A Bulb Changer

As easy as changing a light bulb is an expression which may once have been valid but most certainly does not apply today.

Tamers

Now I know why I have never seen The Taming of the Shrew – it is another of Will’s “problem plays”.

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Categorised as Theatre

The World of Yesterday

I bought The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig on the recommendation of an erudite friend. “One of the greatest memoirs of the twentieth century” says David Hare. John Banville adds ” a marvellous recapturing of a Europe that Hitler and his thugs destroyed”.

A White Christmas

The Nat Gall has an exhibition called Monochrome: Painting in Black and White. It’s on until February 18th but I doubt I will see it. Here’s why.

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Categorised as Art

Robin Lane Box

Robin Lane Fox’s latest column in FTWeekend is required reading if you live in the UK and cherish your box. RLF gave his son box plants for his garden in west London and in August this year Cydalima perspectalis did not decimate them, it 100%ed them when he was away on holiday with his family… Continue reading Robin Lane Box

Love, Cecil

Love, Cecil is a bio-pic about Cecil Beaton. I have read his diaries from 1965 until his death in 1980 so it covers much familiar ground.

Going Out with a Bang

Nearly ten years ago, on the 18th of December 2007, I shot at Ashcombe in Wiltshire as a guest of my Godson’s father. The birds are some of the most challenging anywhere and I prepared myself by booking a lesson at the West London Shooting School.

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Categorised as Sport

Mr Kong – Gone

When I was forty, with apologies to AA Milne, I had a birthday party at Mr Kong in Lisle Street. It was a good evening and two things I will always remember.

Blake Memorial Cross

Margravine Cemetery has two listed buildings, four listed memorials and two Commonwealth War Commission headstones marking the graves of two holders of the Victoria Cross. Not bad, eh?

A Peregrination

The bird feeders in the back garden are a bit of a disappointment. In the summer mice put on engaging gymnastic displays in their endeavours to gain access but not many birds attended.

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Categorised as Art, Nature