Jack Blackburn

Jan 13, 2025 | thetimes.com | Jack Blackburn

Jan 8, 2025 | thetimes.com | Jack Blackburn

Dec 10, 2024 | thetimes.com | Jack Blackburn

I am in a basement just round the corner from the Château de Versailles and have come to learn about the role of the French royal house as a hub of scientific learning. So it is strange that instead I have been shown a pineapple. However, it turns out that this pineapple — or rather a painting of a pineapple — has great significance. Louis XV was obsessed with growing the “king of fruits”, which had become a symbol of prestige and global power.

Dec 6, 2024 | thetimes.com | Jack Blackburn

Sir Ed Davey’s antics in the election were inspired attention-seeking, but the man himself had little control of this masterplan. Politico’s Westminster Insider has done a deep dive on the election campaign, which reveals that Davey was kept ignorant of plans to make him paddleboard or go to Thorpe Park, but his team did let him in on the final stunt. Before a bungee jump in Eastbourne, they told him not to have breakfast lest he wish to see it again.

Dec 5, 2024 | thetimes.com | Jack Blackburn

It takes something to excite the keeper of the muniments at Westminster Abbey. Overseeing a unique and ancient collection means that something special is needed to get his pulse racing — but a mystery involving Charlemagne does the trick. In this case, the ​abbey​ has discovered that a tiny fraction of silk dating back to the reign of Henry III offers a tantalising link to the first Holy Roman emperor. The silk, in the form of a bag, is the same material as that used in Charlemagne’s burial shroud.