December 2018 - Blog Bellew

All About The Income Tax

An agreeable aspect of living in New York in 1983 was not paying UK tax. I was not there long enough to be liable to US tax either. By 1989, when I was in Singapore, this tax holiday had been abolished. I would have had to stay for more than a year. Worse, the Singapore… Continue reading All About The Income Tax

Company

I remember with nostalgia Elaine Stritch and Donald Sinden in Two’s Company on television in the late 1970s. She played a successful American author and he was her very British butler. The only other thing I remember is that she, in real life, lived in the Savoy.

Side By Side

Side By Side, not by Sondheim – by Willey and Henley.

Big Breakfast

I don’t often have breakfast and rarely brekker in bed. A cup of strong coffee suffices. Recently this routine was interrupted by Robert bringing me a muffin with egg and bacon at an early hour.

Not The Favourite

Hatfield House stars in a sumptuous costume-comedy-drama coming to a screen near you (in the UK) soon. I saw a preview with Robert yesterday.

Choral Matins in Chelsea

General Sir Charles Redmond Watt, “Reddy” to his friends, was given a pair of socks for Christmas. General Sir Nick Carter got golf balls.

A Christmas Dozen

A sub-optimal aspect of Christmas as a child was writing thank you letters. Here are twelve such letters invented by John Julius Norwich and published in his Christmas Crackers, 2000 – 2009.

Ding-Dong

“I’d like a big box of soluble Solpadeine Plus, please” is a tongue twister over which I stumble. By the way, I’m not OD-ing just stock-piling in case of post-Brexit shortages.

Going Solo

I saw Robert Vaughn (sic) in Twelve Angry Men in the West End in 2013. Also in the cast was Martin Shaw, of The Professionals fame, who dined with me at the Ivy Club afterwards. We were guests of LAMDA, where he trained.

Mortdecai

Yesterday I did some Christmas shopping in Jermyn and St James’s streets. The only gift that I know will be well received is my present to me.