Antonio (The Merchant of Venice) person … lie[s] all unlocked to your occasions" ("MoV" 1.1.146), seem to allude to a sexual dimension in Antonio's love for Bassanio. However, there is also evidence that the two shared a strictly fraternal, familial bond, as indicated by the line "Bassanio, your most noble kinsman …" ("MoV" 1.1.60) Other scholars maintain that all attempts to read Shakespeare's characters as gay or straight in terms of the modern understanding of the word are culturally and historically flawed. Alan Bray's book "Homosexuality in Renaissance England" argues that in the time period of "The Merchant of Venice's" composition, "homosexuality" did not refer
SR Merchant Navy Class 35006 Peninsular & Oriental S. N. Co. SR Merchant Navy Class 35006 Peninsular & Oriental S. N. Co. 35006 "Peninsular & Oriental S. N. Co." is a Southern Railway rebuilt Merchant Navy Class 4-6-2 steam locomotive. It was built at Eastleigh locomotive works in December 1941 and given the Southern Railway number 21C6. Although the first two members of the Merchant Navy class had their air-smoothed casings made of sheet steel, 21C6 was one of eight in which the casing was made of asbestos board, with a visible horizontal fixing strip along the centre line. 21C6 was allocated to Salisbury Shed where it remained based throughout her