Category: History

The Splendid and the Vile

Erik Larson may not be familiar to you. I think he is better known in America. At my Thanksgiving picnic-on-a-park-bench that should have been captured by Georges Seurat, my friend the Manhattan banker gave me a present from her sister who serendipitously called in on FaceTime from Boston.

Naughty Frances

Fiona Moorhouse’s recent comments have started me thinking about the four Lord Bellews of the First Creation.

Monuments’ Man

George Clooney’s 2014 film, The Monuments Men, didn’t get a big hooray this side of the Atlantic, mostly because British participation was underplayed. Oh, it was a bad script too.

Published
Categorised as Art, History

Eintopf

At this time of year I get out the heavy, orange Le Creuset pan given to me in 1984 and reach for the chopping board, the tin opener and a bottle of red wine.

Farewell to the President

“Gossip and politics, hock and seagulls’ eggs” writes Chips Channon and that encapsulates the tone of his dairies. Two entries though are worth quoting in the light of my recent reading about President Roosevelt.

The Hon Mrs Ronald Greville

You are looking at a spectacular tiara – natch, it belongs to the Royal Family. Was it plundered from a Maharajah, “borrowed” from a nabob? No it wasn’t.

A Brief Alliance

Today it is a short blast up the motorway from Barmeath to Gormanston. It’s about twenty miles if you don’t mind paying the toll (my brother does). This was not the case in the 19th century.

Good Eggers

Count Egmont was a 17th century Dutch freedom fighter seeking independence from the Spanish Empire in the Low Lands in what became known as the Eighty Years War (1568  – 1648). His story was romanticised by Goethe in his 1787 play, Egmont.