Category: PG Wodehouse

Wodehouse in Swaledale

After dicing with death for almost five hours on the M1 it was good to change down a couple of gears and drive up the narrow, winding road to Swaledale and Keld. The cottage is old-fashioned with thick stone walls, a small stone-flagged kitchen and so on.

Partitions, a new play by Tom Stoppard

Mary Kenny’s Crown and Shamrock colours in the history of the relationship between Britain and Ireland in the 19th and 20th centuries, often producing unexpected quirky details – always popular here.

Another Snake

Guess who is the longest running PG Wodehouse character? Tony Ring knows and I hear Norman Murphy shouting the answer from heaven.

Stead, Journalist

It is 8.44 miles from my front door to The Water Poet near Liverpool Street. I don’t have a pedometer but Uber faithfully records the mileage and notes that I was picked up at 6.13 pm after a lunch that began at 12.30.

A Forgotten Author

I don’t know how I know the story of The Monkey’s Paw. Perhaps it was done as a play at Castle Park or read to us there? It is a short story published in 1902 and subsequently adapted for stage, screen and the wireless. The genre, if you don’t know it, is spooky, chiller,thriller.

Dry January?

I went to lunch and ordered a Panang (sic) Curry. It was, no doubt about it, road-kill. I didn’t need to be a mortician to recognise those little squirrel bones – well maybe it was something else …

A Place in the Country

People often talk of having “a place in the country” a splendidly non-specific expression that means anything from a castle set in 10,000 acres that has been in the family since the reign of Elizabeth I to a rented potting shed. My place in the country in the 1990s was the latter.

Fingers on the Button

If you live in a democracy it’s a good plan to have the casting vote (just in case). Votes cast for watching University Challenge at home are exactly 50% in favour but I don’t have that casting vote, so it’s a treat to be on my own for a few days and to indulge.