Month: April 2016

Château Bute

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is Paul Torday’s first novel and his best. It is significantly better than the 2011 film of the same name. The story is as old as the world: hope trumping reality and money over-ruling common sense. Wine production in Wales shares the same themes.

Denning Report

At this time of year I think of Lord Denning, the eminent lawyer and judge.

Published
Categorised as Politics

An Admiral of the Blue

Bradford on Avon to Bath, along the K&A canal, is not far – maybe ten miles. Almost immediately on the outskirts of Bradford is a 14th century tithe barn, so over-restored that it looks like a (successful) stockbroker’s second home. I have read that the interior is worth seeing but it was not open early… Continue reading An Admiral of the Blue

Burton in Bradford on Avon

The overuse of superlatives is jolly annoying. So after praising the Norman church at Devizes to the skies I’m embarrassed to tell you that Bradford on Avon has a better one.

Roger le Poer, Pumping and Pele

Roger le Poer, better known maybe as Roger of Salisbury, is a Norman who rose from being a priest in a small chapel near Caen to being Bishop of Salisbury, Lord Chancellor and Lord Keeper of England in the reign of Henry I. This is (maybe) his effigy in Salisbury Cathedral.

A Transatlantic Journey

Gap year commissions in the army have changed over the past forty years. Now you have an eight week course at Sandhurst, serve for almost a year and get paid £18,000 a year. When I did one in 1973 it was a bit different.

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Categorised as Travel

Me, EU and a Drive in the Park

I expected both sides in the EU Referendum campaign to spout gushers of obfuscation and inaccuracy. I have not been disappointed.

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Categorised as Politics

Belize Revisited

“I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry” (As You Like It) and she was when we met in a bar near Embankment station.

Restoration Romp

Number 79 Pall Mall is the only one on the south side of the street that does not belong to the Crown Estate. The freehold was given to Nell Gwynn in 1676 and, in her opinion, not before time; ‘Madam Gwinn complains she has no house yett’, reported Sir Joseph Williamson in 1673.