New Tricks

My train journey to Suffolk on Wednesday morning was a conspicuous success. Hitherto I took the tube to overcrowded Liverpool Street and caught the train. This time I did it differently.

Dancer

As Howards End is being shown on TV “only connect” is fresh in my mind. On Monday there were some unexpected connections.

Dread Chaos and Eternal Night

Disruption is a word that only has negative connotations for me and I  expect digital disruption to be the prelude to war. Apparently now it means improvement. I snapped the sign above in Victoria this month.

Elizabeth Bowen

My goddaughter, Sophia, was at Downe House. She was confirmed by the then Bishop of Oxford who delivered such a good sermon that I remembered every word when he repeated it at a subsequent Confirmation.

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Categorised as Literature

Lucia

I went to Fulham Opera’s Lucia di Lammermoor on Friday night and was bowled over by the singing and, to a lesser extent, the production.

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Categorised as Music

School Dinners

I’m not one for school reunions. At least ten years ago there was a drinks party in London for all the boys in “my” year at Eton. It was excruciating as the few I recognised I wasn’t especially keen on and otherwise it was a sea of strange faces. I ended up talking to the… Continue reading School Dinners

Swiss Role

The Honourable Artillery Company takes pride in being the oldest regiment in the British Army, founded by Henry VIII in 1537. It is irksome for the HAC that Pope Julius II founded the Pontifical Swiss Guard in 1506.

Amis’s Oxford Marmalade

In 1874 Mrs Frank Cooper made 76 lbs of marmalade to her own receipt for sale in her husband’s grocery in Oxford High Street. Its distinctive bitter flavour permeates Kingsley Amis’s Memoirs.

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Categorised as Literature

A Pinch of Pugin

Nine of the eighteen buildings in Ireland that Pugin had a hand in (I’m choosing my words carefully) are in Co Wexford and you may well wonder why I didn’t see any when there recently. St Aidan’s Cathedral in Enniscorthy would have been an obvious choice, especially as we drove through the town.

In The Psychiatrist’s Chair

I read psychology at Durham and this, in my opinion, qualifies me to put the Chairman of the Workers’ Party in Korea and supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, on the couch in my consulting room. I have just ushered out Homan Potterton who came with a swollen head after his swimgloat surrounding the publication of his… Continue reading In The Psychiatrist’s Chair

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Categorised as Politics