What’s Up?

An unusual convention in Bridge is the Lightner double, described by Susanna Gross in The Spectator as “a bolt out of the blue which strikes fear into your heart. There you are, having bid confidently to slam, when suddenly one of your opponents pulls out the red card. Eek! It’s a Lightner double, which means they… Continue reading What’s Up?

Club Pictures

This group portrait by Rembrandt hangs in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It has a connection with the Savile Club.

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Categorised as Art

Writers Bloch

On Tuesday morning I was reading James Lees-Milne’s diaries. I have got as far as 1979 and he has formed an intense friendship with Michael Bloch. Later I went to lunch at the Savile and was delighted to meet him there.

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Categorised as Literature

George Peabody

On Monday I walked across London for lunch at the City of London club in Old Broad Street. On the way home I snapped this bronze at the back of the Royal Exchange. In thirty-nine years working in the City I saw it countless times without having the curiosity to learn more.

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Categorised as Charities

Secondhand in Chiswick

On Sundays Robert plays tennis in Chiswick and last weekend he suggested that I walked there to meet him for lunch. The transition from the, frankly, run-down purlieus of Hammersmith to chi-chi Chiswick is remarkable.

Back to Basics

I read Venetia Ansell’s blog with interest because her life is so different to my own. She divides her time between Bangalore and an up-country coffee plantation she has bought with her husband and where they live, rather primitively by my standards.

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Categorised as Literature

Pouncing

The Earl of Ickenham believed in pouncing. Let him explain the Ickenham System in his own words. I call it that. Just giving you the bare outlines, you stride up to the subject, grab her by the wrist, clasp her to your bosom and shower burning kisses on her upturned face. You don’t have to… Continue reading Pouncing

The Have Yachts

When I was forty, two of my first cousins gave a party at my favourite Chinese restaurant, Mr Kong in Lisle Street. It closed at the end of 2015 so don’t go looking for it. When I was fifty I gave a small dinner party at my club. When I was sixty …

Making Music

I invited a great-niece and a god-daughter to a Prom this week. In hunting terminology this is called running a bitch pack and is a compliment. Tom Isaacs, a famous huntsman at the end of the 19th century, said that “his bitch pack were the ones for killing foxes” but forrard, forrard (another hunting term).