When we were both about seventeen I went on a short trip with my cousin, who is almost exactly my age. She drove us to visit our grandmother in Bournemouth and then to stay with her uncle and aunt near Salisbury.
Rigoletto at the Semperoper in Dresden on Sunday evening was a revival of a production first seen in 2006. It has had quite a few outings since then of which the best was surely when Dian Damrau sang Gilda and Juan Diego Flórez the Duke.
On Tuesday I sold the rest of my holding in Shell and, sticking to the plan, reinvested in Vietnam. Previously I bought VinaCapital Vietnam Opportunities Fund (VOF) despite its high charges: 1.5% plus a performance fee.
The Serpentine Gallery pavilion is still under construction but this summer it will be dwarfed by a giant, red, floating mastaba across the road on the Serpentine in Hyde Park.
The re-building of Dresden is almost complete but, as in any city, there is a continuum of regeneration. A bridge over the Elbe is closed to traffic for reconstruction and some bomb sites have not been rebuilt.
A good game is to name structures called after their architects. Let me get you started in Paris with Charles Garnier’s opera house and Gustave Eiffel’s tower and in Vicenza, the Basilica Palladiana by Andrea Palladio.
At Flores, in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay, And a pinnace, like a flutter’d bird, came flying from far away; “Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-three!”