Month: October 2017

Bang Bang

There are two things that stop me blowing my brains out: I gave my godson my gun and I’m so curious to know what happens next in the great page-turner which is the book of life.

Concrete

If you have been stuck in traffic driving into London from the M4 you may have noticed this sculpture jammed, like you, between the dual carriageway and a yew hedge. It sits on a brick plinth, untitled and with no indication of who was responsible for this piece of civic art.

Published
Categorised as Sculpture

Frank Cooper

It’s always worth browsing in a second hand bookshop. So often I buy something I didn’t know existed. This is a collection of interviews by John Mortimer, published in 1986, that originally appeared in The Sunday Times.

What’s Cooking?

People who are desperate to make some sort of conversation with me sometimes ask how I think up something to write about every day. Well, I have a fall-back in Robert Redfern-West, an erudite and hugely amusing reader in California (?) who sends me super-stimulating (intellectually) e mails and posts super-duper comments – latest yesterday.

THAAD

There’s always a reason but why is North Korea so bellicose? Internally there are signs of the economy becoming less centralised and surely the regime just wants to be left alone and to continue its despotic reign? Why attract the censure of the world?

Bryan Bertram Bellew

I have re-read my grandfather’s obituary, published in The Irish Times.

Published
Categorised as Family

Catalonia

World events usually find me looking the wrong way. I have been fretting about North Korea when I should have been looking closer to home. It had not occurred to me that Catalonia was in such a hurry to gain independence. I thought it lacked the urgency that mañana conveys to me. Here’s my view… Continue reading Catalonia

Published
Categorised as Politics

The Marches

I’m reading The Marches by Rory Stewart. It is an account of his relationship with his father growing up in the Far East.

Henry Lamb

This is a picture in the Imperial War Mueum by Australian-born Henry Lamb. He was born in Adelaide, where his father was professor of mathematics at the university, in 1883.

Published
Categorised as Art

War and Wet

The war memorial in La Romieu is a history of modern France.

Published
Categorised as Travel