Terence Eden. He has a beard and is smiling.

Terence Eden’s Blog

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Book Review: Black Tudors: The Untold Story - Miranda Kaufmann

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A black trumpet player.

A black porter publicly whips a white Englishman in the hall of a Gloucestershire manor house. A Moroccan woman is baptised in a London church. Henry VIII dispatches a Mauritanian diver to salvage lost treasures from the Mary Rose. From long-forgotten records emerge the remarkable stories of Africans who lived free in Tudor England… They were present at some of the defining moments of the age. …

By Act of Parliament 1603: One Mulberry Tree

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Welcome to my descent into a mulberry-induced madness. As I was wandering through the quaint European town of Woodstock, I noticed a most intriguing plaque affixed to one of the houses. This seems like a curiously specific act to pass! This house is № 28 High Street - so why would Parliament pass an act declaring it to be 1 Mulberry Tree? My first stop was the Parliamentary Legislation site. …

Asymmetric Latency

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I've just finished reading the most wonderful short story - Tower of Babylon by Ted Chiang. In it, he speculates on what would happen if The Tower of Babel were completed. For those unfamiliar with the legend, it tells of a people who tried to build a tower tall enough to reach the heavens. The book talks about the people who live partway up the massive tower, unable to comprehend what life is…

Bletchley Park

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Sign at a train station saying "Welcome to Bletchley. The home of Bletchley Park & Enigma."

Bletchley Park stands as a testament to the power of mathematics. It represents the idea that brains, not brawn, are vital to winning any conflict. Like many Brits, I learned about the Second World War at school. I devoured books - fiction and non - about the war. What interested me wasn't the tales of derring-do, of men fighting for their lives, bombs, guns, bullets and knives. No, what…