Waugh Diaries

It’s been years since I read The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh. I’m looking at them again because of an email from a reader that sent me down a rabbit hole into a labyrinthine warren.

Published
Categorised as Literature

Meet the Bins

I wonder how can I make my posts more interesting? Blog readers like something seasonal, so how about mistletoe at Cranford Park instead of mulled wine?

Slightly Foxed

I’ve succumbed to temptation and taken out a subscription to Slightly Foxed, The Real Reader’s Quarterly. I used to read it in the library at my club but newspapers and magazines are too toxic for members to handle these days.

Published
Categorised as Literature

Claim Your Rights

The Quincunx, in the best traditions of the great Victorian novel, is a page-turner. Charles Palliser should have issued it in instalments and I for sure would have been drooling in anticipationlike Bertie waiting for dinner. Apparently on the east coast of America they were looking out for the ship bringing the next addictive shot of… Continue reading Claim Your Rights

Published
Categorised as Business

Good Eggers

Count Egmont was a 17th century Dutch freedom fighter seeking independence from the Spanish Empire in the Low Lands in what became known as the Eighty Years War (1568  – 1648). His story was romanticised by Goethe in his 1787 play, Egmont.

Living in a Bubble

My bubble is very comfy. Robert and I have not lost our jobs because we didn’t have any and our income has not been reduced. Most people are not so fortunate.

Published
Categorised as Politics

Why Didn’t the Germans Win the War?

The Second World War and indeed the First – capital letters are an inadequate acknowledgement to the lives lost – are wars in which some of the combatants are known to me and probably you as family and friends. As a Pandemic Plus I’ve gained an incomplete insight into WW II.

Published
Categorised as History

Demolition Diary

Spokes of scaffolding have sprouted on the south west corner of the West London Magistrates’ Court to prepare for demolition. I intend to keep a photographic record of progress, as I did when the LAMDA extension was built.

Early Voting

“Vote early, vote often” is ascribed to corrupt elections in Chicago. In the UK the only way to vote early is by using a postal vote, a privilege much abused by Matron in old folks’ homes.

Published
Categorised as Politics