Category: Literature

Two Favourites

There is an annual cycle of events that’s peculiarly British. I’m thinking of the Birthday Parade (don’t call it Trooping the Colour), the Grand National, Wimbledon, the Chelsea Flower Show; events that the nation takes to its heart. One such tradition ceased in 2010.

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Categorised as Literature

From Norwich to Venice

In a recent post, More Chronicles of War, I mentioned Diana Cooper’s letters to her son, Darling Monster. This week I had lunch with the darling monster, better known as John Julius Norwich.

William Sansom

  I went to Maida Vale with Nicky and Nick on Saturday to deliver flyers for Zac Goldsmith. Nicky’s father is the subject of Man in Taxi. As we worked the letter boxes of NW8, Nick told me that he had been brought up in Hamilton Terrace and about his father.

The Duke of Wellington

Last month Ian Alexander-Sinclair recalled MacBeth in Introducing a Special Guest. He returns to reflect on Richard Holmes’s 2003 biography, Wellington: The Iron Duke.

Great Balls of Fire

Jeremy Paxman wrote favourably in the Weekend FT about the Pepys exhibition in the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. I went on Thursday morning.

Special Guest

To make a change from London, I’d like to introduce Charles Woodruff, writing from Switzerland. The view from the chalet: Eiger, Monch and shoulder of the Schwarze Monck

More About Books

The pleasure of rootling around in second-hand bookshops has largely been replaced by instant gratification delivered through shopping on the Internet; largely but not entirely.

Don’t Stick to Your Knitting

It can be good advice, in a business context, to “stick to your knitting”. Getting on with the business you know can make sense but it can be commercial suicide.

Yield to Temptation

My attempts to forecast the price of oil and Shell shares have been spectacularly unsuccessful. In the short term, total washouts, in the longer term maybe they will come right. So I decided not to try your patience any further, until I saw a configuration of stars in the financial firmament that I have not… Continue reading Yield to Temptation

Tom, Tom and Harry

Andrew Ritchie’s encounter with Princess Anne, related in a comment on Man in Taxi, leads me to speculate whether he met any other members of the Royal Family.