Category: History

Hermitage and Chapel

Let me introduce you to Santa Lucia. In her right hand she is strangling a frog, a bit of Catholic iconography with which I am unfamiliar.

A Good Gossip

I’m reading The Journals of Kenneth Rose in small doses, not because they are heavy going; they are highly readable; there are aperçus on every page and they deserve to be savoured.

Carlingford

This is my uncle getting ready to water ski on Carlingford Lough in 1969; no wetsuits in those days. I took the picture and if there’s a bit of a wobble it’s because I was timid about following him into the icy waters.

In Rome and Brussels

Naughty Margaret did not confine her friendships to the Bonaparte clan, as her album reveals.

Bridges

On the seven mile stretch of the Thames upstream from Hammersmith to Richmond there are nine bridges. I’ve always wondered when they were built.

Charterhouse

Friday lunch was indeed at the Charterhouse, my second visit. Last year I went in the evening for a tour of the interior. On Friday we took a look at the outside; it was jolly chilly.

Side by Side

Side by Side … by Nicolson and Rose. Kenneth Rose’s journals are, I hope, a bright new star in the literary firmament. Let’s see how they match up to Harold Nicolson’s diaries.

Guy Burgess

Andrew Lownie spent thirty years researching this book and interviewed more than a hundred sources, as the list of acknowledgements attests.

High Treason

Is it too soon to digress? Don’t muddle High Toast with High Treason; the former an agreeably astringent snuff but the latter is also to be taken seriously. In ‘the good old days’, the existence of which is very doubtful, the usual punishment for dabbling in the latter was hanging, drawing and quartering.