Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Andrew McCabe

@andrewahala.bsky.social

1.1K followers 760 following 2.4K posts

Antiquarian books, Numismatics History. Modernism. Classical & African Art Literature & Culture #sicklecell, 🏳️‍🌈 dad, he/him. Woke af. 🇮🇪 🇳🇬

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Andrew McCabe @andrewahala.bsky.social · May 22

important mammals like me

#dogs

Andrew McCabe @andrewahala.bsky.social · 1h

Glad you estimated as I didn't do the calc 🤣 someone else estimated 225mph which is about 10% more but as its only a seven second vid that's within the fully-accurate range
#Shinkansen

Andrew McCabe @andrewahala.bsky.social · 6h

Japanese trains are amazing.

If you do your maths right you can estimate the speed of this train through Odawara, Kanagawa. End carriages are 27 m and the standard ones are 25 m in.lenght. Total of 16 carriages.

1 1

Andrew McCabe @andrewahala.bsky.social · 19h

Austin. Austin has never stopped zooming long enough to take anything except a blurred photo, but a Roman Republican coin die engraver captured him perfectly about 2170 years ago

1 5

Andrew McCabe @andrewahala.bsky.social · 20h

Seated 12 days out of 94 between late July and late October.

Reminds me of the corrupt and useless 1922-1969 Northern Ireland Parliament whose workload was so small it only sat for a few weeks each year, most usually, and a measure of its irrelevence, to pass private member divorce bills

Andrew McCabe @andrewahala.bsky.social · 21h

That's Greenwich Village. Anti-Gay bias as usual in AI LLMs.

Reposted by Andrew McCabe

Suffolk Detectorist @sdetectorist.bsky.social · 1d

Following the recoinage of Edward I in 1279, things turned around, literally.......

. One penny .
=
Two Halfpennies
=
Four Farthings

2 1 33

Andrew McCabe @andrewahala.bsky.social · 1d

One of several lawn areas in my apartment block, and the lawn in my mum's house. What makes the latter more than usually Veblen-ish is mum now lives in a care home so it only gets looked at (a lawns main purpose) once every few weeks.

Lawns DO lower blood pressure tho so not a complete waste.

Andrew McCabe @andrewahala.bsky.social · 1d

Surprised The Australian signed up. Probably to write stories on the totalitarian media reps who signed onto the new policy.

Andrew McCabe @andrewahala.bsky.social · 2d

Rather attractive ed of War and Peace at Quaritch: I want. Read W&P as a kid, time for a re-read.

Wartime ed. in English, signed by Clementine Churchill (1885-1977) in the wake of the Battle of Stalingrad, with a pasted in note from the Agniya Maisky, the wife of the Soviet ambassador to the UK.

Clementine Churchill

29. TOLSTOY, Leo; Louise MAUDE and Aylmer MAUDE, translators. War and Peace. London, Macmillan and Oxford University Press, 1942.

8vo, pp. xxviii, 1352, with publishers' printed bookmark with dramatis personae loosely inserted; small hole to 2K1 affecting a few words, occasional minor tears to margins; in publisher's red cloth, spine lettered in gilt, printed endpapers with map of Napoleon's invasion of Russia; a few scuffs and stains to covers, spine a little sunned, but a good copy; facsimile manuscript note from Agniya Maisky pasted to front free endpaper, signed inscription of Clementine Churchill to half-title (see below).

£1850

Wartime edition of Tolstoy's masterpiece translated into English, this copy poignantly inscribed and signed by Clementine Churchill (1885-1977) in the wake of the Battle of Stalingrad, with a copy of a note from the wife of the Soviet ambassador to the UK.

The association recorded here seems to have begun in 1941 with the establishment of the Aid to Russia Fund in response to Operation Barbarossa. Mrs Churchill was its chair. Under her and working closely with Agniya, wife of Ivan Maisky, the USSR's ambassador to London the fund raised nearly £8,000,000 for the Soviet Red Cross during Hitler's invasion.

The present copy is the earliest of a few similarly inscribed and likely sold to raise money for the fund. To the front free endpaper is pasted a reproduction of a note from Agniya (signing here as 'Agnes'): '1812-1942 We destroyed our enemy then, We will destroy our enemy now'. Facing it is the following original inscription in Mrs Churchill's hand: 'The main theme of this immortal Work - War against a ruthless invader is being tragically but gloriously re-enacted to-day. Clementine S. Churchill February 1943′. This dates the inscription to the days or weeks following the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, at which German forces had finally surrendered on 2 February. The following October, now certain of victory in Europe, Churchill would meet Stalin in Moscow to decide the post-war fate of Poland and the Balkans, at a conference codenamed 'Tolstoy'.

