I have made two additions to my wardrobe this year; red corduroy trousers and a blazer.
All Englishmen of a certain age (and class) wear cords in some shade of red. It is an important identifier, especially when travelling abroad. It has taken me until now to join the club. They are not to be confused with faded red cotton sailing trousers which are quite acceptable for younger men with some sailing credentials. I have never owned a blazer and feel I am now old enough to sport one as smart casual. I opted for single breasted, navy, with shiny gold buttons. I would like to look like David Niven or Roger Moore but of course look more like Captain Peacock in Are You Being Served?
I have made no changes to my portfolio recently, though I must sell something in my pension soon as it is getting low on cash. Gratifyingly, and underlining the merit of being a long term investor, my Scottish Mortgage shares are now up by 1,000%. Not so long ago I boasted that palm oil producer, MP Evans, was up by 1,000%. This morning it is up by 1,700%. For balance, more than a few posts passim have been a litany of dire investment failures. I won’t torture myself by repeating the list but you can if you feel like enjoying some schadenfreude; Long Term Investment is a good start.
Meanwhile my portfolio is at a new high watermark. Will there be a significant downward correction – up to say 40%? There’s every reason to be bearish in the light of rising inflation, food prices, oil prices and geopolitical tensions. I don’t know, but I hope the managers of my funds will tweak their holdings if they see trouble. I do know that switching into cash triggers a tax bill and it is never easy to get back into the market. I only hold shares in two companies (MP Evans and Standard Life, formerly Phoenix) and holding everything else in investment/unit trusts makes life a lot easier.
Confusingly Berlioz’s Le Corsaire overture is not an overture at all; it is a tone poem. Also confusingly it changed name several times.
“Le corsaire (The Corsair), Op. 21. Overture composed while Berlioz was on holiday in Nice in August 1844. It was first performed under the title La tour de Nice (The Tower of Nice) on 19 January 1845. It was then renamed Le corsaire rouge (after James Fenimore Cooper’s novel The Red Rover) and finally Le corsaire(suggesting Byron‘s poem The Corsair).” (Wikipedia)
I will spare you Byron’s poem as it is about 180 pages long. Digression; it is dedicated to Irish poet, Thomas Moore.
The unnamed steward in your Sudak post — I believe I know his name
Dear Christopher,
Please forgive me for leaving this message here — I could find no other way to reach you.
I came across your post “Sudak Remembered” while researching my family history, and I have been unable to forget it since.
The unnamed steward who organised the Tartar feast for the Imperial family in 1867 — I believe he was my great-great-grandfather, Christoph Hartwig. He came from a Baltic German officer family that had served the Russian Empire for generations, and managed Aivazovsky’s estate at Sudak for many years. His son Johann continued the work after Aivazovsky’s death in 1900, until 1917.
I have written a short literary essay about this connection — tracing the story from Aivazovsky and Hartwig’s remarkable working relationship, through the feast itself, to the fate of both families after the Revolution. It is written in German, but I have also made an English translation.
If you are interested, I would be glad to share it with you. It feels like a natural companion to Henry Sanford’s account — the view from the other side of the feast, so to speak.
With warm regards,
Katharina