Month: February 2018

Gathering Winter Fuel

Good King Wenceslas looked out on the feast of Stephen, when the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even. Brightly shone the moon that night, though the frost was cruel, when a poor man came in sight, gathering winter fuel.

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Categorised as Local

Robert Herrick

Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen is PG Wodehouse’s last complete novel, published in 1974, a year before he died aged ninety-three. At an age when his creative juices might be expected to dry up, it is right up to his usual high standard. If you want to know why Bertie Wooster is mistaken for arch-criminal Alpine Joe… Continue reading Robert Herrick

Mary Callery

You have seen this many times at the cinema or, maybe, for real. I have but without noticing it until I was watching La Bohème from the Met in Chelsea on Saturday.

Rus in Urbe

There are still flocks of black headed gulls on the river between Hammersmith and Richmond. As many as a thousand have been counted below Richmond Lock, which must have been a challenging task. Soon they will all disappear to breed along the coast to be replaced in summer by terns.

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Categorised as Nature

William Pickering

I have been given a bottle of port by a generous friend who found himself unable to walk past Berry Bros & Rudd without making a purchase. It is a twenty-year-old tawny labelled William Pickering – not a port house with which I am familiar.

Frank Banfield Park

Is it fair that a critic forms an opinion of a restaurant, a play or an opera based on one visit? Probably not but conscientious restaurant reviewers (I’m thinking of Nick Lander in WeekendFT) make multiple visits before delivering judgement. Today I am going to form an opinion based on visits over more than thirty… Continue reading Frank Banfield Park

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Categorised as Environment

More Opera

Yesterday was Fulham Opera’s spot. Tomorrow, Saturday,  Franco Zeffirelli’s production of La Bohème is on at the Met. I will not be there but I will be in the Curzon Chelsea to watch it being streamed live from New York.

Fulham Opera Night

If you find that operas can be excessively long and expensive come to Fulham Opera on Friday 9th March. Tickets are an affordable £10 bookable on line here. 

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Categorised as Music

If you go down in the woods today …

If you go down in the woods today You’re sure of a big surprise If you go down in the woods today You’d better go in disguise! For every bear that ever there was Will gather there for certain Because today’s the day the Teddy Bears have their picnic.

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Chelsea Morning

Have you noticed this structure just off the King’s Road at the end of Dovehouse Street? It is a flight of stairs leading nowhere used to train firemen to deal with fires in blocks of flats. There are more beautiful buildings in Chelsea, two of which have a military heritage.