How often we relax to the Hispanic melodies of Isaac Albeniz. His Rapsodia Espanola, Sevilla and Granada, based on Catalan folk songs, are perhaps the better known of his many compositions. These lovely melodies evoke the Spanish dream more than could any Goya painting but what of the man behind the music? Like most composers his life was as notable as was his music.
In the late 1970s, the then STAR newspaper described Michael Walsh as ‘Britain’s most dangerous man’. Unless one can identify with the mindset of a far-left journalist it is impossible to figure out why such an extreme expression.
MICHAEL WALSH is first and foremost an internationally recognised poet who prose has been compared to that of Leo Tolstoy, Rudyard Kipling, and Robert Service. His lyricism has received glowing tributes from leading figures in the theatre and literary world, commercial, and political life.
The less charitable might be forgiven for suggesting that the Reich cruise ship, MV Monte Rosa, might better have been renamed MV Karma. This beautiful 13,882 ton twin-funneled German passenger liner was one of pre-war Germany’s fleet of super liners. Built in 1930 by Hamburg shipbuilders Bohm and Voss, MV Monte Rosa was one of five sister-ships.
NEWSDESK SCOOP Released as part of a World War II document cache show never before seen photographs have been declassified ahead of the 75th anniversary of the Yalta summit. The shocking images show Bolshevik collaborationist US and British bosses and officers arriving in Crimea and whilst touring Sevastopol with Soviet hosts.
His real name was Frank Rocky Fiegel. He was born in 1868 in Poland. A retired sailor he was contracted by Wiebusch’s tavern in the city of Chester, Illinois, to clean the town’s lawlessness and maintain order. Rocky Fiegel was notorious for his belligerent attitude and firmly believed that everything could be sorted out with his fists.
The French Line’s Normandie is one of few contenders for the title Greatest Liner Ever. She was a ship of superlatives: the largest ship in the world for five years, the first liner to exceed 1,000 feet in length; to exceed 80,000 tons; the largest turbo-electric powered liner; and the first to make a 30 knot Atlantic crossing.
Care to step aboard the RMS Titanic? What seemed like an impossibility is slowly becoming a reality. Vintage Digital Revival and Four Funnels Entertainment have recreated the interior of the stricken vessel in immaculate detail. It’s part of their long-gestating ‘Titanic: Honor and Glory’ video game project.
For 36 years a contender for the most interesting oceangoing liner sailed the high seas. Bożena Aksamit writing her account of the Polish trans-Atlantic liner, says, ‘It was the pride of the Second Republic, a piece of living art, and the only floating representative of free Poland during World War II.’
Perhaps the most sorrowful part of the entire Titanic saga is hearing the survivor’s personal stories. It can be heart-wrenching to listen to their recollections. How they ended up on the luxury ocean-liner in the first place and how they dodged death on the night of April 14, 1912. Over 1,500 passengers perished in the ocean and only about 700 passengers, officers and ratings were saved.
Michael Walsh Stories and Books 
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