Adrian J. Boas
On a Link in the Chain
This post is dedicated to my youngest son Daniel on his wedding day The white chalk exposure halfway down the hill on the north-west...
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Adrian J. Boas
- Oct 19, 2020
- 4 min
On a Saint, a Dragon, a Church, a Bridge, a Cat, a Rat and a Statement
The countryside around the twin towns of Ramla and Lydda has little of distinction. The land is flat with few topographical features and...
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Adrian J. Boas
- Oct 14, 2020
- 3 min
On a Beautiful Tree or a Traitor's Forgotten Monument
In my childhood, snowdrops and daffodils were the heralds of spring. Here, a rosy greeting to launch that only too brief season is the...
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Adrian J. Boas
- Oct 12, 2020
- 4 min
On a Truely Beautiful Gate
Walk through Jaffa Gate and you are entering an entirely different world. This is true of any gate in any walled city - the wall built to...
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Adrian J. Boas
- Oct 8, 2020
- 4 min
On Living with a More Distant Past
Narrow alleys, climbing, twisting, sloping down towards the sea, steps rising out of long-buried houses, empty cul-de-sacs, weathered,...
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Adrian J. Boas
- Oct 4, 2020
- 3 min
On Evaluation and Appreciation
I don't know if there is any truth in the story, but I recall having once heard that following restoration work carried out in the Dome...
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Adrian J. Boas
- Oct 1, 2020
- 3 min
On a Black Castle and a Blue Stone
We called it bluestone in my recollection. Much of old Melbourne was built of it, mainly those bits I liked searching out, old buildings...
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Adrian J. Boas
- Sep 27, 2020
- 4 min
On an Archaeologist's View of the Doorway
Alice: I simply must get through! Doorknob: Sorry, you're much too big. Simply impassible. Alice: You mean impossible? Doorknob: No,...
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Adrian J. Boas
- Sep 24, 2020
- 4 min
On a Theory of Relativity
My son has just given me a collection of essays by Umberto Eco, On the Shoulders of Giants, that was recently translated into English.*...
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Adrian J. Boas
- Sep 21, 2020
- 4 min
On a Symbol of State
When I was thirteen, I was given a set of phylacteries with silver cases. They were decorated on each side with images of four Holy Land...
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Adrian J. Boas
- Sep 17, 2020
- 3 min
On Transplanted Domiciles
I recall seeing very colourful snails on a wall in Oxford a few years ago, and in my mind at the time I was thinking, how much more...
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Adrian J. Boas
- Sep 14, 2020
- 5 min
On a Narrative of Failure
One of the most potent modern images of failure, almost as powerful as that of the Air America helicopter evacuating American citizens on...
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Adrian J. Boas
- Sep 10, 2020
- 6 min
On a Bird and a Bastion
The ousel cock so black of hue/With orange-tawny bill/The throstle with his note so true... Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 3, Scene 1...
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Adrian J. Boas
- Sep 7, 2020
- 3 min
On Flexibility and Transformation
At a certain point it became apparent to me that at the age of sixteen my bridges were burnt. I had initially regarded immigrating to...
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Adrian J. Boas
- Sep 4, 2020
- 4 min
On the Transport of a Culture Overseas
In his 1976 essay “How New the New World Was”, Italo Calvino describes an exhibition held at the Grand Palais in Paris - "America Seen by...
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Adrian J. Boas
- Aug 30, 2020
- 2 min
On Disposing of Excess Baggage
I am just coming to the end of The Mirror and the Light, the final volume of the trilogy by novelist Hilary Mantel about the English...
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Adrian J. Boas
- Aug 28, 2020
- 4 min
On Eclecticism and First Impressions
The building that made the greatest impression on me as a child was the war memorial known as the Shrine of Remembrance, colloquially...
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Adrian J. Boas
- Aug 26, 2020
- 3 min
On Procession
As someone with what is perhaps a healthy sense of fear (certainly a modicum of common sense), and who has retained long into adult life...
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Adrian J. Boas
- Aug 21, 2020
- 5 min
On Places of Earthly Delight
August. I usually miss the garden, this being the month that in more regular times we are out in the field. I return in September to find...
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Adrian J. Boas
- Aug 17, 2020
- 3 min
On Noticing Things and Taking a Different Perspective
It is a lazy morning, the first in some time when I do not have enough urgent to-dos to make the obligation to get up overcome the...
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