Pigeon news 2

Nest building has continued for the past two days, always stopping around midday, when the birds disappear: above is how the nest looked at noon on day 3. You can just see the other bird on the nest near the top Watched by a house sparrow

Pigeon culture

Here’s a thing. And that’s not a lazy entry, I mean it literally. It’s a half-house, a symbolic home left unfinished as a record of a moment of bonding, a useless thing in itself but an essential tool made to accompany complex thought. By a pair of pigeons. We have a very small garden, so …

A nice guy

There’s an entertaining piece about Richard III in the new BBC History magazine, by Chris Skidmore (which also contains a nice review of my book, by Francis Pryor). Was he thinking of Horrible Histories? One of the TV series’ great features was a Measly Middle Ages pop ballad parody called The Truth About Richard III. …

A canal walk, a church and a bit of Wolf Hall

I’m going to post some photos I took yesterday on a perfect day on the Kennet & Avon canal. The day before, I gave my first Richard III talk, at the National Portrait Gallery (to a full house, after which we ran out of copies of my book during the signing session…). I’d prepared for …

Happy birthday Beatrice de Cardi

A group of tributes said it all. Outshining her card from the Queen and a congratulatory letter from British Museum director Neil MacGregor were two spectacular artefacts: an apparently solid gold ship presented by the Ministry of Culture, Youth & Community Development, and a gold and silver khanjar (a dagger “worn on a belt by …