THAAD

There’s always a reason but why is North Korea so bellicose? Internally there are signs of the economy becoming less centralised and surely the regime just wants to be left alone and to continue its despotic reign? Why attract the censure of the world?

Bryan Bertram Bellew

I have re-read my grandfather’s obituary, published in The Irish Times.

Published
Categorised as Family

Catalonia

World events usually find me looking the wrong way. I have been fretting about North Korea when I should have been looking closer to home. It had not occurred to me that Catalonia was in such a hurry to gain independence. I thought it lacked the urgency that mañana conveys to me. Here’s my view… Continue reading Catalonia

Published
Categorised as Politics

The Marches

I’m reading The Marches by Rory Stewart. It is an account of his relationship with his father growing up in the Far East.

Henry Lamb

This is a picture in the Imperial War Mueum by Australian-born Henry Lamb. He was born in Adelaide, where his father was professor of mathematics at the university, in 1883.

Published
Categorised as Art

War and Wet

The war memorial in La Romieu is a history of modern France.

Published
Categorised as Travel

Angéline and Her Cats

On Friday we had lunch outside in the square at La Romieu. The village gets its name, likening it to Rome, from its magnificent church and the Collégiale St. Pierre, a 14th-century cloister with a tower (above).

Published
Categorised as Travel

Castelnau

The Boileau Arms sat on the south side of Hammersmith Bridge at the beginning of Castelnau Road. Since the 1980s it has changed hands and name many times and is now The Castelnau. All this is terrifically relevant to Gascony where Castelnau is a common place name.

Arnaud de Môles

It is a few years since I visited Auch and its magnificent cathedral. It has eighteen windows by Arnaud de Môles. If I saw this glass in an English church I would label it Victorian but I’d be wrong, big time.

Published
Categorised as Art

Bastide Town

The French are better at preserving their architectural heritage than the English. Gascony (aka the Gers) teems with bastide towns built from the 12th to the 14th centuries.