Hocus pocus, diplodocus
IF SOMEONE IN DEVON CAN CONJURE UP a space big enough to show it off properly, the likelihood of the Natural History Museum’s famous diplodocus…
Articles Written By: John Fisher
This author has written 49 articles
Firste ketch a pecok
THE VANITY OF DEVON’S FERAL PEACOCKS has been causing problems for car owners in the vicinity of Bishop’s Court Palace, Clyst St. Mary, one of…
West Country or Westcountry?
WITHOUT WISHING TO STATE what Basil Faulty might call ‘the bloomin’ obvious’ (or something like that) we live in the West Country. Note, two words.…
Agatha Christie and the potato mystery
MENTION OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH in our last issue and the suggestion that he was responsible for triggering the behaviour of generations of chip-scavenging Devon…
Carry on – scrumping
ACCORDING TO THE GOOD BOOK, Eve was the world’s first scrumper, which documented act had both she and her husband, Adam, evicted from the Garden…
The man they could not hang
JOHN ‘BABBACOMBE’ LEE was probably not guilty of the murder of his employer, Emma Keyse at her home in Babbacombe on 15th November 1884. The…
Aux armes, Devon! Atteindre pour votre fromage!*
THERE WERE PLENTY OF DEVONIANS at the Battle of Agincourt. They were led by Sir John Chichester of Pilton, Sheriff of the county, (that’s his…
Have Seagulls had their Chips?
BEFORE our holiday visitors flock back a quick word to the natives, if we may, about our seagulls. They are, first and foremost, terrible chip-stealers…
Over the hills – or far away?
IT WILL BE AT LEAST six more years (that’s two elections away) before Devon County Council’s proposed A30/A303 upgrade from Ilminster in Somerset to Honiton,…
Here Comes The Sun
IT HAS BEEN MORE THAN a year since the Met Office announced that it had added space weather to its forecasting. Since then the Space…
The Green Stuff
THE MOST TOXIC spaces to work in, reckons Dr. Chris Knight and his fellow psychologists at Exeter University, is devoid of pictures and greenery. “If…
Napoleon’s farewell to Devon
When Napoleon exited the field at Waterloo 200 years ago this year, few could have guessed that within a few short weeks he would be…