Turkish Delight

There has been a tube strike this week, presenting an opportunity to visit neglected local restaurants for lunch.

The Beasts of Holm

It’s an expensive hobby owning boats as some of my friends will attest. HMY Iolanthe, a 189 foot steam yacht, was built for Thomas Waller in 1881.

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Categorised as History

The Gaumont

The Cadogan Estate has done its magic on Sloane Street turning it into a shopping boulevard with wider pavements and more greenery. It has already transformed the Duke of York barracks site into a pedestrian precinct with restaurants. Now it is moving west along the King’s Road.

Pictures at an Exhibition

This is a self-portrait in pastel of my great grandmother, Ada Gilbey. She died while giving birth to my great-aunt, aged thirty. Like many Victorian ladies she was a competent artist.

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Categorised as Art, History

Edward Burra at Tate Britain

As I was saying, artists often study the work of their predecessors and pay them homage: Faces at an Exhibition.

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Millet

You know the name, you know he is a 19th century French artist but like me you may be unfamiliar with his work.

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Categorised as Art, Family

Eat, Drink, Shop

Arrive in a lofty atrium with a bar and shopping, then totter up a broad staircase to the first floor where another shop melds seamlessly into an Italian restaurant.

Modesty Blaise

Modesty Blaise, Joseph Losey’s 1966 offbeat, spoof, comedy caper, is a far cry from his other work: The Servant, The Go-Between, The Damned, Accident etc. But it does have a script by Harold Pinter (in part) and Dirk Bogarde who transformed himself from a matinée star for the Rank Organisation into a Losey favourite portraying… Continue reading Modesty Blaise

ISA Update

Just as the garden needs a bit of trimming and tidying so does an ISA.

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Restoration of Independence

Today marks the 34th anniversary of the Restoration of Independence in Estonia following four years of non-violent demonstrations in the Baltic States, known as The Singing Revolution.

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Categorised as History