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More of a "Things that look like a highly questionable HOI sub-mod/SLP sequel", but the New Zealand Official Year-Book 1899 lists among "Consuls of Foreign Countries residing in, or with Jurisdiction over, New Zealand" one Baron d'Ungern-Sternberg as Russian Consul in Melbourne. Certainly not...

A lovely and quite charming interview. One of my favourite parts of each new release of SLP titles is looking through the new cover art.

It's been a while since I read his biography, but I seem to recall the crash somehow caused his previously life-long eczema to clear up, and him to go from chain-smoker to quitting completely. In hindsight a remarkably long-lived and long-careered man.

Hair Few Remain, idk.

I found this blog post to be useful in explaining this specific question of pace, when logistics and the scale of armies mean it isn't quite as simple as one person's walking speed. As the post itself acknowledged, the basic seemingly intuitive thing for authors without directly relevant...

Agree with the point that the problem with having to be lucky every time there's a crisis, is that you only have to be unlucky once. Add in agents who increasingly believe that the probability of themselves in particular being unlucky is trending towards 1, and that well, wouldn't it be better...

1936, but time is a flat circle:

Caveat that I've not done much more than a wiki-walk on this - it just caught my eye as a possible background detail for a story set in a no WWII 1945 UK. So London won the 1944 bid as late as June 1939, which is 2-3 months after the guarantee to Poland, before M-R is agreed but parallel to the...

Brilliant article. I have the distinct impression that people across more fields than our own would benefit from the last paragraph, and in particular the quote about "seeing politics as nothing more than a hobby where teams win and lose according to arcane rules". Not least people in actual...

As a might have been geologist, I really loved the Middle Earth blogs. It's a shame so many of the comments on the original host site are "why are you taking this seriously, it's a fantasy map" are missing the point that the critique itself is obviously also a bit of fun from a fan, and I think...

This was my biggest stretch when plotting Freedom's Rampart - I ended up finding a reference to an OTL ad hoc arrangement with a local ruler in (IIRC) Java. Otherwise by c.1890 only the most state of the art Russian vessels had the range to do Vladivostock-South Pacific. The 3rd strategic...

I can't possibly flee to the Norfolk coast, not at this time of night.

Mods can do this, failing that definitely Admin. Before I knew the connotation myself I've used "89" in user names elsewhere for the same DOB reasons. Not exact match but it still always feels a bit too close for comfort, so you have my sympathy, and I'm sure that of @Skinny87. Basically...

Just wanted to chip in some more praise for a really excellent article. Its given me a seed of an idea for this month's Vignette Challenge, and also given some good recommendations for works to check out. I didn't know Baxter had done a War of the Worlds sequel, but I read his Time Machine...

I've never seen or read Sharpe, but the Hornblower comparison is an interesting one, as those novels also started in the protagonist's mid-career, only to be followed by sequels and prequels that jumped back and forth to flesh out Hornblower's entire career from Midshipman to Admiral. The ITV...

On similar lines, a scenario where Gordon Brown wins an upset in Edinburgh South in 1979, holds on as an incumbent in '83, only to lose as PM in 2010 (or possibly 2005). A million butterflies get murdered along the way of course. For a clean scenario that is probably more plausible on paper...

Literally where she learned the trade and was subsequently arrested, which is the reason she survives (albeit obscured until very recently) in the historical record. I did not know that, but it's an awesome bit of background data if we do follow the hypothesis of her taking a name from what was...

Love this kind of thing, and the point about this level of research being so much easier now is well made. When writing vignettes I probably spend half my planning time getting names just right for the era and setting. "Abigail" as a go to for very Late Stuart wouldn't sounds old-fashioned in...

Remember reading this in 2005 - I assume the 2001 reprint, and yes it blends together very well the academic style and an engaging, sometimes personal narrative. Seeing the results of the change carried forward into the 2nd and 3rd order was also really refreshing at the time - I'd read a lot of...

The Guardian definitely had a thing for him right from the start, presumably in part because of his previous public role, but also because he is, well, very Guardian. That article is a wonderful post-Miliband pre-Corbyn time capsule though. Some choice quotes: [On Keir] "Silence speaks...