Happy Birthday Princess

Your royal correspondent was on the streets of Madrid today to watch Princess Leonor being sworn in as the heir presumptive to the Spanish throne on her 18th birthday.

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Autumn in Madrid

In Valencia in 2016 I saw Joaquín Sorolla‘s pictures for the first time. In March this year I saw more of his work at The Royal Academy in London.

Do You Know the Way to … ?

“In July 2005 Pope Benedict XVI stated during an impromptu address to priests in Aosta that: “The Pope is not an oracle; he is infallible in very rare situations, as we know.” Pope John XXIII once remarked: “I am only infallible if I speak infallibly but I shall never do that, so I am not… Continue reading Do You Know the Way to … ?

Hardship Allowances

When I was posted to Belize, in the Irish Guards, in 1973 it was officially still British Honduras. The name changed unobtrusively, at least to me, in June 1973 mid-way through my stay.

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Meet the Pallisers

I saw The Rocky Horror Show at a theatre in the King’s Road (possibly The Royal Court) in the 1970s and was taken by surprise when the audience were mostly in costume and participated in the show – I remember lots of rice being chucked in a wedding scene.

The Flight of Ikaros

“There is a surplus of books about modern Greece, but this one is the best for many years”, writes a reviewer in the New Statesman in the latter half of the last century.

Apochairetistírio

I have been coming to Greece since 1977 and have never stayed on the mainland before, once staying on Spetses and otherwise island hopping on chartered yachts.

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