It has been one of those days. You`ve worked like a Trojan, displaying titanic strength & stoic endurance to overcome the Herculean labours that have faced you in order to meet that deadline. We regularly employ classically-derived expressions in our everyday language, yet many of us have little understanding of the origin of these common phrases. But an incomplete classical education need no longer be your Achilles heel. Opening Pandora`s Box offers a light-hearted yet fascinating look at the stories behind the expressions. For example, did you know that the phrase `the face that launched a thousand ships` originates from the story of the kidnapping of Helen of Troy, but the actual line comes from a poem by Christopher Marlowe? Opening Pandora`s Box provides a useful introduction to classical mythology as well as giving an insight into our language. ...

Openshaw in 1905 in a fascinating series of reproductions of old Ordnance Survey plans in the Alan Godfrey Editions, ideal for anyone interested in the history of their neighbourhood or family. Two versions have been published for this area. The map covers a busy area of east Manchester; the southern part is dominated by railway & engineering works. Coverage stretches from Wellington Street eastward to Edge Lane Mills, & from Cross Street southward to Brunswick Street. Features include Ashbury Railway Carriage Works, Otto Gas Engine Works, Ashbury`s GCR Sidings, engine sheds, Gorton Foundry, GCR Locomotive Works, Gorton Brook Chemical Works, Union Iron Works, Gas Plant Works, Ashbury`s station, Gorton station, etc. Ashton Old Road runs across the centre of the map & the area north is less developed, with many streets of terraces but also some open l&. The Manchester & Ashton Canal is at the top of the map. Other features include Shawcross Mill, St Aidan`s church, Belsize Car Works, Shade Hall Farm, Canal Iron Foundry, Victoria Mill, Electric Motor Works, High Bank Mill, etc. On the reverse are extracts from contemporary street directories. About the Alan Godfrey Editions of the 25” OS Series: Selected towns in Great Britain & Ireland are covered by maps showing the extent of urban development in the last decades of the 19th & early 20th century. The plans have been taken from the Ordnance Survey mapping & reprinted at about 15 inches to one mile (1:4, 340). On the reverse most maps have historical notes & many also include extracts from contemporary directories. Most maps cover about one mile (1.6kms) north/south, one & a half miles (2.4kms) across; adjoining sheets can be combined to provide wider coverage.FOR MORE INFORMATION & A COMPLETE LIST OF ALL AVAILABLE TITLES PLEASE CLICK ON THE SERIES LINK. ...

Openshaw in 1916 in a fascinating series of reproductions of old Ordnance Survey plans in the Alan Godfrey Editions, ideal for anyone interested in the history of their neighbourhood or family. Two versions have been published for this area. The map covers a busy area of east Manchester; the southern part is dominated by railway & engineering works. Coverage stretches from Wellington Street eastward to Edge Lane Mills, & from Cross Street southward to Brunswick Street. Features include Ashbury Railway Carriage Works, Otto Gas Engine Works, Ashbury`s GCR Sidings, engine sheds, Gorton Foundry, GCR Locomotive Works, Gorton Brook Chemical Works, Union Iron Works, Gas Plant Works, Ashbury`s station, Gorton station, etc. Ashton Old Road runs across the centre of the map & the area north is less developed, with many streets of terraces but also some open l&. The Manchester & Ashton Canal is at the top of the map. Other features include Shawcross Mill, St Aidan`s church, Belsize Car Works, Shade Hall Farm, Canal Iron Foundry, Victoria Mill, Electric Motor Works, High Bank Mill, etc. On the reverse are extracts from contemporary street directories. About the Alan Godfrey Editions of the 25” OS Series: Selected towns in Great Britain & Ireland are covered by maps showing the extent of urban development in the last decades of the 19th & early 20th century. The plans have been taken from the Ordnance Survey mapping & reprinted at about 15 inches to one mile (1:4, 340). On the reverse most maps have historical notes & many also include extracts from contemporary directories. Most maps cover about one mile (1.6kms) north/south, one & a half miles (2.4kms) across; adjoining sheets can be combined to provide wider coverage.FOR MORE INFORMATION & A COMPLETE LIST OF ALL AVAILABLE TITLES PLEASE CLICK ON THE SERIES LINK. ...

` Welcome to a very secret world. Not many people know this, but inside a special, little red postbox in London, close to Big Ben, there exists a top secret department. It is so top secret that only the Queen of Engl&, her Prime Minister, Spies & Cats know about it. & now you...`. This book part of ” The Ministry of Letters” series recounts the adventures of the top-secret government department ` The Ministry of Letters`, the place where all the letters & all the words in the world are created. We are introduced to this secret & then told the story of ` Operation Alphabet`, one of the most famous adventures ever to have happened to the letters who work in the Ministry. The star of the story is Charlie Foxtrot, who starts school aged five & finds learning the alphabet confusing & strange. We learn how the members of the Ministry`s Special Alphabet Service (SAS) set off on an adventure to Scotland to find Charlie & teach him, by song & rhyme, the alphabet & the joy to be found in letters & words. They succeed he goes to school the next day & gets full marks in a test & the world lives happily ever after!” Operation Alphabet” also comes with a special jacket that folds out into an alphabet poster. ...

