Bertie Wooster describes Sir Roderick Glossop as “a high-priced loony doctor … over the years practically every posh family in the country has called him in at one time or another”. In the words of the late, much lamented, Wodehousian, Norman Murphy: “ Wodehouse never made anything up”. Indeed he based Sir Roderick on Dr… Continue reading The Mountbattens
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Everybody loves a Rembrandt. They go mad for him. Pre-blog I went to the Rijksmuseum at opening time on a Sunday morning. It was almost empty until we got to The Night Watch where the crowd was five deep. You can dangle his contemporaries, Anthony van Dyck, Jacob Jordaens, Peter Paul Rubens and get a nibble… Continue reading Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
From the Banks of the Neva
This is the beginning but it’s in Finnish: “rakentaa kuin Iisakin Kirkkoa”. Put it into Google Translate, unless you speak Finnish, and you get: “to build like the Church of Isaac”. A Finn might use this expression referring to the Heathrow expansion plans or the construction of Crossrail and HS2; in fact any project that… Continue reading From the Banks of the Neva
From Russia …
The Romanov Tombs You need to know your iconostasis from your elbow and not muddle them up with a reredos in Russian churches. But let’s get back to my childhood at Barmeath. My grandfather was a fount of knowledge and I lapped it up, like I slurp gin now. The general sense of the story… Continue reading From Russia …
A Tale of Two Town Halls
This magnificent building was completed in 1897. It cost £28,000; considered extravagant by its opponents. It fronted onto Brook Green Road and Hammersmith Broadway. It was Hammersmith Town Hall. It was designed in the ornate Italian manner, a style that had been popular for metropolitan municipal architecture since at least the 1860s but which was… Continue reading A Tale of Two Town Halls
Peace for Our Time
Star Wars A Galactic Empire stormtrooper stands guard on the balcony of a house in Barnes overlooking the towpath. He has a festive crown this year. (George Lucas specified that there are no women in the Stormtrooper Corps.) Star Wars was released more the forty years ago – 1977 – and has shaped our lives.… Continue reading Peace for Our Time
Dress to be Killed
My generation is divided into those who went to see Maureen Potter in panto at the Gaiety and those, like me, who went to see Jack Cruise at the Olympia. Miss Hickey, a spinster friend of Mrs McGinn, gave me an autograph book. She thoughtfully stood at the stage door to christen it with JC’s… Continue reading Dress to be Killed
Build Bridges
You can call David Cholmondeley, or Rocksavage as his school friends probably still call him*, many things – but never Earl Marshal; not a mistake that Richard Dimbleby would have made. Unfortunately Huw Edwards spent so much time telling BBC TV viewers how Welsh he, Huw, is at the State Opening of Parliament that he… Continue reading Build Bridges
Knights and Daze
Hop, Skip and Jump
The seasons and the weather change; there’re always new things to see and the river has many moods. Now I talk, sometimes, to other dog owners. Recently I met a Dutch Shepherd puppy with his Swedish/Japanese owners. Overhearing other towpath walkers, I seldom hear English. London, at its best, is a cosmopolitan, civilised place to… Continue reading Hop, Skip and Jump