Bringing a little colour to your life each day - with six things that delight, inform and entertain.
Dungeness is a headland on the coast of Kent, formed largely of a shingle beach. A combination of factors - the endless shingle, strange plants, boat skeletons, lighthouses, nuclear power station, nature reserve, miniature railway and miniature houses, plus the brooding near presence of the MOD combine to make this an eerie place.
Piers Plowman is a Middle English narrative poem written by William Langland between 1370-1390. It contains the first known reference to the tales of Robin Hood, and is considered by many critics to be one of the greatest works of English literature from its time - preceding and influencing Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
The starling is a familiar bird visitor to gardens around Britain, notable for the beautiful purple-and-green sheen to its black feathers. It is also famous for its wintry aerial displays with massive flocks of sterlings to be seen wheeling in apparently co-ordinate aerobatics over both built-up areas and farmland.
Lord Minimus was the name given to a court dwarf, adopted by English queen Henrietta Maria of France, the wife of Charles I. Later ennobled, Sir Jeffrey Hudson (1619 –circa 1682) was considered one of the 'wonders of the age' because of his extreme but well-proportioned smallness.
Manicured lawns are an English tradition, though the perfect lawn was once the preserve of the very rich due to the tedious labour-intensive activity required to maintain it. Then the world's first lawnmower was developed by Edwin Budding from Stroud in 1830, apparently then regarded as such a bizarre contraption that he had to test it at night so no one could see it.
Charing Cross Road and Charing Cross Railway Station in London are named after a medieval symbol of love and grief.
Six things to delight and entertain you every day.