Archive for the ‘News’ Category
THE DOG DIDN’T BARK
What could this common Sherlock Holmes metaphor have to do with the mutiny on HMAV Bounty in the middle of the Pacific Ocean? An alternative expression for the concept could be ‘the absence of the dog’s bark’, signifying when a statement relies on factual correspondence for its truth, the lack of pertinent facts suggests a […]
LIEUTENANT BLIGH’S IMPERIAL BREADFRUIT
Lieutenant Bligh’s Imperial Breadfruit. Extract: “1787 was a time when freedom for Jamaican slaves was still some years away, an epoch of struggle confronted abolitionists, sugar planters owed their prosperity to humans under bondage, and China teas were being sweetened but at a bitter human cost. For those who connived to keep the trade acceptable, […]
THE MAN WHO ATE AN INNOCENT ALBATROSS
The Man Who Ate An Innocent Albatross The center illustration shown here is cliché art, olden day disinformation spin of a blundering spiritless Governor Bligh, his diplomatic acumen tested and broken. Whether accurate or not the historic artwork, “The Arrest of Governor Bligh”, held by the National Museum of Australia of Bligh being dragged from […]
AN AFTERWORD ON JOSEPH BANKS AND HIS BREADFRUIT
My works about William Bligh and Joseph Banks are written from the strategic side of the breadfruit voyages. This Afterword is from the botanic side of the beach with Banks wearing two social hats: one as the naturalist and the other as the facilitator. Did the plan to feed breadfruit to slaves have any basis […]
CAPTAIN BLIGH’S FANTASY
CAPTAIN BLIGH’S FACEBOOK FANTASY If Lieutenant William Bligh had access to Facebook how might he have designed his Profile? This steampunk caricature may well have triggered Bligh’s weird alter ego. Someone once opened a Facebook account in my own name and threw in a hundred incognito Friends to boot. Facebook eventually, reluctantly, took it down, […]
A SHERLOCK HOLMES OF BREADFRUIT PLANTS
DR ROBERTO E. CORONEL (1939/2016) The sleuth who unearthed Bligh’s “Big Breadfruit Lie” RIP: Dr Roberto Coronel — eminent Research Professor of tropical and sub-tropical fruits, College of Agriculture, University of the Philippines. On 24 March 2016 a humanitarian, and friend, passed away. My sincere condolences go out to the family and friends of Dr […]
THE HOWLER
A HOWLER BEHIND THE MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY ! Seeds of failure of the Bounty expedition were sown before Bligh stepped onboard at Deptford. By then, Joseph Banks, operative manager of the expedition, in breaking convention gave authority to the leading gardener David Nelson, a supernumerary on HMAV Bounty, to supervise carpenters in refitting the […]
UNCLE BLIGH & UNCLE CHRISTIAN
Could William Bligh ‘the Liar’ or Fletcher Christian ‘the Lecher’ be my great-great-great-great uncle of my great-great-great-great grandfather’s third cousin thrice removed? If I knew that I could brag to unlettered folk and even be throned the wise uncle at Christmas parties. However, ethically thinking, should I be proud or ashamed if it means making […]
Breadfruit
Breadfruit and other Bounties Was Bligh a forerunner of Johnny [Appleseed] Chapman? ‘In a strange mixture of tropical and temperate crops, the legend to this John Prezioso painting explains that this Bligh-like figure consists of northern fruits like the apple and peach (his eyelid and upper lip), as well as equatorial tree products such as […]
THEIR BLUE SKIES WERE REALLY DARK GREY
An editor’s cut from Karl Lorbach’s first exposé on Bligh and Banks The Great Bounty Conspiracy — Bligh and his Breadfruit Chapter Five Of visionary things and gentleman’s schemes Between 26 October 1788 and 5 April 1789, it was mostly the wet season in Tahiti. This was when the Bounty was anchored at Matavai Bay […]