Things that are interesting me…

Working out comparative rates of British civilian and military casualties during the Second World War, by service and over time. Making tables and drawing graphs.

The Defence of Britain Project, with its images, maps and records, particularly on the anti-invasion defences constructed in 1940. A very rich site, with much useful material for all sorts of research. And, via the Archaeology Data Service, a download that allows you to locate sites on Google Earth.

The newish Times Higher site, and particularly Alex Danchev’s review of  Darius Rejali’s Torture and Democracy.

France’s oldest trench veteran dies

BBC report on the death, which leaves only one poilu alive. Still a shame that the list of ‘WWI veterans’ alongside the main report finds no space to suggest that there might be female survivors of the war. Hat tip to Mike Levitch.

Work in progress

Like the East London Line, my book and Joan Rivers’ entire body, this blog is currently a work in progress… Working on tidying up the links and re-organising some categories, so please bear with any presentational issues.

How they made ‘Bloody Omaha’

Three men create a not too bad at all version of Omaha for the BBC. It seems from this that D-Day involved a lot of running round and some falling over. Bit of a broad brush summing up, perhaps, but not totally inaccurate. I would say that the noise you can hear is John Reith rolling in his grave, but I can’t see any other sort of history making it to third on the Guardian’s list of viral videos this week.