FEAST OR FAMINE

  Iliennes: Souvenirs de vacances sur une ile bretonne  (2013, French edition) – Islanders: Memories of Holidays on an Island – is set on a French island from 1925 to 1968 - the island of Hoedic in Brittany in the north-west of France.   The author had three aunts – sisters Marie, Esther, and Eléonore. Esther and Eléonore lived together – one thin, the other big; one joyous and the other serious. Beautiful and intelligent Marie lives with her husband and five children.   It was a time before electricity, make-up, and anti-wrinkle cream, when everyone lived a simpler life. When mail took three days to arrive. For their holidays on the small island, they could be together, listening to the jazz records of Louis Armstrong, Billy Holiday, Django Reinhardt, and the unrequited love songs of Edith Piaf.   Over 40 years of holidays, the story focuses on her aunts with little reference to men – but they are there, in the background – the fishermen and their boats. The au...

  The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden in Ohio, America, is celebrating the birth of Fritz the baby hippo. Born on 3 August 2022 in the Hippo Cove, Zoo staff will gradually introduce him to the public for short periods, but people can see him on the Zoo’s webcam.    He was named Fritz after the public from over 60 countries submitted 90,000 potential names and voted in August between two: Ferguson and Fritz. The name Fritz received 125,183 (56%) of the 223,542 votes.    Born to his 23-year-old mum Bibi, Fritz, a Nile Hippopotamus ( Hippopotamus amphibius ), joins the rest of his hippo bloat: his five-year-old sister Fiona and 19-year-old father Tucker. Tucker arrived at the Zoo in September 2021, from San Francisco Zoo, specifically to be Bibi’s companion.    Bibi had no complications delivering her second baby, called a calf, after an eight-month pregnancy. Bibi’s first calf Fiona was born on 24 January 2017 six weeks premature and weighed only 1...

  The photographed juvenile White-Naped Crane at the Paris Zoo is three months old. It was born between 8-10 May 2022.   The  White-Naped Crane   ( Antigone vipio ) is a wetlands bird, native to Asia, about 130 centimetres (51 inches) tall with a  large wingspan of 2 metres (6.5 feet).    The juvenile  White-Naped Crane  has pale-brown and white feathers. The adult  White-Naped Crane  has  darker feathers, a grey and white striped neck, and a grey body.  It takes 2-3 years for the juvenile to gain its adult feathers.   The chicks are precocial, which means that they can run as soon as they hatch. They get their flying feathers within 56–100 days after birth. The photographed juvenile has its flying feathers.  MARTINA NICOLLS MartinaNicollsWebsite   Martinasblogs Publications Facebook Paris Website Animal Website Flower Website SUBSCRIBE TO MARTINA NICOLLS FOR NEWS AND UPDATES  MARTINA NICOLLS ...

  The Death of Dr Duncan (2022) is set in Adelaide, South Australia, from 1972. At the age of 41, London-born Dr George Ian Ogilvie Duncan, a newly-appointed law lecturer at the University of Adelaide, who had lived in the city for only seven weeks, was found dead in the River Torrens on 11 May 1972. To this day, the case has never been solved, but it led to South Australia being the first state in Australia to advance gay law reforms in 1975.     On the 50 th  anniversary of Ian Duncan’s death in 2022, author, historian, and law lecturer at the University of Adelaide, Tim Reeves, has released this comprehensively-researched book on the case.    Adelaide is my home town. At the time, while I was studying I worked night-shift for Rupert Murdoch’s daily newspaper, the  Advertiser . The newspaper provided extensive coverage of the Duncan case and, with the university, played a leading role in gay law reform.    The case gained both media p...

Java, the Bornean Orangutan at the Paris Zoo, is almost four years old. She was born on 17 October 2018 to her mother Theodora.