Fishing & Fighting

As you can see local residents, including me, continue to oppose the building of this tower, overlooking the Conservation Area in which we live. We are supported, indirectly, by a verse in St John’s Gospel.

Temple Bar

Wouldn’t it be grand if Temple Bar is where lawyers go for a slurp but they frequent El Vino instead. May I digress?

Double-chamfered

This spectacular monument, in Pevsner’s opinion but I concur, is in the south aisle of St Mary Magdalene in Great Offley, Hertfordshire.

Més que un chess club

If you know a finer clubhouse for chess aficionados, tell me. This is the Nuovo Circolo Degli Scacchi in Rome. It’s almost worth playing chess to belong but I can pop in as a reciprocal member and have done so.

Irish Church Monuments

You may recall Homan Potterton’s first novel, Knockfane, published last year. This is his first book, published in 1975 when he was a young Assistant Keeper at the National Gallery in London.

Var-Siklod

Curious how houses often take centre stage in novels: Blandings, Brideshead, Howards End, Lorienburg, Manderley, White Ladies. I hope I can add Var-Siklod to the list.

Trieste

The very name, Trieste, is redolent of sadness: I’m thinking of Françoise Sagan’s novel. I went for a Ryanair weekend in 2008 and, to avoid repetition, you can read about it in a post misleadingly titled Tahiti .