Month: August 2019

Cabaret

Que será, será Whatever will be, will be The future’s not ours to see Que será, será What will be, will be,

Published
Categorised as Politics

Leptis Magna and Virginia Water

I spent a week in Libya in November 2005  ; I took  a direct flight to Tripoli to meet friends who were already in the country; I only had hand luggage; this had consequences.

Shadows on the Grass

Walking in Chiswick in the evening I thought about Simon Raven. Like Leslie Charteris, Dornford Yates, John Buchan and Sapper I am the last generation that will read him.

Published
Categorised as Literature

The Collector

James Agate was a drama critic for The Sunday Times and the BBC. Between 1935 and his death in 1947 he published nine volumes of diaries. Wryly he called them Ego.

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Categorised as Literature

Charles Boutell

I share some of the same interests and initials as CB. He is a Victorian, a Norfolk man, no fool; he went to St John’s Cambridge (BA) and Trinity Oxford (MA).

May Hill

On Friday morning we climbed May Hill. It’s 971 feet above sea level and has a trig point at the summit.

Planting Trees

English gardens and parkland changed decisively in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as plant hunters brought specimens back from Asia. EH ‘Chinese” Wilson was one of the most famous, bringing around two thousand plants and trees back to Britain and America, while working for James Veitch & Sons in Chelsea and the Arnold… Continue reading Planting Trees

Scrambled Eggs

Brexit was inevitable. Breakfast in the British Isles is not like breakfast in Europe. If you can’t agree about brekker it’s time to part brass rags.

The Devil’s Pulpit

Many years ago I walked along the Wye (my grandfather caught a 41 1/4 lb salmon on the river in the 1930s) with Ingaret the Navigator; more recently along Offa’s Dyke with Robert. On Wednesday these two paths intersected at Brockweir.

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Categorised as Travel