From Russia with Love: A Bear Hug

Bern, seat of the Swiss federal government, lists as one of its main attractions the ‘Bärengraben’, the compound of bears. After the death of the last bear in April 2009, the new bears have arrived these days, a gift from Dimitri Medvedev, the President of Russia due in Bern end of September 2009. 

Britannic's Lost Organ

The ocean liner Britannic was the later built sister ship to the Olympic and the Titanic. Being unfinished at the start of the Great War, the ship entered service as a hospital ship and sunk in 1916 in the Mediterranean Sea. An Organ was obviously not needed on a hospital ship and it disappeared from history to surface in 2006 in Switzerland. 

Bruce Castle (and a Ghost)

Bruce Castle is a misnomer; it is a manor house in Tottenham in London. But living up to a grand name, it has a history and a resident ghost, as well as quite a few open questions that still need to be worked out. 

Light and Shadow in The Gardens

Chatto & Windus published Christopher Lloyd: His Life At Great Dixter by Stephen Anderton. What started out as a biography of a great gardener became a double biography of Christo and his mother Daisy. But there is reason and system to this. 

The Isle of Glass

Approaching through the dense September morning’s mist, St. Michael’s tower looms dark and brooding in the half darkness on the sunless island. By perception warped and cloaked in misty shroud, the tower seems to scale the sky, a dominant power heralding either doom or just plain power to the traveler coming its way. Its indistinct outlines blurred by the wet droplets in the air and in the eyes make it seem slim and incredibly high, part of the stairs to heaven, a reminder of the Tower of Babel.