Search

...opened the previous March in Hotwells, a run-down spa at the foot of the Avon Gorge outside Bristol. Originally developed to rival nearby Bath, Hotwells had dwindled to a downmarket cluster of cheap clinics and miracle-cure outfits offering hydrotherapy or mesmerism to those in the desperate last stages of consumption; but the Pneumatic Institution was a new arrival with...

...opened in profusion, offering ‘jazz’ and ‘blues’ tuition, plus lessons in the Charleston, Turkey Trot, Chicago Maze and Swansea’s Marina Saunter with women’s bands supplying the new music. While Wales danced towards the Second World War, large dance orchestras evolved from the combos, propelling a new generation of young women leading the bands into the swing...

...course questions about what makes our life meaningful also arise in our ordinary mortal lives; just in our ordinary decisions about what kind of life to lead. Even if you think immortality isn’t a real possibility, it can still be useful to think about the possibility when we’re thinking about these more practical questions. And that’s because sometimes thinking...