If you looked in my wallet thirty years ago you would have found lists. PG Wodehouses and Pevsners, Lloyd’s syndicates and books by other authors – perhaps Dornford Yates and Leslie Charteris – a compulsion inherited from Uncle George.
Garden squares in London are sometimes called London’s best kept hidden secrets, not without good reason. Some gardens are private, only accessible to key holders living around the square.
In a week Bertie will have his eighteenth birthday, in months. It’s hard to choose presents for humans let alone a beagle but I hope he will be pleased with my gift.
I don’t often hear from Babs and when I do she is usually in a hole and needs help. No Time to Die isn’t the most auspicious title for her new James Bond film.
“The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light … He who works for sweetness and light united, works to make reason and the will of God prevail.“ (Culture and Anarchy, 1869, Matthew Arnold)
I once played Piquet, an elegant card game with a scoring system as readily learnt as Real Tennis. Churchill in later life played a lot of Bezique especially when he was Prime Minister in his last term, 1951 – 1955. Franklin Roosevelt favoured Poker during his second and third terms in office.
The Daily Universal Register changed its name to The Times in 1788. A new development in this venerable organ’s ability to adapt is the launch of Times Radio this year. It may fill a gap in the market.