Wash Doctors

Never buy or sell anything on the doorstep. This rule has served me well in the past but rules are made to be broken. Wash Doctors knocked on the door and hooked me.

Bernstein, Blood and Guts

It’s grand to be back in Wexford and the Talbot is as welcoming as ever. The sea view is magnificent and, in the foreground, trains glide silently past a car park.

Published
Categorised as Music, Travel

The Last of the Mohicans

Two books that everyone knows are Moby Dick and The Last of the Mohicans – but I’ve not read either of them.

Three Operas and a Game of Charades

Saverio Mercadante (58), Franco Leoni (10), Umberto Giordano (14). It’s time to put the clocks back and it’s time to go back to Wexford to see operas by three prolific composers – they have clocked up 82 operas between them.

Published
Categorised as Music

Witchfinder General

Yesterday I left you in Essex on a bank of the Stour estuary at Mistley. The Mistley Thorn where we lunched has a strange and disturbing tale to tell on a board on its west wall.

Wrabness to Mistley

On Tuesday I took a slightly shorter walk than usual, only five miles. As usual, it was along a tidal stretch of river – not the Thames, the Stour that divides Essex from Suffolk and joins the North Sea at Harwich.

From Sewage to Senile Treatment

In between Mortlake and Kew by the towpath there is a substantial plant that was used by Thames Water to treat sewage. It’s proper name is a biothane plane but that needn’t concern us as it shut in 2015.

Lunch at Stoke Park

Sunday lunch at the magnificent Stoke Park was under the auspices of the local Conservative Association. After lunch their MP, Dominic Grieve, spoke and I was fortunate to get in a question which I’d like to expand into a statement.

Published
Categorised as Politics

A Few Stiffies

If I can’t remember what I’ve written I certainly don’t expect you to remember what you have read here. In January 2016, in Democratic Principles, Michael Stiff of Stiff + Trevillion made a brief appearance. His practice flourishes; one of his recent commissions is to design Damien Hirst’s new HQ in Beak Street.

Milkman or Jeeves?

Anna Burns’ novel, Milkman, won the Man Booker prize this year. It follows an 18-year-old girl growing up in Belfast in the Troubles. Worth reading? Maybe another Angela’s Ashes?