Category: Literature

Twiggy

When I was at Eton I was up to Michael Kidson for History when I was doing O Levels. Unfortunately for me I was not in his div when I did History A Level, my D grade is testament to that.

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Categorised as Literature

The Truth about Trump

A reader in the West Country has trumped me in the Bitters department. He sent this picture of two specimens that have eluded my collection. This reminds me that he alerted me to a lovely conspiracy theory that was doing the rounds among the in-crowd in the United States late last year.

Come-to-Good

In a recent post, More Jottings, I mentioned joining the National Churches Trust. It turns out to be rather a bargain. The minimum subscription is £30 and when you join you receive this 192 page hardback coffee table filler that sells for £20.

I Once Met Pius XII

I enjoy the I Once Met column in The Oldie. If you are a fan Richard Ingrams edited two anthologies. James Lees-Milne’s diary entry for Tuesday 14th September 1948 qualifies for, although I don’t think has appeared in, I Once Met. He was on holiday in Rome and was granted an audience with the Pope (Pius… Continue reading I Once Met Pius XII

In Their Wisdom

I’m reading In Their Wisdom by CP Snow. In an early chapter a character says “… perhaps he needs his £6 10s.”

Chips

I reckon I have written more than 250,000 words here, a bagatelle compared to Chips Channon whose fifty or so volumes of diaries run to more than three million words.

Orlando

The sermon last Sunday at The Royal Hospital was about baptism. The Chaplain (I prefer padre) recounted that he had been to where John the Baptist baptised Christ in the Jordan.

In Requiem

The Riddle of the Sands portends the Great War; published in 1903, written by Erskine Childers and with Carruthers as the central character. How many Carruthers does it take to make a Foreign Office? There’s one in the Korda Bros film, The Drum, another in Sherard Cowper-Coles’s memoir, Ever The Diplomat.

Books & Theatre

Underneath that pile of unread books is what I grandly call my library steps, although it came from IKEA where it is called a step stool. The pile has grown since my trip to Wales where I went to charity shops in Pembroke and LLandeilo. 

Another Diary

I left James Lees-Milne behind in London so was pleased to find a copy of The Diaries of Auberon Waugh, a Turbulent Decade, 1976 –  1985, when I was in a charity shop in Pembroke.