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The Via San Gregorio Armeno is a narrow alley in Naples full of shops selling nativity scenes. When I went some years ago I thought it all rather kitsch, verging on vulgar. I have changed my mind.

Why did Roy Jenkins decide on another major biography in his old age. (It was published when he was eighty-two, the year before he died.) John Campbell explains.

Paris in the 1920s was a crucible in the heat of which Cubism, Futurism, and Expressionism were forged by artists like André Lhote, Fernand Léger, and Albert Gleizes. There was a woman in another country and another continent who wanted to learn about these new styles.

More than five years ago Bertie and I went to The Charterhouse. B was impossible on the tube, wriggling and squirming, and not very well behaved in the grounds of the C. He was a puppy.

“Few of us are aware of how much … we eat – because we tend to consume it indirectly. … oil is used for cooking and can also be found in margarine, chocolate, ice cream or baked goods, as well as in cosmetics or soaps. … production has more than doubled over the last two… Continue reading Pufuleti

These two novels have a common theme – they are set in a time of turmoil in 1919 at the end of the Great War. Both tell their story through the guests at an hotel: conveying the mood of the whole country under this microscope.

An interesting if arcane topic that may be of interest. I must declare an interest: I am a trustee of this charity founded in 1783. Tickets can be bought at the Society’s website. On the Fourth of July, 1806We set sail from the sweet cove of CorkWe were sailing away with a cargo of bricksFor… Continue reading Irish Endurance

The Times yesterday reports “gibbons dance like humans, study shows”.

I feel rather guilty when I finish an enjoyable, lightweight thriller. I ought to have been reading something more improving.

I don’t hoard, there isn’t room for that indulgence in a small late Victorian terraced house; so it is giving me immense pleasure to read a copy of The Spectator dated 27 February 1988.