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РИССЯ : ЯССИР (RUSSIA : AISSUR) "In the years before the Revolution, Russians had a favourite story about their ambassador to Washington, 'a grand seigneur of the old school' called Yuriy Bakhmetev. Called to the Secretary of State's office, he was surprised when the American, having greeted him politely, lounged back in his chair and crossed his feet on his desk. Sitting on the other side of the desk, Bakhmetev followed suit. The Secretary of State removed one foot; Bakhmetev did the same. And after a slight pause, the American removed the other." (Anna Reid, 2024,   A Nasty Little War , John Murray, London, p. 13) "In the first years after he arrived on the international scene, the tsar had stayed on the fringes a bit, with the classic attitudes of the Russian, whose papers are never fully in order and who has to submit to the detailed scrutiny of judges from more civilized parts. It's the age-old complex of the savage from the border-lands who has to a...

 ' The Peasant BODO' is found in historian Eileen Power's popular Medieval People , an early social history text that went through ten editions from 1924 to 1963. The frontispiece of my copy (1999, The Folio Society, London) appropriately includes a quote from the Venerable Bede, the first truly English historian, who finished writing his epic five volume Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum  in 731 AD. In this extract, the monk notes the essential unfairness of making a record of past people and events : "Let us now praise famous men and our fathers that begat us ...  There be of them that have left a name behind them, that their praises might be reported.  And some there be which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been; and are become as though they had never been born; and their children after them."                                  ...

Controversy has surrounded the investigation and eventual approval of three new mining projects in north-western Victoria. The prospect of significant disruption to cereal and oilseed cropping programs in fertile regions of the state has alarmed local farmers. Much of this protest is the prompted by self-interest, but it does no harm to the rest of us to take a closer look at the facts on the ground. This gives a broad impression of the deposits of rare earths and critical minerals that have been identified by exploratory drilling and survey. Only a portion of these areas have actually been selected under Retention Licence, which allows further specific and protected examination of sites by a mining company. And only a small fraction of these RLs have been granted an actual Mining Licence, committing each mining company to develop a mine and extract resource. GOSCHEN This map reveals the decreasing areas of land involved in the process of identifying, investigating and, finally, develo...