Be Prepared

UK and Irish passports are valid for ten years. Bertie’s Pet Passport will be valid from Friday until all the pages are full or until we leave the EU without a deal. Then it becomes complicated for Bertie.

Published
Categorised as Politics

The Play’s the Thing

Over the years I have seen many plays in theatres great and small. The first play I saw professionally staged was Seán O’Casey‘s The Plough and the Stars at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre in 1966; I still remember it.

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Categorised as Theatre

London Perceived

I have marched across Spain with VS Pritchett and hacked across Spain with two middle-aged ladies; Penelope Betjeman’s account of rural Andalusia in November 1962. The latter fulfills all the requirements of a great travel book.

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Categorised as Literature

Hot Dogs

“Despite their promises at the last Election, the politicians had not yet changed the climate. The State Meteorological Institute had so far produced only an unseasonable fall of snow and two little thunderbolts no larger than apricots. The weather varied from day to day and from county to county as it had done of old,… Continue reading Hot Dogs

Men in White Coats

Chiswick House and its gardens was a private lunatic asylum from 1892 until 1928. Looking at the entrance at Chiswick I’m reminded of Mr Loveday’s Little Outing by Evelyn Waugh.

Kirill Karabits

Kirill Karabits; now that’s a name to roll round your tongue; born in Kiev on St Stephen’s Day, 1976.

Published
Categorised as Music

Apples

A mandolin is a useful bit of kitchen kit, however it must be used with care. Especially now that the top of my index finger has become a vital appendage.

Published
Categorised as Technology

Kippergate

On Wednesday evening at ExCel Boris Johnson brandished a kipper from a smokehouse on the Isle of Man.