Category Archives: legal history

Salam, nowruz mubarak!

<<!سلام ,نوروز مبارک>> By Ben Politowski Today, 20th March, is the Hormoz (the first day of a Persian month) of Farvardin, and marks the first day of the Iranian new year or ‘nowruz’. Said to have been founded by the prophet Zoroaster himself, this celebration of the ‘new day’ is one of the holiest days… Read More »

A pukeko in a ponga tree

So starts a distinctively New Zealand adaptation of a true love’s Christmas gifts. The link will take you through to the words – the tune will be easy to work out. (This version was first published by Kingi M. Ihaka in a book of the same name in 1981.) (Image thanks to Sid Mosell who… Read More »

The Coventry Carol

The lilting lament of The Coventry Carol is not especially festive, being as it is a mother’s song to her doomed infant as she waits for Herod’s soldiers to visit and murder him, however it is a haunting, beautiful tune with extraordinary history. If you’d like to know more about that, you can compare audio… Read More »

We Three Kings

We three kings of Orient are. Bearing gifts, we traverse afar. Field and fountain, moor and mountain, Following yonder star…‘ By Madeleine Lawson ‘We Three Kings of Orient Are,’ also known as ‘The Quest of the Magi,’ is a nineteenth-century carol by Reverend John Henry Hopkins Junior.  (Click here for a rendition of the song… Read More »

A reasonable man goes to Tate Britain

Several weeks ago in London, en route to Tate Britain (the original Tate Gallery, now with a trendy name), I took the no. 88 bus from Regent Street.  I then noticed that the ultimate destination of the bus was Clapham Common, and it suddenly dawned on me that I had become “the man on the… Read More »