David Caldwell › Comments

"Prague is one of the oldest Jewish Centres in Central Europe and the Jewish Community has over one thousand years of history. Most of the Jewish sites of Prague are in the Josefov, The Jewish Quarter. The 17th century is considered the Golden Age of Jewish Prague. The Jewish community of Prague numbered some 15,000 people (approx. 30 per cent of the entire population), making it the largest Ashkenazic community in the world and the second largest Jewish community in Europe after Thessaloniki. In the years 1597 to 1609, the Maharal (Judah Loew ben Bezalel) served as Prague's Chief Rabbi. He is considered the greatest of Jewish scholars in Prague's history, his tomb in the Old Jewish Cemetery eventually becoming a pilgrimage site." - David Caldwell

Prague is one of the oldest Jewish Centres in Central Europe and the Jewish Community has over one thousand years of history. Most of the Jewish sites of Prague are in the Josefov, The Jewish Quarter. When this was redeveloped in the 1890’s it had deteriorated into an insanitary slum with only 20% of the population being still Jewish as rising prosperity and legal changes had allowed successful Jewish families to move to other parts of Prague. It was still the cultural centre of the community containing the Jewish Town Hall, Synagogues and old buildings and the Old Jewish Cemetery although burials were now held at the New Cemetery. For most of its history Prague had been a multiethnic city with important Czech, German, and (mostly Czech- and/ or German-speaking) Jewish populations. From 1939, when the country was occupied by Nazi Germany, and during World War II, most Jews either fled the city or were killed in the Holocaust. - David Caldwell

Since the collapse of the Iron Curtain in 1991, Prague has become one of Europe’s - and the worlds - most popular tourist destinations. As in London, Paris, and Rome, visitors flock to the gorgeous buildings and monuments that grace the streets of Prague, entranced by structures ranging from Gothic and baroque to cubist and neoclassical. And while hundreds of thousands stroll over the Charles Bridge and gaze up at the St. Vitus Cathedral each year, far fewer venture away from the crowds to seek out the countless gems of art nouveau peppered throughout Prague. Significant Art Nouveau sites include the Municipal House, the Wilson Railway Station, the Grand Hotel Europa, and works by sculptors František Bílek, Ladislav Šaloun, and Stanislav Sucharda. There are large numbers of remarkable buildings in Art Nouveau style in Prague that remain unknown to the tourists since they pay attention mostly only to the Castle and the Charles Bridge. - David Caldwell

Regular blogistas will know that my favourite English City is the “City of the Dreaming Spires” the university city of Oxford. With so much learning going on Oxford contains many homes to the Muses or Museums to give them their more familiar title. There is the Pitts River Museum, The Museum of Oxford, The Museum of the History of Science, The Bates Collection of Musical Instruments, The Christchurch Picture Gallery and The Oxford Museum of Natural History. Oxford's museums and collections are world renowned. They provide an important resource for scholars around the world, and welcome visits from members of the public. - David Caldwell

"Regular blogistas will know that my favourite English City is the “City of the Dreaming Spires” the university city of Oxford. With so much learning going on Oxford contains many homes to the Muses or Museums to give them their more familiar title. There is the Pitts River Museum, The Museum of Oxford, The Museum of the History of Science, The Bates Collection of Musical Instruments, The Christchurch Picture Gallery and The Oxford Museum of Natural History. Oxford's museums and collections are world renowned. They provide an important resource for scholars around the world, and welcome visits from members of the public. More than a million people visit the University’s museums and collections every year. For me from all this abundance of riches one of my favourite places to visit is what has been the somewhat forbidding and eccentric Ashmolean Museum. (http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008... ... )" - David Caldwell

"Armistice Day and the wearing of the poppy have always created difficulty for Irish people, a difficulty which echoes the cathartic schism which occurred in Ireland from 1914 to 1918, the years of the “Great War.”" - David Caldwell

Armistice Day and the wearing of the poppy have always created difficulty for Irish people, a difficulty which echoes the cathartic schism which occurred in Ireland from 1914 to 1918, the years of the “Great War.” - David Caldwell

Take a trip to your local branch of Prêt a Manger and the chances are you'll be made aware of their "fresh ingredients" boasts. So the news that the high street chain is importing frozen chicken from Brazil may come as a surprise to you as it did to me. I used to greatly admire Prêt whose headquarters is in Hudson Place beside Victoria Station. - David Caldwell

