I-Spy Paris. Not the Arc de Triomphe

 I-Spy Paris. Not the Arc de Triomphe, but an arc de triomphe. The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, by the Tuileries Gardens close to the Louvre. Erected in 1808 to celebrate Napoleon's victories in Italy. Its better known cousin at Place Charles de Gaulle was not finished until 1836. This arc has been undergoing restoration work and on the day I visited, it was still cordoned off.

Day Return to Oxford

49 years ago, in the glorious summer of 1976, I was lucky enough to persuade ATV, then the ITV company for the Midlands, to let me go back to my old Oxford college, New College, to make a film about how things had changed since I had left eight years before. The result was a programme called 'Day Return to Oxford' which can now be viewed online thanks to MACE, the Media Archive of Central London. This is the link https://www.macearchive.org/films/day-return-oxford

One of the big changes the film focuses on is the admission of women to what had been, in my day, exclusively male colleges, and one of the interviewees is the first female cox of Brasenose College's rowing eight. Then there is New College undergraduate (student) Miles Young, talking about his sadness at leaving Oxford and about how hard it was to find a good job. After a distinguished career in advertising, he would go on to become Warden (i.e. boss) of New College. There is also a veteran 'scout' (college servant) giving the lowdown on what is was like cleaning up after privileged young men, and the head of the careers service discussing the challenge of finding Oxford graduates the job of their dreams.

Other vexed questions tackled included: how much work did undergraduates do, and what was it like for young men and women to be in a university where the sex ratio was still about four men to every woman. But because the weather was so wonderful, the real star of the film was Oxford itself.

I-Spy Vienna. The Russian War Memorial

One of Stalin's priorities at the end of World War Two was to get Soviet war memorials erected sharpish in what would become Western European countries. One went up in 1945 just inside what became West Berlin by the Tiergarten just inside the Brandenburg Gate. 

The one in central Vienna also went up in 1945 within months of the end of the war. Locals refer to it rather unkindly as the 'Monument to the Unknown Looter'. The memorials gave the Russians a useful foothold in the West, with guards stationed by the one in Berlin, while Putin was a regular visitor to Vienna's. If he goes back now, he'll find the huge wall at the back has been painted in the colours of Ukraine.

Japanese artist Hiroshige and fireworks in art

The great Japanese artist Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) is currently featured in an exhibition at the British Museum entitled 'Artist of the Open Road', which includes one of the pictures I used in my book A History of Fireworks from their Origins to the Present Day (Reaktion Books) in the chapter on fireworks in the arts.

Entitled Fireworks over Ryogoku Bridge (1858), it is a woodblock print showing a display at the famous bridge built in the seventeenth century over the Sumida River in Tokyo. The area remains a popular venue for pyrotechnics to this day, and there is also a fireworks museum. 

Not featured in the exhibition, but included in my book is another of Hiroshige's prints Enjoying the Fireworks and the Cool of the Evening at Ryogoku Bridge (c. 1847). This work concentrates on the audience rather than the fireworks.

Although there are many fine pictures of fireworks from famous painters such as Turner, Whistler and Joseph Wright, quite a few artists have found the audience as interesting as the spectacle. As early as 1579, Giovanni Ambrogio Brambilla’s depiction of the celebrated Castel Sant’Angelo display in Rome shows a rather blasé crowd. Although they are so small in the frame to be almost a detail, on close examination they seem to be chatting among themselves rather than taking in the great events in the sky.

While in Fire-Works on the Night of the Fourth of July (1868) by the American artist Winslow Homer, the fireworks are incidental and our eye is drawn to the toff in the foreground, whose hat is being hit by a falling rocket

This is the link for the exhibition - https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/hiroshige-artist-open-road?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22446594171&gbraid=0AAAAADPXika-SUY2YYg-fnS52S2BwTZU-&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIj92kspndjgMViplQBh187xnjEAAYASAAEgJp0vD_BwE

History of Fireworks reviewed in Vietnamese!

My book 'A History of Fireworks from their Origins to the Present Day' (Reaktion Books) appears to have been reviewed in Vietnamese! (It's written in English.) Apparently, the headline reads 'Fireworks - from entertainment to divisive and political intrigue'.  

Pháo hoa - từ giải trí đến mưu đồ chia rẽ và chính trị - Xuất bản - ZNEWS.VN

My CBS Radio interview about 4 July and the history of fireworks

Great to be interviewed by CBS Radio about the history of fireworks for their 4 July special. My contribution comes at about 18 minutes in. The interview draws on my book 'A History of Fireworks from their Origins to the Present Day' (Reaktion Books), and we cover the mysterious origins of fireworks, how they became part of Independence Day celebrations, accidents they were involved in, and how some Americans tried to get them banned https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cbs-news-radio-independence-day-special-2025-hour-1/id1524962402?i=1000715564238

My history of fireworks - a review for July 4 in the WSJ

4 July, Independence Day, is America's biggest fireworks day, and right on cue, the 'Wall Street Journal' has reviewed my book - 'A History of Fireworks from their Origins to the Present Day' (Reaktion Books). Not all Americans have been fans of the revelry - with some complaining that more people had died celebrating independence than were killed in the battles that won it. The book tells the warts-and-all story of pyrotechnics' triumphs and tragedies across the world

https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/a-history-of-fireworks-review-the-pursuit-of-big-bangs-fc0a5023