Month: July 2025

My NBF

A recent post, Barons Court Station, was written by AI and was acceptable. It harvested content from Historic England and Wikipedia.

Pratfall

When I was a child I used to save the best bit, the icing on the cake perhaps, until last. My grandmother warned me of the danger this posed. When she was a child she put the glacé cherries on the side of her plate to savour last. A woman promptly leant over her and… Continue reading Pratfall

Lamplighters

I have recently re-read Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (John le Carré, 1974) in which lamplighters are the dogsbodies of British intelligence doing surveillance and courier work.

Another Blot

It used to be called the Cherry Blossom roundabout – not because of a profusion of flowering cherry trees but because of the proximity of a smelly shoe polish manufacturer: Cherry Blossom.

Baltic Booze

Cast your mind back to 1608. James I was on the English throne – the first Stuart monarch – the Moores were living at Barmeath and the Bellews at Lisrenny.

Olivier Salad

Look at Wikipedia, actually don’t I have done it for you, and there is a long list of comestibles and drinks named after people. Only a few are familiar today: peach Melba, tournedos Rossini, beef Wellington, oysters Rockefeller, beef Carpaccio, omelette Arnold Bennett, Bellini cocktails and you will know others.

Arsène Lupin

It’s very muddling. Auguste Dupin and Arsène Lupin are both French gentlemen thieves (like Raffles and perhaps Simon Templar) created by Edgar Allen Poe and Maurice Leblanc respectively. Lupin has possibilities and there are plenty of short stories and novels, if I get hooked. Meanwhile, let’s start with the beginning of the first chapter of… Continue reading Arsène Lupin

Published
Categorised as Literature

The General’s Moustache

General Raymond E Lee is largely forgotten so just the man to be re-discovered. He doesn’t even have a Wikipedia entry, an omission that should be rectified. He was US Military Attaché in London in WW II. I have ordered his London Journal.

Published
Categorised as Literature

Blueberry Hill

More and more fruit and veg is grown in the UK. I wash foreign fruit because it is widely accepted the pickers piss on it. I don’t wash blueberries from Harry Hall’s farm in Surrey. I put them on yogurt and muesli most mornings.They are just about the only healthy food I eat; low in… Continue reading Blueberry Hill