Men of War

When matter and anti-matter come into contact they annihilate one another, with an enormous release of energy. Anyone in the vicinity is going to get badly hurt. I think that's what happened in the White House today. The shock wave is still travelling. History is now happening very fast, don't look away 

I wonder when this road was built - a quick Google hasn't helped me. It is in the part of Birmingham that became built up during the rapid expansion at the end of the 19th century and start of the 20th. Kitchener did not really become a national figure until his success in colonial wars in Sudan in the late 1890s. At the turn of the century, he was deployed in South Africa to fight the 'Boer' settlers, where he countered their guerrilla tactics with the invention of the 'scorched earth' policy and concentration camps housing not only soldiers but women, children and elderly. Contemporary photographs rival those from Belsen and Dachau. But he won the war and returned to Britain a hero

In 1914 he was famously Secratary of State for War, and the face of recruitment for the volunteer army. He correctly forecast that the war would last for years and cost much in blood and treasure - in contrast to the 'all over by Christmas' cabinet. He fell out of favour for being right, was demoted and sent on a diplomatic mission to Russia. His ship struck a mine off the Orkney islands and sank, killing him and almost everyone on board. To most people - though not all ordinary soldiers in France - he died a hero

A bizzare detail. During his early years in the army, Kitchener was sent to Palestine, to survey it and create maps. The northern limit of his work eventually became the arbitrary national border between Israel and Lebanon. What strange circles history draws

I got my phone out because I liked light and shade of the winter sun on the phalanx of brick chimneys; as I moved closer, the incongruous mural was a bonus - lines and circles