Wodehouse Wednesday

Yesterday was Stuffing Wednesday, not to be confused with Stir-up Sunday. I went to the Chairman’s elegant but untidy residence in Maida Vale.

Musing on Munnings

Tomorrow I’m going to Strawberry Hill where some of Horace Walpole’s collection, dispersed at a sale in 1842, has come home from America. Yesterday I saw an exhibition not seen since 1919.

Published
Categorised as Art

Nicky Haslam

Nicky Haslam has had a variety of bedfellows but none more surprising than General Sir John Hackett, GCB, CBE, DSO & bar, MC and Sir Max Hastings. His autobiography, Redeeming Features, lies between Hackett’s I was a Stranger and Hastings’s Did You Really Shoot the Television? on my biog/diary shelves.

What Ho!

On Thursday and Friday evenings this week Wodehouse expert, Tony Ring, is giving two talks at the British Library: The Wit and Wisdom of PG Wodehouse. Both are sold out but you may be interested in two related events.

Personal Assets

I had lunch recently with a friend and we like to examine the entrails of the financial markets. He has, correctly, been bullish about equities for the past couple of years when I have been preaching doom and gloom.

Published
Categorised as Business

Harold Nicolson

Shortly after it was published in 2004 I was given Harold Nicolson, Diaries and Letters, 1907 – 1964 edited by his son Nigel.

Hallelujah

A few events I went to in November went unrecorded here. The rarely performed five act version of Don Carlo, sung in Italian, put on by Fulham Opera for starters.

At Freddie’s

I’ve just read another novel about a stage school that specialises in teaching Shakespeare. (The previous one was If We Were Villains.)

Published
Categorised as Literature

Summer’s Lease

“Summer’s lease hath all too short a date … “ This is the auditorium and stage of Opera Holland Park as it looks in winter.

Tricky Quiz

The third form at Oundle were set eighty questions of unusual complexity to unravel over half-term. Of the ten I showed you I got just two right and then only two more of the other seventy. Here they are again with the answers.