"Take a trip to your local branch of Prêt a Manger and the chances are you'll be made aware of their "fresh ingredients" boasts. So the news that the high street chain is importing frozen chicken from Brazil may come as a surprise to you as it did to me. I used to greatly admire Prêt whose headquarters is in Hudson Place beside Victoria Station. It was set up by two college friends with its first shop in Victoria Street and in the early days Julian Metcalfe’s parents kitchen in their flat near Westminster Cathedral supplied the shop. They aimed to shake up the British sandwich market. However McDonalds bought a 33% share in 2001 (since sold last year at a considerable profit to Bridgepoint Capital) and there was concern that they would lose their ethical edge. These concerns now seem to have been borne out." - David Caldwell

"Rarely can there be a group as worthy of support as this (The Tayto appreciation society on Facebook) - I had to join as in an increasingly transient world the continuity and happiness provided by Tayto is important! My life and Tayto have crossed on two occasions, both in a previous life as a VAT inspector in Dublin." - David Caldwell

Hallowe’en seems to have grown around the ancient Gaelic festival of Samhain, marking the end of the light half of the year and the beginning of the dark half. All Hallows' Eve, has over the years moved from the Celtic Festival of Samhain to trick-or-treat. Samhain was the time of the final harvest of the beasts of the field, and the crops, in preparation of winter provisions, the eve of Winter's first day, and the beginning of the next Wheel of the Year. - David Caldwell

Rarely can there be a group as worthy of support as this (The Tayto appreciation society on Facebook) - I had to join as in an increasingly transient world the continuity and happiness provided by Tayto is important! My life and Tayto have crossed on two occasions, both in a previous life as a VAT inspector in Dublin. - David Caldwell

"All Hallows' Eve, has over the years moved from the Celtic Festival of Samhain to trick-or-treat. Samhain was the time of the final harvest of the beasts of the field, and the crops, in preparation of winter provisions, the eve of Winter's first day, and the beginning of the next Wheel of the Year. Samhain was in part a sort of harvest festival, when the last crops were gathered in for the winter, and livestock killed and stored. But the pagan Celts also believed it was a time when the walls between our world and the next became thin and porous, allowing spirits to pass through. The practice of wearing spooky costumes may have its roots in that belief: dressing up as a ghost to scare off other ghosts seems to have been the idea." - David Caldwell

"The Tube has driven engineering developments and creative design. It has featured in countless books, songs, films and poems. It has been the site of births and deaths, and bombs planted by everyone from pre-war anarchists to suffragettes, the IRA to the Islamist suicide bombers of 2005. Yet this venerable railway system keeps going, keeps growing and keeps enabling more than one billion Londoners a year to make their daily commute." - David Caldwell

Though we take it for granted, and frequently curse it to high heaven, the London Underground is a wonder. The Tube network is the oldest and longest underground railway system serving a major city. Its history goes back to 1863, its conception even earlier. - David Caldwell

"In the bad old days before Gerry Adams Gang aka Gerry and the Peacemakers discovered Peace, Love and Understanding one of the more disreputable aspects of the IRA (In Ireland these things are relative) was the euphemistically named “Fundraising Activities.” Indeed these crypt-fascists masquerading as Republicans were the greatest beneficiaries of Partition running numerous rackets in the border areas of Ireland relating to smugglings, fraud on EEC subsidies, diesel rackets etc; Indeed it was never obvious where private gangsterism and “The Cause” began and ended as many fine houses and “businesses” owned by Republican hard men in border areas testify." - David Caldwell

In the bad old days before Gerry Adams Gang aka Gerry and the Peacemakers discovered Peace, Love and Understanding one of the more disreputable aspects of the IRA (In Ireland these things are relative) was the euphemistically named “Fundraising Activities.” Indeed these crypt-fascists masquerading as Republicans were the greatest beneficiaries of Partition running numerous rackets in the border areas of Ireland relating to smugglings, fraud on EEC subsidies, diesel rackets etc; Indeed it was never obvious where private gangsterism and “The Cause” began and ended as many fine houses and “businesses” owned by Republican hard men in border areas testify. - David Caldwell

It may well be the Last Post next year for London’s unique other underground which was closed and mothballed in 2003. The Post Office Railway, also known as Mail Rail, was a narrow gauge driverless private underground railway in London built by the Post Office to move mail between sorting offices. This 2 foot gauge 6.5mile railway was opened in 1927 and at its peak run between Paddington Sorting Office and Whitechapel Eastern Delivery Office. The trains are driverless and are controlled by switching the 440 volt DC traction voltage. Inspired by the Chicago Tunnel Company, it was in operation from 1927 until 2003 - David Caldwell

