Iron Winter

I don’t have much luck with Celebrity Carol Services. Years ago I went to the parliamentary carol service at which, by tradition, the Prime Minister is a reader.

Moldova and Ukraine

Two dates are pencilled in my diary next year. On 24th February Moldova is holding parliamentary elections and on 31st March there is a presidential election in Ukraine.

Published
Categorised as Politics

Death in Rome and Venice

Infant mortality was a fact of life, or rather death, until the twentieth century. It did not discriminate between rich and poor.

Published
Categorised as Family

NFN

Across the road from the site of the Mortlake Tapestry Works is St Mary the Virgin, Mortlake. I finally took a look inside on Monday.

Strawberry Hill Revisited

The concept is that the Lost Treasures of Strawberry Hill have been temporarily returned for a once-in-a-lifetime experience but like the curate’s egg it is only good in parts.

Jeeves in Japan

Why are the Japanese obsessed with butlers? Kazuo Ishiguro’s Man Booker winner in 1989, The Remains of the Day, has a butler as its central character.

The Tichborne Tattoo

While America was gripped by the Lindbergh kidnapping case in the 1930s, Victorian England was obsessed by the Tichborne case in the 1860s and 70s.

Dinner was rather strained

On February 13th 1935 Harold Nicolson was again staying with Betty Morrow, Dwight Morrow’s widow, and Anne and Charles Lindbergh at Englewood, New Jersey. This is what he wrote to Vita the following day. 

Thor what it’s worth

Dwight Morrow (1873 – 1931) was an American businessman, diplomat and politician. His daughter, Anne, decided to commemorate him by commissioning a biography.