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.

Social Anthropology

I read Anthropology (and Psychology and English) at Durham. The origins of Man were hard to get a grip on and defeated me. However, I did enjoy Social Anthropology. It may have inspired trips in later years to the Middle East, Africa and the Caucasus.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

A new Coen brothers film is usually good news and this time they have turned their hand to a Western for the first time since True Grit in 2010.

Mad as a Wet Hen

Plucky TM PM has been more resilient than I expected. What do you think of the deal that she says is now non-negotiable?

Published
Categorised as Politics

From Alperton to Paddington

How do you first see a city? Arriving at Venice’s Santa Lucia station and stepping out onto broad steps leading down to the Grand Canal is hard to beat. Yesterday I walked to London along the Paddington arm of the Grand Union Canal.