There's never a dull moment in this entertaining collection of experiences as Geoff Body & Bill Parker present often hilarious highlights from the careers of railwaymen around Britain over the last fifty years. Featuring daring robberies royal visits lost passengers bomb scares coffins circus trains & ladies of the night it chronicles both successes & disasters with accounts of moving a farm & a circus 245 miles of marooned railway footplate adventures animal capers & many equally fascinating subjects. Geoff Body & Bill Parker both enjoyed long careers on the railways & they have brought together this assortment of memories from all parts of the country. Signal Box Coming Up Sir!" is an entertaining & instructive journey for anyone with an interest in life on the railways." ...

When in 1798 Richard Bolitho hoists his broad pendant as commodore of a small squadron & prepares to re-enter the Mediterranean he is soon made aware of his responsibility. There are rumours of a massive French armada & of the latest type of artillery
- & Bolithos orders are to seek out the enemy & to discover the intentions of his growing force. Without any British bases in the Mediterranean & unable to show favour to old friends Bolitho is well aware that there are others within his ships who are no less dangerous than the enemy
- & during the weeks & months in which the squadron faces the hazards of the weather & French broadsides alike Bolitho knows that far more than his own future is at stake. A fleet even a nation could depend on his decisions & when he places his squadron between the Nile & the power of France he must accept the price of the challenge.

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In Signalmans Twilight Adrian continues the story of his railway life in rural West Berkshire. Adrian revelled in the gentle old-world atmosphere & seized every opportunity on duty & off to talk to the older railwaymen many of whom had begun their careers on the GWR in 1919
- 21 some of whom had served in the trenches with the Wiltshire Regiment in 1916
- 18 & others of whom had worked for the Midland & South Western Junction Railway in 1913 on to 1921 when we took over the Great Western as they put it. He visited other signal boxes rode the footplates of goods trains & express trains alike. Signalmans Twilight recalls the openness of the railway. Adrian could go wherever he liked on the railway & was welcomed
- even riding in the Track Testing Car behind Sudeley Castle at 97 mph. The book recalls the skill & commitment of the railwaymen which was not undermined by their allowing Adrian into their workplaces & onto their engines. He tells the amazing story of how Signalman Abrahams saved what would have been a fatal train crash
- just as he was about to start to demonstrate a new hymn he had learned for next Sundays service. Adrians admiration for the oldhand railwaymen knew no bounds. Then came modernisation dieselisation & station closures under Dr Beechings Axe. Adrian describes how he tried single-handedly to save Challow station only to earn a severe reprimand from high authority. The Axe fell & destroyed not only the stations of the Vale but a happy settled way of life.



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This richly illustrated study is the first consider the manifold functions & meanings of Halss distinctive handling of paint. Atkins explores the uniqueness of Halss approach to painting & the relationship of his manner to seventeenth-century aesthetics. He also investigates the economic motivations & advantages of his methods the operation of the style as a personal & workshop brand & the apparent modernity of the artists style. The book seeks to understand the multiple levels on which Halss consciously cultivated manner of painting operated for himself his pupils & assistants his clients & succeeding generations of viewers. As a result the book offers a wholly new understanding of one of the leading artists of the Dutch Golden Age & one of the most formative painters in the history of art in the Western tradition. It also provides a much needed interrogation of the interrelationships of subjectivity style authorship methods of artistic & commercial production economic consumption & art theory in early modernity. ...

Place-names are important to the historian & the archaeologist. Quite apart from the inherent interest of the original meaning of a place-name the fact that in England there are six successive layers of language reflected in the stock of place-names means that they provide vital evidence for dating & indeed for estimating the mixture of races in the composition of the nation. The author as President of the English Place-Name Society has succeeded in bringing the story of English place-names to a wider public in this fascinating general study. The response to the first edition demonstrated the books appeal to the reader with an interest in the evolution meaning & significance of the names of our towns villages rivers & hills. The Listener said that the book opens up the whole subject in the most enthralling manner while Comment observed.. .a classic in this field essential reading for anyone interested in local history. This new edition emphasises the contribution that this philological discipline can make to the work of the archaeologist & the historian & to our understanding of the long process of human settlement in our isl&. The sub-title of the book is Place-Names & the History of England"... Dr Gelling & her colleagues have made great strides in exploiting the latent store of information about the past preserved in the names of places." ...

The path of true love never runs smoothly & when Gemma is involved it can get exceedingly bumpy! For as long as thirteen-year-old Gemma Stone can remember she has dreamed of becoming an award-winning journalist. Unfortunately as the youngest member of the editorial team on the Green Park High student web-zine she is given the job of writing the horoscopes under the pen name ' Jessica Jupiter'. Not knowing the first thing about astrology Gemma decides to make the most of her unexpected situation by using her new position to play Cupid with her friends writing fictional forecasts to help their romantic dreams come true. But is Gemma to busy with her friends love lives to notice signs of love closer to home? ...

The path of true love never runs smoothly & when Gemma is involved it can get exceedingly bumpy! Gemma has finally been given the opportunity to work on an actual article for the school webzine. The only problem is that it involves working with annoying senior news reporter Will Bold & he's made it very clear that he doesn't want any of Gemma's help. But it's her first chance to prove herself so Gemma throws herself into the role of undercover journalist at full throttle earning some unexpected results... Meanwhile Gemma's mystic alter-ego Jessica Jupiter is still proving to be a hit amongst the students of Green Park
- & as her last project of getting Treacle & Jeff together worked out so well Gemma's keen to use her new found cupid-status to help Savannah in a love dilemma.
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As anyone who has spent time on the road knows you often have to depend on signs...to navigate through a town locate your hotel even obey the law a scary thought if youve ever come across any of the publicly posted absurdities that appear in this book. Signs about as easy to understand as a Swahili auctioneer (to a non-Swahili speaker) or as well-planned as the dance steps in a mosh pit with the help of signspotters around the globe weve assembled a collection of some of the most unintentionally entertaining postings on the planet
- we hope they confuse & amuse you!
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Their garments are black as night. They carry torches in their hands darkness & anger in their hearts. They are coming. When a dark family secret is exposed Sigruns peaceful life is shattered. Forced to pay for her parents misdeeds she finds herself exiled from all she knows
- & from the boy she loves
- for three long years. Yet more secrets lie ahead; not least the power Sigrun finds awakening in herself seemingly passed to her from a mysterious amulet. Can she use her new-found gift to save herself & those around her from the dangers they face? & will true love wait until her return?

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Louis E. Fenech offers a compelling new examination of one of the only Persian compositions attributed to the tenth Sikh Guru Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708): the Zafar-namah or ' Epistle of Victory.' Written as a masnavi a Persian poem this letter was originally sent to the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (d. 1707) rebuking his most unbecoming conduct. Incredibly Guru Gobind Singh's letter is included today within the Sikh canon one of only a very small handful of Persian-language texts granted the status of Sikh scripture. As such its contents are sung on special Sikh occasions. Perhaps equally surprising is the fact that the letter appears in the tenth Guru's book or the Dasam Granth in the standard Gurmukhi script (in which Punjabi is written) but retains its original Persian language a vernacular few Sikhs know. Drawing out the letter's direct & subtle references to the Iranian national epic the Shah-namah & to Shaikh Sa'di's thirteenth-century Bustan Fenech demonstrates how this letter served as a form of Indo-Islamic verbal warfare ensuring the tenth Guru's moral & symbolic victory over the legendary & powerful Mughal empire. Through analysis of the Zafar-namah Fenech resurrects an essential & intiguing component of the Sikh tradition: its Islamicate aspect. ...