Thursday, 28 May 2026

I-spy Paris. Montmartre Cemetery highlights


Montmartre Cemetery is Paris's 3rd biggest. This is the last resting place of Emile Zola, Stendhal, Degas, Pierre Cardin, Jeanne Moreau, Francois Truffaut, Berlioz, Delibes, Offenbach, Theophile Gautier, Can-can dancer La Goulue, Adolphe Sax, inventor of the saxophone, among other big names. 

But the prize for the grave with most flowers must go to the singer Dalida, Egyptian-born, of Italian descent and France's biggest selling recording artist from 1957 to 1961.

Wednesday, 20 May 2026

Thank you Boundless! History of assassination talk



Great to talk to people from the Boundless organisation last night about 'Assassins' Deeds', my history of assassination. It featured the famous ones - Julius Caesar, Good King Wenceslas, Thomas Becket, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Abraham Lincoln, JFK. But also the less well know, such as the only British prime minister to be murdered.

Then there were the weird ones - the booby trapped statuette, the assassination dressed up as a tv reality show, the killer disguised as a bear. And the ones that got away - Napoleon, Queen Victoria, Fidel Castro (more than 600 times), Adolf Hitler. Some good questions at the end too - which assassination would I have most liked to prevent, which assassin was the most misunderstood?

https://www.boundless.co.uk/events/online-events/a-history-of-assassination-from-ancient-egypt-to-the-present-day