Fidelio

Fidelio at the Proms last Friday was thoroughly satisfactory. I had last seen it at the Proms in 2009 with Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and a good cast.

Published
Categorised as Music

Cydalima perspectalis

Everything in the garden has been looking good. The new planter has been delivered and some English lavender planted. (Tasteful repro-Adams or cement kitsch?) In the back garden the agapanthus has put on a good show and I was metaphorically hunkered down on my horticultural haunches. Then disaster struck; cydalima perspectalis.

Films on Release

Jean-Pierre Léaud – does the name ring a bell? If you are a cineaste you will be shouting “yes, 400 chimes”. He was the boy in François Truffaut’s autobiographical 1959 film, Les Quatre Cents Coups. He went on to make four more films in the series depicting the same character, Antoine Doinel, growing up.

Carphone Warehouse

Carphone Warehouse was founded in 1989 and now has some 2,400 shops in the UK and Europe. It’s a pretty well-known brand name but it doesn’t sell car ‘phones and has shops not warehouses. There is a lesson here for, perhaps – only perhaps – well-intentioned, folk who want to screw-up a recognisable brand name… Continue reading Carphone Warehouse

Published
Categorised as Business

The Truth about Trump

A reader in the West Country has trumped me in the Bitters department. He sent this picture of two specimens that have eluded my collection. This reminds me that he alerted me to a lovely conspiracy theory that was doing the rounds among the in-crowd in the United States late last year.

St Mary Harefield, Part II

It doesn’t look much from the outside, does it? There are, at least, two interesting things outside as it happens but I wanted to see the inside and the church was locked. Lucky me that a gardener was strimming and let me in.

St Mary Harefield, Part I

Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park are crammed with dogs. Why are there no dogs in the Green Park, that has a dog fountain, or St James’s Park? This is one of life’s unsolved mysteries. Another is why a gem like St Mary, Harefield is “undiscovered”.

Memories of Malcolm House, Batsford

It’s always worth popping into Oxfam on Kensington High Street and this week I was rewarded with a paperback copy of Wait For Me!

Published
Categorised as Family

Heritage

Heritage used to mean something; 1. property that is or may be inherited; an inheritance 2. a special or individual possession; an allotted portion. Now it’s a tomato or a beetroot. Well, maybe language does evolve, so I’ve been drinking an heritage gin and tonic.

West Horsley Revisited

One Sunday in October last year I went to look around the house and grounds at West Horsley (So you want to put on an Opera?). It is a Tudor house that the Gascoignes inherited and where Wasfi Kani OBE, of Grange Park Opera, was building an opera house. I went back on Saturday afternoon… Continue reading West Horsley Revisited