Pickers

I wrote about The Picnic Papers almost four years ago. Confined to barracks I remember wistfully childhood picnics.

Osberto Parsley

It seems to me it’s unusual to have a surname that is a vegetable or herb. The Broccoli dynasty of Bond fame, of course, and the fictional Parsnip created by Evelyn Waugh to mock WH Auden in Put Out More Flags. So I’m pleased to add Parsley to my trug.

Easter Rising

Looking at the coronavirus statistics around the world is a daily addiction. Like most addictions, unhealthy and pointless – I expect I will get spots or worse. This Eastertide I want to look at the Easter Rising in Dublin 104 years ago. First the stats.

Published
Categorised as History

The Easter Egg

I hoped to wake up in Skopje this morning; in the Balkans following in the footsteps of Saki who was there before the First World War as foreign corespondent for The Morning Post; a warm, sunny Easter weekend ahead.

Steel’s List

I parted with my 1960 edition of Crockford’s Clerical Directory but found it a good home in Wales. I judged, probably incorrectly, that it was surplus to requirements in my burgeoning shelves of reference books.

Poem Exchange

I sent an e mail on the Sabbath; I cast my bread upon the waters. The quote continues “for you will find it after many days”. This makes no investment sense. Chucking a perfectly good crust away and getting a soggy, mouldy, inedible mess back is akin to investing with Neil Woodford. But I digress.

Published
Categorised as Poetry

The Tangier Regiment

I’ve read enough about how Brexit has divided the country. It is small beer compared to the Restoration 360 years ago. One issue then was the creation of an army forged from Parliamentary and Royalist forces; necessary as there were three Anglo-Dutch wars between 1652 and 1674. But I must digress.

Eliza Walstein

Francis Plowden’s comment on In the Name of St Patrick may have aroused your curiosity. I have persuaded him to turn Guest Blogger and tell an extraordinary tale.

Titles and Forms of Address

John Tuffin asks an interesting question, commenting on Coronavirus Chronicle III: “I have always been puzzled as to why Galahad and Freddie are Honourables, and not Lord Galahad and Lord Frederick. Lord Emsworth’s sisters are Lady Constance and Lady Julia, as one would expect. Is this explained anywhere?”

Coronavirus Chronicle III

Well this year there’s something to cheer up Osbert Lancaster’s Lord and Lady Grumpy. “But now I am cabined, cribbed, confined … “ (Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 4)