bits from the reads

yesterday i was reading a short history of the british 20th century, and my favorite new brain nugget comes from my discovery of "Empire Day." of course, now this is called Commonwealth Day and is scarcely acknowledged by any country (it's called Victoria Day in scotland) but it used to be that in schools there were ritual celebrations of the success and breadth of the british empire. check out this list of countries formerly umbrellaed into the empire (now each occupies a commonwealth stamp in the uk):

• Aitutaki
• Anguilla
• Antigua and Barbuda
• Australia
• Bahamas
• Bangladesh
• Barbados
• Barbuda
• Belize
• Botswana
• British Virgin Islands
• Brunei
• Canada
• Cayman Islands
• Cook Islands
• Cyprus
• Commonwealth of Dominica
• Falkland Islands
• Fiji
• The Gambia
• Ghana
• Gibraltar
• Grenada
• Guyana
• Hong Kong
• India
• Jamaica
• Kenya
• Kiribati
• Lesotho
• Malawi
• Malaysia
• Malta
• Mauritius
• Nevis
• New Zealand
• Nigeria
• Niue
• Papua New Guinea
• Penrhyn Island
• Pitcairn Islands
• St Kitts
• Saint Lucia
• St Vincent & the Grenadines
• Samoa
• Seychelles
• Sierra Leone
• Singapore
• Solomon Islands
• Sri Lanka
• Swaziland
• Tanzania
• Tonga
• Trinidad & Tobago
• Turks & Caicos
• Tuvalu
• Uganda
• United Kingdom
• Vanuatu
• Zambia
• Zimbabwe

my other favorite discovery is of an image i can show you: a painting by Henry Moore called "Tube Shelter Perspective" from 1941. apparently in the beginning of the second world war, britain went into a preparatory total war state, even though the war was still almost completely cold at home, off away into the continent and pursued by the british navy. they went to great lengths outfitting the civilians for extreme conditions - every schoolchild was given a gas mask and instructions, many cities and neighborhoods were evacuated. certain areas were designated as shelters, and one of them (though this was to become genuinely useful) was the network of tube tunnels in london. a chilling bit of culture from mr. moore, no?