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

The day I took on an England fast bowler

Exclusive! Watch me face a ball from England fast bowler Glynis Hullah, as I reported in 1976 on the England Women's (or Ladies' as we used to say in those days) cricket team's preparations to face the Australians https://www.macearchive.org/films/atv-today-16021976-england-ladies-cricket-team-practising-edgbaston

RIP George Foreman

I was lucky enough to interview George Foreman in Houston in 1990. A lot of top sports people are surrounded by minders. Not George. Former heavyweight champion of the world he might have been, but when you rang his number, a friendly voice answered: 'Hi! This is George'. By then, of course, he was a Christian minister.

I met him at a gym in a fairly rundown area of the city. He was a mountain of a man, gently sparring with a white boy in his early teens. George had to get down on his knees so their heads were at something like the same level. The ex-champion was charming and friendly, but if you had told me that in five years' time he was going to regain his title, I would have been rather surprised.

On the same trip to America, I interviewed another former world heavyweight champion, Floyd Patterson. When Foreman lost his heavyweight championship in 1974 it was famously to Muhammad Ali who created a sensation by regaining the title, but Patterson was the first man to perform that feat, in 1960, beating the Swede Ingemar Johansson who had surprisingly defeated him the previous year.

Patterson, who had been the youngest ever heavyweight champion, was also entourage-free, charming and unassuming. I interviewed him on army base, where I think one of his children was serving in the military. He had been born into poverty and talked about how he felt boxing had saved him from a life of crime.