Pictures in a Picture

Serendipitously, fifteen letters so it fits on a Scrabble board, Apollo Magazine carried an article (by David Weir) about The Leopard yesterday.

Il Gattopardo

“ Nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.” The daily recital of the Rosary was over. For half an hour the steady voice of the Prince had recalled the Glorious and the Sorrowful Mysteries; for half an hour other voices had interwoven a lilting hum from which, now and again, would chime some unlikely word;… Continue reading Il Gattopardo

Moscow Underground

I would not have bought this book. It is a Christmas present. Why not? I have never heard of Catherine Merridale and never read anything by Simon Sebag Montefiori. I know people who bought his Jerusalem: a Biography but none who finished it ; more than eight hundred pages and more than twenty-five hours as… Continue reading Moscow Underground

Published
Categorised as Literature

Cathedral

These are the pieces for a simple board game for two players. Not the sort of TV game like Traitors, a spectator game that goes on for weeks, or Diplomacy; another long, brutal game that takes ages too and may end in tears.

Crumbs

This is one of three portraits by Hans Eworth at Tate Britain.

Published
Categorised as Art, History

Pot Luck

I never met Quentin Crewe, I wish I had; journalist, author, restaurateur and adventurer, all done with the significant disadvantage of being diagnosed with muscular dystrophy as a child.

In Bruges

Look at architecture in London and it’s usually easy to roughly guess the date. Likewise much art can be categorised but perhaps not portraiture.

Published
Categorised as Art

Top Hat

I cannot remember the Festival of Britain, I wasn’t quite born, but it has a lot to answer for.

Saint Piran and the Millstone

Should you visit the Blackmore tin-streamers on their feast-day, which falls on Friday-in-Lide (that is to say, the first Friday in March), you may note a truly Celtic ceremony. On that day the tinners pick out the sleepiest boy in the neighbourhood and send him up to the highest bound in the works, with instructions… Continue reading Saint Piran and the Millstone

Published
Categorised as Literature

St Stephen’s Day

Wednesday 26 December 1660 In the morning to Alderman Backwell’s for the candlesticks for Mr. Coventry, but they being not done I went away, and so by coach to Mr. Crew’s, and there took some money of Mr. Moore’s for my Lord, and so to my Lord’s, where I found Sir Thomas Bond (whom I… Continue reading St Stephen’s Day