Off to Sunny Spain

Books describing the authors’ walking trips are a genre I find irresistible. Today I want to narrow down the field to 20th century accounts of walks in just one country.

Permission to Park

The “new” car is the fifth I have owned. A lot has changed in the nineteen years since I last bought one.

The Cranford Protocol

In ten years I will have forgotten that TV licences for 75 year-olds were once buckshee but anytime now I will mourn, selfishly, the revocation of the Cranford Protocol.

A New PM

Last night five of the six contenders to be Prime Minister were interviewed on a TV Channel that I hadn’t watched for so long that I didn’t know the password.

Published
Categorised as Politics

Carbon Admissions

Yesterday I mentioned three revelations from Personal Assets Trust and forgot to tell you the third. It discloses its carbon emissions, not something I associate with an investment trust that has nine employees, excluding directors.

Busted Flushes

At the MP Evans AGM yesterday I couldn’t think of a good question to ask. What a difference a day makes.

Published
Categorised as Business

Happy Birthday

Yesterday a friend sent me an article from The New York Times celebrating the centenary of the Negroni cocktail, invented by Count Camillo Negroni at his local caffè in Florence in 1919.

Manon Lescaut

Opera Holland Park opened their season with Puccini’s Manon. OHP has come a long way in the last 25 years.

Published
Categorised as Music

A Racehorse for Christmas

I like Peter Starstedt’s 1969 hit Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)? Here is one verse. Your name is heard in high places You know the Aga Khan He sent you a racehorse for Christmas And you keep it just for fun, for a laugh, ha-ha-ha.

Published
Categorised as Music, Sport

Racing Green

It took an hour yesterday to buy a used car. Last week it took longer than that to buy a toner cartridge for the printer.