"The trains are driverless and are controlled by switching the 440 volt DC traction voltage. Inspired by the Chicago Tunnel Company, it was in operation from 1927 until 2003 It ran east-west from Paddington Head District Sorting Office in the west to the Eastern Head District Sorting Office at Whitechapel in the east, a distance of 6.5 miles (10.5 km). It had eight stations, but by 2003 only three stations remained in use because the sorting offices above the other stations had been relocated." - David Caldwell

I'm deeply ashamed that the BBC’s Question Time has given a platform to the BNP's Nick Griffin, a fascist thug with serious form, a holocaust denier and a convicted racist masquerading as a democratic politician. Is that why we pay, under pain of imprisonment, a TV tax out of money which is already taxed? Tonight the BBC lost any moral justification for a licence fee. - David Caldwell

"I'm deeply ashamed that the BBC’s Question Time has given a platform to the BNP's Nick Griffin, a fascist thug with serious form, a holocaust denier and a convicted racist masquerading as a democratic politician. Is that why we pay, under pain of imprisonment, a TV tax out of money which is already taxed? Tonight the BBC lost any moral justification for a licence fee." - David Caldwell

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009... - David Caldwell

"http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009... ..." - David Caldwell

These are shots of Sarah Siddons, the oldest working main line electric locomotive in Britain making special trips between Harrow-on-the-Hill, via Rickmansworth to Amersham on Sunday 17 May as part of the Rickmansworth Festival. Engine no. 12, Sarah Siddons, was built in 1922 and is the last operational Metropolitan Railway electric locomotive; the only surviving working engine out of 20 built by Metropolitan Vickers and mostly named after people associated with the area served by the Metropolitan Railway. The engines had a top speed of 65 miles per hour. - David Caldwell

A Tube worker has been caught on camera abusing an elderly passenger, calling him a “jumped- up little git”. The employee lost his temper when the man politely complained about getting his arm stuck in a door for several seconds as he tried to leave a train. - David Caldwell

"Mayor Boris Johnson said he was appalled by the incident. TfL today suspended the worker while it launched an investigation. In the video posted by a fellow passenger on YouTube, the worker shouts: “Ladies and gentlemen, this train goes nowhere until little man gets off.” Jonathan MacDonald, from Camberley, who works in Covent Garden, filmed the incident yesterday at 2.30pm. He said the well-dressed man's initial complaint was civil. “I saw an elderly man with his arm trapped in the closing door of a faulty train at Holborn station,” he said." - David Caldwell

I was so sorry to hear about Stephen Gately's untimely death in Majorca at the age of 33. I had met him a number of times and he was a very endearing, unaffected character. Ar dheis Dé go raibh anam uasal. - David Caldwell

I was so sorry to hear about Stephen Gately's untimely death in Majorca at the age of 33. I had met him a number of times and he was a very endearing, unaffected character. Ar dheis Dé go raibh anam uasal. - David Caldwell

It is not just in the UK that politicians have been found to have had their snouts firmly in the expenses trough. More details about expenses incurred by Irish Politician John O ‘Donoghue have been disclosed this morning as the Ceann Comhairle (Speaker of the Irish Parliament) gives in to mounting public pressure and outrage and resigns. The news comes after considerable public outrage at an expenses scandal at another Irish Government, FAS, which say the “disgraced” chief executive leave with a Euros 1.1 million pay off and a side deal where a prestige car was secretly given to him as a leaving gift. In addition the Irish Taxpayer has been left holding a Euros 90 Bn. Bill for toxic property loans made by Irish Banks. The construction and property industries in Ireland have virtually collapsed leading to severe economic contraction and the wry joke that the children’s character “Bob the Builder” has to be renamed, he is now just called Bob. - David Caldwell

"It is not just in the UK that politicians have been found to have had their snouts firmly in the expenses trough. More details about expenses incurred by Irish Politician John O ‘Donoghue have been disclosed this morning as the Ceann Comhairle (Speaker of the Irish Parliament) gives in to mounting public pressure and outrage and resigns. The news comes after considerable public outrage at an expenses scandal at another Irish Government, FAS, which say the “disgraced” chief executive leave with a Euros 1.1 million pay off and a side deal where a prestige car was secretly given to him as a leaving gift. In addition the Irish Taxpayer has been left holding a Euros 90 Bn. Bill for toxic property loans made by Irish Banks. The construction and property industries in Ireland have virtually collapsed leading to severe economic contraction and the wry joke that the children’s character “Bob the Builder” has to be renamed, he is now just called Bob. Public stoicism at the economic downturn has..." - David Caldwell