in the first assault on Normandy’s beaches in World War II, or was …
DUCT TAPE
Duct tape is about as ubiquitous as it comes in terms of a useful tool. I remember my father giving me a roll to take …
PARIS
Cars have been banned from more than 100 streets in Paris. Tens of thousands of parking spots have been eliminated. Hundreds of miles of bike …
CUSTARD POWDER
Custard powder makes a delicious dessert but also has a rather less savoury potential – in certain conditions, it can be a powerful explosive. …
ANCIENT GREEK SUPERCOMPUTER
An ancient Greek supercomputer sounds a little unlikely to put it mildly, but a discovery in a 2000-year-old shipwreck off the island of Antikythera in …
DRONE WARFARE
The advent of drone warfare as a major part of the Ukraine war with Russia has turned modern conflict, and the weapons we have traditionally …
TEXTILE WASTE
The level of textile waste in the world is truly staggering; 85% of the 100 billion items of apparel produced by the textile industry EACH …
A CONCORDE AND A SPITFIRE
I came across the photo of a Concorde and a Spitfire, above, and perhaps for the first time, was awestruck by the speed of technological …
UNDERSEA THREAT
I started to document Vladimir Putin’s undersea threat to communication and power cables a few blogs ago, but I had no idea of the extent …