top of page
Search


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...

Adrian J. Boas
Oct 4, 20203 min read


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...

Adrian J. Boas
Oct 1, 20203 min read


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,...

Adrian J. Boas
Sep 27, 20204 min read


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.*...

Adrian J. Boas
Sep 24, 20204 min read


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...

Adrian J. Boas
Sep 21, 20204 min read


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...

Adrian J. Boas
Sep 17, 20203 min read


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...

Adrian J. Boas
Sep 14, 20205 min read


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...

Adrian J. Boas
Sep 10, 20206 min read


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...

Adrian J. Boas
Sep 7, 20203 min read


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...

Adrian J. Boas
Sep 4, 20204 min read


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...

Adrian J. Boas
Aug 30, 20202 min read


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...

Adrian J. Boas
Aug 28, 20204 min read


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...

Adrian J. Boas
Aug 26, 20203 min read


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...

Adrian J. Boas
Aug 21, 20205 min read


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...

Adrian J. Boas
Aug 17, 20203 min read


On Extreme Fragility and a Homage to the Restorer
I recall three aged aunts, or more accurately cousins several times removed, sisters, spinsters, so ancient that they had shrivelled away...

Adrian J. Boas
Aug 14, 20204 min read


On the Eminence of Tyre
Viewing a city from above is very different from observing it at ground level. I once had the opportunity of seeing the city of Tyre both...

Adrian J. Boas
Aug 10, 20204 min read


On Fundamental Decency
It is hardly surprising that we, the lookers-on, the ordinary people, those of us who are not in the public eye, the "average joes" to...

Adrian J. Boas
Aug 7, 20205 min read


On Dubious Origins
Qal'at al-Subeibe or Qal'at Namrud occupies a spur descending south-west from Mount Hermon. It is among the most marvellous of all...

Adrian J. Boas
Aug 4, 20203 min read


On Deception
The traffic on the northern section of Route 6 was heavy and I turned off and took the road that continues via Megiddo. I had not passed...

Adrian J. Boas
Jul 31, 20204 min read
bottom of page
