Recent content by Rasputin

Very interested to see how this pans out. A continuing Commonwealth doesn't come up terribly often on this site, and it's very gratifying to see a timeline as well-written as this exploring the subject. The "or is it?" has me worried. History being what it is, monarchies are often persistent...

Oooh, I'm liking this. Most dieselpunk tends to focus on the superficial aesthetics like jazz and art deco and chrome-plated airships and Maus tanks and the like, the whole Great Gatsby surface-level vibe. They tend to ignore the roiling political ferment going on underneath it all. It's a...

Chicago Sun Herald Tribune Register Times Gazette - 18 May 1915 "Cossacks war with Banditos in Waco, Texas: 9 people dead, 20 injured" Gun runners caught in ambush as they cross border from United States President Diaz protests US inaction in stopping arms reaching Mexican revolutionaries...

Ed Balls Ed Balls Even the filler is Ed Balls

The old joke was always that an Irish-style British Presidency would see Jeremy Clarkson squaring off against Stephen Fry, so while in real life it would of course be nothing of the sort, it clearly wouldn't be a million miles away as the Croydon Two have adroitly presented.

Well, if the Gulf Emirs are busy being eaten by their own jackals, I suppose somebody's got to step up to the "vanity sports league" plate. Colour me intrigued. Subbed!

Brilliant. Brown couldn't have murdered Miliband more thoroughly if he'd descended into the crowd and punched him in the face. I'd actually forgotten about the "this is no time for a novice" speech until now, and it brought back fond memories of what was arguably his finest hour. With the...

Ah...I remember when the dam broke in '08, Brown hadn't looked so chipper in years. At the time it seemed like just another nail in the coffin of Labour's stint in power, but in retrospect it's hard to overestimate just how crucial Brown and Darling were to saving the country's banking system...

Masterful. Of course we'd be wittering on about the Blancan Question every second week. :)

Seems that way. I wonder if the Spain in this TL has the kind of constitutionally-neutered, nationally-cherished monarchy that Britain ended up with OTL, since we seem to have gone a bit French with ours. I do like how the new republic's structure has grown organically from existing British...

It's uncanny that a man called Medina was the likeliest person in history to conquer an island with a great big "River Medina" in the centre of it. One may almost call it serendipitous. Except...you know...it never actually happened. Natch.

Au contraire, the River Medina has been so-called since the twelfth century ("Medina" was the old name for Newport). I should know because I probably crossed it in the chain-link ferry between East and West Cowes a hundred times when I was a kid. It's utterly fascinating seeing places I grew...

Absolutely brilliant. I was sure we were going to complete out magical mystery tour of the '70s with Vladimir Putin shooting Wilson to keep him quiet. The assassin turning out to be Heath was a magnificent masterstroke. If this work does get properly published, you've got a guaranteed...

Labour was the dedicated voice of Zones 2-3 during the Ken years, so for us to break out into the north and west like this is actually fairly impressive. It does show that UKIP doesn't have the same draw for Labour voters inside the M25 as it does outside, the Kippers eat into the Tory vote more...

Actually, on the subject of gender matters, I discovered an interesting factoid on female Russian soldiers in the First World War that I scarcely believed myself when I first heard about it. Apparently the Russian Army was so devastated post-Battle of Tannenburg that women were often the only...