An Understanding

16/01/2020

The 16 January marks the 100th Anniversary of the first assembly of the Council of the League of Nations. The League was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. https://www.britishpathe.com/workspaces/df699ffd537d4e0c74710ad015dfd64d/9BnZvLdL

14/01/2020

Fabulous resource ...

We’re pleased to announce that our social media archive is now the first in the UK to be fully searchable, allowing users to navigate our growing collection of tweets, Flickr images and YouTube videos from a range of government departments.

Learn more here: socsi.in/A37pm

27/11/2019

So farewell Clive James -

'If you don't know the exact moment when the lights will go out, you might as well read until they do ... '

Rest easy great man of letters.

Clive James reading his poem Japanese Maple, filmed exclusively by QPF in his Cambridge home in March 2016. Presented by Queensland Poetry Festival, in assoc...

26/11/2019

Important deadlines (for England, Scotland & Wales) :

23:59 tonight to register online to vote
&
17:00 this evening to apply online for a postal vote

(All you "need" is your National Insurance number, date of birth & address. Citizens of the UK, Ireland and all Commonwealth countries (Australia, India, South Africa etc.) can vote in these elections) ...

Get on the electoral register so you can vote in elections and referendums.

04/09/2019

We are expanding the exhibition space for OpenWalls Arles 2020. As part of this second open call, we are highlighting photographers whose work relates to the theme: Daily Life. More information will be available soon. “In 2001, I was living in New York and staying less than a mile from the World

04/09/2019

Please find herewith - Thomas Frognall Dibdin's symptoms of Bibliomania,

"There is, first, a passion for Large Paper Copies; secondly, for Uncut Copies; thirdly, for illustrated Copies; fourthly, for Unique Copies; fifthly, for Copies Printed upon Vellum; sixthly for First Editions; seventhly, for True Editions; and eighthly, for Books printed in the Black-Letter."

However, the Bibliomaniacs at An Understanding dare to take issue with the great man - they report that 'a passion for Books printed in the Black-Letter' identified as their primary symptom; as was the case with your humble editor ...

On bibliomania.

26/08/2019

We've all promised to read it for years and years and never quite rustled up the stamina to do it. So now you can listen to Proust's In Search of Lost Time courtesy of Auntie Beeb's new adaptation - ten episodes (c9hrs) available for 28 days only ...

Marcel Proust’s allegorical contemplation on time, memory, art and love.

22/08/2019

The glorious gnomes on the Lit & Lang Desk at An Understanding have been arguing over this little monster for years ; and now that they have discovered that the hallowed Aldus Manutius invented the d**n thing, they are currently prone with the vapours ... !

President Abraham Lincoln was a big fan: “it’s a very useful little chap.”

30/07/2019

Shocking yet fascinating story of the theft of Alfred Russel Wallace's bird specimens from the Natural History Museum ...

A flute player steals a million dollars worth of dead birds.

24/07/2019

Stunning pictures sent via our birding friends on the Flora & Fauna Desk ...

24/07/2019

All agog at the Shipping Desk this morning ...

An international team of scientists have announced the discovery of the remains of a 500-year-old ship that remains pristinely intact in the cold, dark depths of the Baltic Sea.  Scientists say the shipwreck is perhaps the best preserved shipwreck of its period yet to be discovered. It was first d...

17/07/2019

Here at An Understanding's Literature Desk we have always been a little snooty about Emojis. Well, we've been proved wrong again - the following couldn't be more succinct ...