We are aware of only a handful of copies thus inscribed to have appeared in commerce, none dated as early as ours, and none therefore as proximate to the crucial turning point in the war

Andrew McCabe @andrewahala.bsky.social · 3d

Hard to parse. One of the Rolexes is platinum and another gold; one of the Seikos platinum. One Rolex has a special anti magnetic movement; one Seiko a Spring Drive movement accurate to less than a second a day and another a 37 jewel hi-beat movement; several of both have hand made dials. All good.

Andrew McCabe @andrewahala.bsky.social · 3d

Istanbul next week via Ireland. Two modest travel watches; Seiko Marinemaster and Rolex Super Oyster.

Andrew McCabe @andrewahala.bsky.social · 3d

Four times Rolex. Four times Grand Seiko. Comparing and contrasting I wonder which looks best?

2 3

Andrew McCabe @andrewahala.bsky.social · 3d

How to properly store, care for, and disappear a Rolex 1503 Oyster Perpetual Date with gold case and gold rivet bracelet
#dogs

2 7

Andrew McCabe @andrewahala.bsky.social · 3d

Turkey is a European outlier in that same-sex relations have been legal since 1858. I've often been to gay venues in Istanbul. It would be a reason to avoid travel and avoid spending money on Turkish goods and services were it to change.

1 1

Andrew McCabe @andrewahala.bsky.social · 3d

Four red double decker Routemasters on Westminster bridge. Millbank tower to the left. Elizabeth Tower (with its more well known bell), Parliament and the Thames. And Austin.

Austin overlooking scene as described from the south bank

Reposted by Andrew McCabe

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social · 4d

This extraordinarily vibrant green-glazed jar was made in China in the 8th century.

1 21 140

Andrew McCabe @andrewahala.bsky.social · 4d

Austin Fast as Fuck

(with apols to voiceover originator)
#dogs

Andrew McCabe @andrewahala.bsky.social · 4d

When travelling with any common big mass-market paperback it's perfectly ok to tear off the pages as you read, to lighten the travel load and obviate the need for bookmarks

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 5d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

1 4

Andrew McCabe @andrewahala.bsky.social · 4d

On learning yesterday that I have a free Oyster (London transport) pass, a friend asked me "are those given out at retirement age (67)?"

I fear I'm beyond being called "Daddy" in his dreams.

Andrew McCabe @andrewahala.bsky.social · 5d

Wow what a miss. Should have bought it 🤯

1 1

Andrew McCabe @andrewahala.bsky.social · 5d

As you see, they do have a skylight 😁

bit of staff creativity involved as to choice of geography

1 1

Andrew McCabe @andrewahala.bsky.social · 5d

Gang guy asked a "customer", opera singer from the Met, to negotiate an intro to the cool and relaxed white Irish guy. But singer reminded me of the story of the frog and the scorpion: no matter how comfy you get, he's a potentially violent criminal. Actually he wasn't. Big softie as it turned out

1 3

Andrew McCabe @andrewahala.bsky.social · 5d

Stem-adjacent women archaeologists on Ada Lovelace Day #ALD25

1. Gertrude Bell 1868-1926: writer, political officer, Middle East specialist and archaeologist

2. Agatha Christie 1890-1976: archaeologist at Nineveh, Chagar Bazar & Nimrud, which rubbed off onto her writing eg Murder in Mesopotamia

pic Bell (right) and fellow archaologist Fattuh (left) and a tent in Anatolia

Christie with a measuring stick and ancient object in front of tents, middle east, taking a photo

Reposted by Andrew McCabe

The Society of Antiquaries of London @antiquaries.bsky.social · 5d

Join Prof. Abubakar Sani Sule this Thursday to hear about under-researched collections from northern Nigeria, which are of global significance in terms of medieval trade & polities, & also serve as powerful materials for public engagement. It's free!

www.sal.org.uk/event/west-a...

West African Communities Past & Present seen through Nigerian & British Museum Collections - Society of Antiquaries of London

African archaeological collections have been the focus of much attention, linking to questions around the public value of museums and the power of artefacts to present plural narratives. Professor Sul...

www.sal.org.uk

7 11

Andrew McCabe @andrewahala.bsky.social · 5d

Daunt Books, Marylebone, where shelves are sorted by geographic location of where the action takes place.

A few Nigeria and West African shelves:

Two shelves of books incl Kolawole The Road to the Salt Sea

Two shelves of books incl Achebe, Arrow of God; Ngozi-Adiche, Half of a Yellow Sun and Stollun, What Britain did to Nigeria

Two shelves of books incl Kingsley, Travels in West Africa

1 4