THE BREEZER Newsletter
Spend a few minutes each week discovering snippets of history and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week, with a dash of "lots more".
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The Siege of Paris—iron, blood and elephant consommé
The absurdity reached its peak on Christmas Day 1870, when Voisin’s, one of Paris’s finest restaurants, served ‘stuffed donkey’s head, elephant consommé, roast camel, antelope terrine and bear chops in pepper sauce’. The Breezer - A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me exploring historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. 25 January 2026. Happy Sunday !I turn on the news with trepidation these days....
READ POSTThe cuppa that launched a thousand ships
Worst of all for the Chinese, the British continued to trade in opium. This was the beginning of their ‘century of humiliation’. Of course, China had the last laugh. The Breezer - A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me exploring historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. 18th January 2026. Happy Sunday Reader!Having watched rather too much David Attenborough over the festive break and convincing...
READ POSTTriumph, disaster and the jingo-imperialist
If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son! The Breezer - A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me exploring historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. 21st December 2025. Happy Sunday Reader! If you were to imagine the life of one of literature’s most celebrated poets, you...
READ POSTThe girl with the pearl
The identity of the woman in the painting has never surfaced. She’s wearing an exotic turban—pearl grey and golden yellow—with a jacket to match. Enigmatic. Intimate. That's the girl with a pearl earring. The Breezer - A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me exploring historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. 14th December 2025. Happy Sunday Reader!For years I moved through the family home...
READ POSTNinety-five theses, two languages, three beers
"I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen." The Breezer - A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me exploring historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. 7th December 2025. Happy Sunday Reader!You’ll have to excuse me, I have taken an impromptu trip to Belgium and Germany, hence the...
READ POSTShe’s just not that into you—a love story in five movements
He wrote endless letters, attended her every performance and behaved in the audience with the subtlety of a man who'd just caught fire. In England, we would call this stalking. The French called it love. The Breezer - A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me exploring historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. 30th November 2025. Happy Sunday Reader!One of my most cherished memories as a teenager was...
READ POSTKyiv’s Khanundrum—the wounds that time won’t heal
By the time Batu Khan had demolished Kyiv, he had redrawn the political map of Europe. The city would slide from major commercial and cultural centre to provincial backwater. The Breezer - A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me exploring historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. 23rd November 2025. Happy Sunday Reader!Now in the fourth year of conflict, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the people...
READ POSTIce work if you can get it
It was a brutal baptism. With temperatures falling below minus 30 degrees Celsius, equipment froze solid. Changing photographic plates became an exercise in pain management. The Breezer - A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me exploring historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. 16th November 2025. Happy Sunday Reader!If you take a trip to the National Portrait Gallery in London, you’ll find 'Room...
READ POSTGough Whitlam was out to lunch
Or to put it another way, an unelected appointee of the British Empire had just overturned the will of millions of Australian voters. Ouch. But hold on—the story doesn’t end there. The Breezer - A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me exploring historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. 9th November 2025. Happy Sunday!If my maths is correct, the 2025 United States federal government shutdown has now...
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