The Wonders of the Web

One of the wonders of this thing called the internet, is that it occasionally throws up (sometimes, quite literally) people from your past.

Imagine my delight, then, when in a moment of idle Googling I came across an old acquaintence of mine from many years ago: Professor Julian Syngen-Smythe. I first encountered Julian during a rather heated discussion in the Doctored Dog in Stockport - a hostelry which has, alas, since made way for a portion of a rather large shopping centre. At the time, he was then a mere post-graduate, visiting Manchester University to give a series of lectures on a set of diaries he had found, purporting to tell the life of a victorian aristorcrat of the unlikely name of Lord Likely.

We became firm friends, and it was only the arrival on the scene of Mrs Blunt, some years later, and our subsequent removal to Oldham, that led our friendship into abeyance.

What a pleasure, therefore, to find that he is still active. If only I hadn't cancelled my subscription to The History Book Club, maybe I would have recognised that he had published widely on a range of historical subjects? Better still, I could have had them at quite a substantial discount.

I am, nevertheless, pleased to see that he is actively embracing modern technology, and that he has his own blog. More power to his leather-padded elbow.