The bone china plate in the centre is hand-painted. It refers to the title sequence at the beginning of Jeeves and Wooster, a television series on ITV shown at the end of the last century.
The artist has a Labrador puppy that likes playing with Bertie and it was commissioned by Robert as a Christmas present. Mark Howdle decorates bone china plates as a hobby – et voilà.
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As soon as I find something really good, like Class A drugs, I find it’s illegal. A few days ago, scenting my interest in Bitcoins, the Nanny State, in this case personified by the Financial Conduct Authority, puts it out of reach on the top shelf.
“The FCA has published final rules banning the sale of derivatives and exchange traded notes (ETNs) that reference certain types of cryptoassets to retail consumers.” They estimate it will save retail investors, that’s me, £53 million. I wonder they don’t ban gambling. It would save retail consumers (funny description) a lot more.
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“A conservatory is certainly the hardest thing to design in a Norman style.” (Victorian architect, EB Lamb, quoted in Roger Hudson’s, An Englishman’s Commonplace Book)
My brother took a fancy to add a conservatory to his faux-Norman castle. He’d seen them in colour supplements of newspapers read by the sort of people who long for a glass pimple sprouting like adolescent acne on their suburban homes. It would be attached to the kitchen, face SW and overlook that part of the lake where the sewage discharges. Fortunately our sister, whose contribution to architecture had hitherto been negligible, intervened and suggested a Norman Orangery and this is the happy result.
The detailing harmonises with the 1830 make-over of Barmeath and you might not know it’s a recent intervention. The glazing bars are period. Unfortunately when plate glass was available most of the other windows lost them. I hope EB Lamb would approve.
