Month: January 2026

Barons Court Station

This is the 4th post titled Barons Court Station, showing a lack of imagination on the part of the author. In total there are one hundred and twenty posts in which Barons Court gets at least a mention.

Published
Categorised as Local

The Borghese Balustrade

Even in the rain it was agreeable to lean on the balustrade to look out at the view of Rome and, actually, I was keen to recover my puff after the climb up from Piazza del Popolo. The balustrade, not the one I was leaning on, has an interesting history. The President of the United… Continue reading The Borghese Balustrade

Published
Categorised as Sculpture

High Renaissance

My next book, well that’s a bit misleading as it will be my first book, is going to look at busts and portraits. I have a newly formed theory that sculptors are more generous than artists. Take a look at these two fellers.

Roman Churches

I visited the churches mentioned by James Lees-Milne in his guide Roman Mornings when I last visited in 2017 but here is no shortage of churches in Rome and yesterday I went to some I had not been to. The only challenge was to work out a circular walk and to factor in lunch.

Romulus and Remus

Kipling’s poem is as bleak an assessment of the world condition today as when he wrote it in 1908. Although he was referencing Canada modern parallels come to mind.

Published
Categorised as Poetry

Stolpersteine

Tomorrow is Holocaust Memorial Day. The person who may have done most to keep memories of victims alive is German artist Gunter Demnig. Since 1992 he has been placing small square brass plaques (Stolpersteine) on pavements to mark the last place they lived. He says “a person is not forgotten until his or her name… Continue reading Stolpersteine

Published
Categorised as Art, History

The Passenger

Last year I was taken by Max-Otto Ludwig Löwenstein‘s wartime memoir, Accidental Journey. You may remember his family were rich Jews and he went to Cambridge before being sent round and about as an enemy alien and joining the British army.

Published
Categorised as Literature

Hare and Tortoise

I have friends, yes really, that take an interest in their investments and if the performance is unsatisfactory they kick ass. That’s not my style. I await events.

Published
Categorised as Business

Die Kaiserin

A colour television in the 1960s cost as much as a new, I suppose small, car. A large Dover Sole in a restaurant cost 12/6 or half a crown. I have bought a TV for £125 (the TV licence is £175) and it does everything except brush my teeth. On the other hand I don’t… Continue reading Die Kaiserin