Back in 1943, the building of the Burma Railway, aka the Death Railway, took the lives of about 90 000 civilian labourers (rōmusha) and more than 12 000 Allied POWs.…
We’d come west to Kanchanaburi to learn about the Burma Death Railway and to pay our respects to those prisoners of war who had died building it by visiting the…
Noting the marked scarcity of cemeteries as we travelled around Thailand, I did some research. I checked the demographics. According to the latest available census data, approximately 94.6 percent of…
Wanting some respite from the living while in Bangkok recently, I checked to see what cemeteries were open for visiting. Two came up in my search, just two. One Protestant…
I just found a dead Irishman from Limerick, I said, quite pleased with myself. Well, he said, there are a few of us alive here, too. Conall French and his…
The origins of words and phrases are as fascinating as the words themselves. Some say the term the kiss of death grew from Mafia lore where, if the Don kissed…
I’ve heard the stories. A sister dying in Ireland a minute after her brother died in Australia (they say he picked her up on his way by). An otherwise healthy…
There’s something quite lovely about visiting a cemetery on a clear, 30-degree, blue-sky day in Havana. I’m a great fan of tombstones and would happily spend my holidays going from…
The Man Who Knew Too Much, Hitchcock’s 1956 thriller, with Doris Day and Jimmy Stewart opens in Marrakesh. Ten years later, in 1966, Our Man in Marrakesh aka Bang! Bang! You’re Dead! with Tony…
I was in Paris many moons ago and didn’t care for it much. I have only vague recollections of being there, no lasting memories other than a rather poor impression…
