The assassination of Michael Collins and a strange quirk of fate

100 years ago today, the Irish Republican leader Michael Collins was assassinated. Collins was a leading organiser of assassinations himself, but, in his own words, he signed his death warrant when he made a peace treaty with the British.

It sparked a vicious civil war in Ireland, and a group of anti-treaty fighters ambushed Collins in his native County Cork. When they opened fire on his car, one of Collins' comrades told the driver to 'drive like hell', but Collins ordered him to stop so they could fight it out, even though he was armed only with a rifle.

By a twist of fate, Collins' regular drivers were not with him that day. The Republican hero was known to be impetuous, and some believe if one of them had been at the wheel, they would have slammed a foot on the gas before pausing a few miles up the road to inquire of Collins: 'Sorry, what was that you were saying back there, chief?'

For more on Collins' assassination and many others, see my book Assassins' Deeds. A History of Assassination from Ancient Egypt to the Present Day. (Reaktion Books)

Floods: chronicle of a disaster foretold

Late in 2013, my book Flood: Nature and Culture was published by Reaktion Books. It noted the devastating floods seen across the world the previous year, and ended with a question:-

'Are we witnessing nothing more than the normal ups and downs of the climate? Or are those calculations by so many scientists right: does mankind now face a struggle with floods the like of which we have never seen before?'

Many people in the north of the UK in particular must have been asking something similar as the rainfall records I wrote about in the book keep being broken, leading more and more politicians to concede that what they had been categorising as 'exceptional' might, in fact, be becoming normal. The Environment Agency has admitted that a 'complete rethink' may be needed on flood defences.

In Flood, I also noted that in the United States, of the 48 Republican candidates for the Senate mid-term elections of 2010, all but one either denied the existence of global warming or opposed any action to combat it. It will be interesting to note what shift in opinion, if any, we see on the American right as the next year's presidential election looms.

Flood on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Flood-Nature-Culture-John-Withington/dp/1780231962/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1451496198&sr=1-1&keywords=flood+nature+and+culture