Lauren, Jack, Ruby & Billy live by the seaside with their mum & dad. But their parents are always arguing, & then their dad moves out. Lauren & Jack decide they have to get them together again. & so begins Operation Eiffel Tower.. .in which the four children try to raise money to give their mum & dad a treat in an attempt to make them happier. First they want to send their parents to Paris, but quickly realise they can never afford that, so instead they set up a dinner for two under the Eiffel Tower in the local crazy golf attraction. But will it get their parents talking again? A funny & very moving story that tackles important issues with a light touch. ...

A RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB SELECTION One April morning in 1943, a sardine fisherman spotted the corpse of a British soldier floating in the sea off the coast of Spain & set in train a course of events that would change the course of the Second World War. Operation Mincemeat was the most successful wartime deception ever attempted, & certainly the strangest. It hoodwinked the Nazi espionage chiefs, sent German troops hurtling in the wrong direction, & saved thousands of lives by deploying a secret agent who was different, in one crucial respect, from any spy before or since: he was dead. His mission: to convince the Germans that instead of attacking Sicily, the Allied armies planned to invade Greece. The brainchild of an eccentric RAF officer & a brilliant Jewish barrister, the great hoax involved an extraordinary cast of characters including a famous forensic pathologist, a gold-prospector, an inventor, a beautiful secret service secretary, a submarine captain, three novelists, a transvestite English spymaster, an irascible admiral who loved fly-fishing, & a dead Welsh tramp. Using fraud, imagination & seduction, Churchill`s team of spies spun a web of deceit so elaborate & so convincing that they began to believe it themselves. The deception started in a windowless basement beneath Whitehall. It travelled from London to Scotland to Spain to Germany. & it ended up on Hitler`s desk. Ben Macintyre, bestselling author of Agent Zigzag, weaves together private documents, photographs, memories, letters & diaries, as well as newly released material from the intelligence files of MI5 & Naval Intelligence, to tell for the first time the full story of Operation Mincemeat. ...

It's 1945: a German bomber flies over Iceland in a blizzard; the crew have lost their way & eventually crash on the Vatnajokull glacier, the largest in Europe. Puzzlingly, there are both German & American officers on board. One of the senior German officers claims that their best chance of survival is to try to walk to the nearest farm & sets off, a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. He soon disappears into the white vastness. 1999, mid-winter, & the US Army is secretively trying to remove an aeroplane from the Vatnajokull glacier. By coincidence two young Icelanders become involved but will pay with their lives. Before they are captured, one of the two contacts his sister, Kristin, who will not rest until she discovers the truth of her brother's fate. Her pursuit puts her in great danger, leading her on a long & hazardous journey in search of the key to the riddle about Operation Napoleon. ...

In the summer of 1940, the Nazi war machine was at its zenith. France, Denmark, Norway & the Low Countries were all under occupation after a series of lightning military campaigns. Only Britain stood in the way of the complete triumph of Nazi tyranny. But for the first time in the war, Hitler did not prevail. The traditional narrative of 1940 holds that Britain was only saved from German conquest by the pluck of RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain. The image of Dad`s Army recruits training with broomsticks is a classic symbol of the nation`s supposed desperation in the face of the threat from Operation Sealion, as the German plan for invasion was code-named. Yet as Leo Mc Kinstry details, the British were far more ruthless & proficient than is usually recognised. The brilliance of the RAF was not an exception but part of a pattern of magnificent organisation. In almost every sphere of action, such as the destruction of the French naval fleet or the capture of German spies, Britain`s approach reflected an uncompromising spirit of purpose & resolution. Using a wealth of primary materials from both British & German archives, Leo Mc Kinstry provides a ground-breaking new assessment of the six fateful months in mid-1940, beginning with Winston Churchill`s accession to power in May & culminating in Germany`s abandonment of Operation Sealion. ...

The aim of the Guidelines is to provide practical guidance for assessing & responding to incidents involving sunken oil. Their scope is confined to sunken & submerged oil & does not include oil on sunken wrecks. The Guidelines also include references to other information sources. ...

Topographical survey of Belgium at 1:20, 000 from Nationaal Geografisch Instituut / Institut Géographique National, the country’s national survey organization. Each 20K map covers one quarter of the corresponding 1:50, 000 map (with adjustments in the border & coastal areas). The maps provide all the information expected of topographic mapping at this scale & in addition have an unusually large amount of vegetation and/or land use information (different types of woodlands, gardens, orchards, heath, etc). The maps have a 1-km UTM grid, with margin ticks for latitude & longitude at intervals of 1`. Map legend & a glossary of terms used on the maps include English. Stanfords keeps as regular stock 20K maps for the World War I battlefields around the Ypres, Messines & Passchendaele, & for the area of the Battle of Waterloo. The 1:20, 000 survey covers the whole of Belgium & maps for other regions can be supplied as special orders. To see the list of titles in this series please click on the series link.PLEASE NOTE: the Long-Distance Footpaths Map of Belgium at 1:300, 000 which shows the division of Belgium into the 50K survey sheets can also be used to see in more detail coverage by the 20K maps. ...