Alessandro Cicognini’s name is not familiar outside Italy. He was, he died aged 89 in 1995, a prolific composer of music for Italian films – more than a hundred. David Lean’s name is definitely familiar.
We watch less than an hour of television daily, usually the news or Dad’s Army on catch-up; so it was Most Unusual to watch a live programme on ITV on Wednesday evening.
It’s well known that coronavirus manifested itself in London in the 1960s. The first case was seen in Hammersmith but it quickly spread through the capital.
You can judge this book by its cover; the cover is orange, the endpapers green. Brian Desmond Hurst was born a Protestant in Belfast but converted to Catholicism so an apt reflection of his life.
It boosted morale when our cleaner came back to work yesterday after a nine-week absence. I was so cheered by having a clean house that I cut the front hedge and made fagioli e tonno for supper, it being a warm evening.
As a tourist you may have had brekker at the Café de Flore. The service was abominable, l’addition astronomic but on holiday it’s worth it to sit in the sun, read a newspaper and watch people. Inevitably, then you will walk down the Rue du Bac towards the Seine.
Plum Duff, aka figgy-dowdy, is dished up on Sundays in the Royal Navy depicted by Patrick O’Brian. Next month there is lashings of Plum on Sunday afternoons on Radio 4; Uncle Fred in the Springtime and Leave it to Psmith, with excellent casts.Details on the PG Wodehouse Society website.
Like Bertie with a bone, I’m reluctant to leave Patrick O’Brian. His stepson is Count Nikolai Tolstoy and his eldest daughter is Countess Alexandra Tolstoy-Miloslavsky. May I digress?