Born to the sound of an express whistling through the station, Pal Shripney’s complacent existence of standing back and letting others in life’s train do the rushing by ends when his sister Alice and her Anglican curate husband Jack become lottery winners and call for help. Irreverent Pal finds himself in a strange new ecclesiastical world of diocesan dignitaries and parochial pastoral care. He is enlightened by sharing in a mission project in Thailand, but it is interrupted by Jack catching dengue fever. Publicity of Jack’s win brings grief when his sister Janet is abducted for ransom.
Railway enthusiast Pal Shripney’s life ends gently as he listens to Arthur Honneger’s steam engine romp Pacific 231. But for his son Pip, with his concubine Petra, and for his nephew Harry, a Cambridge history don, the locomotion gains pace. Wanting to marry and raise a family, Pip and Petra face hurdles. Where in this complicated world can an uncle legally marry his niece? Meanwhile on an aid project in Cambodia they discover mysterious Chloe and unsettling Kevin.
Varius is the nomen of the Roman emperor misnamed Elagabalus or Heliogabalus. These are names of the Syrian sun god Elagabal, whose high priest Varius was while emperor. There is no evidence that he was ever so called when alive. Thus named, his posthumous legendary or mythical avatar thrives, in academic prose and popular imagination, as a Semitic monster of cruelty, depravity, fanaticism, mockery and extravagance. Recently, this monster has metamorphosed into an anarchist saint and martyr of gay liberation.
Elagabal is the name of the Syrian sun god whose high priest Varius was, at the same time as Roman emperor, AD 218-222. Because of this connexion, Varius was misnamed Heliogabalus or Elagabalus long after his death. Second in the series VARIAN STUDIES, this book discusses Elagabal’s architectural and sculptural legacy in Rome. These are represented by the Palatine site of THE VARIAN TEMPLE OF ELAGABAL IN ROME, and by relief sculpture on column capitals found in the Roman Forum, showing Elagabal with other deities, in a scene of sacrifice here reconstructed as ELAGABAL’S IDYLL.
Heliogabalus and Elagabalus are names given since late antiquity to the mythical or legendary avatar of Varius Avitus Bassianus. Varius was Roman emperor AD 218-222, ruling as Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. He was simultaneously High Priest of the Syrian sun god Elagabal. Heliogabalus and Elagabalus, names derived from Elagabal, are often used as misnomers for Varius himself, but more properly designate his avatar, who is far better known than Varius.
Helicopter pilot Emma Shripney’s steady world is to be shaken up as much as the ground below her as she flies over earthquake stricken Hastings and Napier on New Zealand’s North Island east coast. Rescuing the eighteen stranded people from Te Mata Peak leads to a sharing of tragedy and frustration, to a doomed romantic entanglement, to an involvement in commercial intrigue conflicting with ancient Maori lore, and to the experiencing of happy loyalty and a deepened love for her adopted country.
Jim Powell was chosen as one of the best new novelists by BBC2’s ‘The Culture Show’ in 2011. His third novel explores our ignorance and misconceptions of the people and situations we think we know best. It is a story set in an unnamed place, at an unspecified time, told by an unnamed narrator, that asks: how much do we really know about those closest to us…and how much do we want to know?
Sometime heir to the English throne, courtier in danger of losing her head, spy-mistress and would-be architect of a united Catholic Britain: Lady Margaret Douglas is the Tudor who survived and triumphed — but at a terrible cost.
Stretching from Ancient Rome to the World Wide Web and from the Danelaw to the Cold War, 366 Days is an engaging and entertaining chronicle of the highs and lows of world history. Whether it heralded a world-changing new discovery, the assassination of a leading politician, or a cow flying in a plane, this collection of true stories and trivia from world history proves that there is always something to be remembered 'on this day'. Each historical account has been painstakingly researched to clearly explain its causes, course and consequences.
