Dear Father

I rather enjoy writing letters but it often takes me a while to get round to the task. It seems that it runs in the family judging by this one written by my great-great-great grandfather.

More Jottings

Fulham Palace Road is not Bond Street so it was an unexpected pleasure to bump into Kate Cambridge yesterday morning. She was driving with a male passenger (bodyguard, I suppose) accompanied by the Special Escort Group, deploying their whistles. We haven’t had such excitement since the Queen Mother’s funeral cortège came along the Talgarth Road. 

George Broad

Wonderful Wiki’s entry for Margravine Cemetery is woefully out of date. Thanks to the ardour, hard work and pertinacity of The Friends of MC there are now four listed buildings/memorials and the cemetery has re-opened for burials.

Jottings

Various bits and bobs come up that don’t merit a post to themselves.

Partitions, a new play by Tom Stoppard

Mary Kenny’s Crown and Shamrock colours in the history of the relationship between Britain and Ireland in the 19th and 20th centuries, often producing unexpected quirky details – always popular here.

Chips

I reckon I have written more than 250,000 words here, a bagatelle compared to Chips Channon whose fifty or so volumes of diaries run to more than three million words.

ACE Opera but not in Fulham

Arts Council England (ACE) doled out the dosh on Tuesday. There’s plenty of it – about £400 million each year. Poor folk, who should know better, chip in £71 million by fecklessly buying lottery tickets.

Breathing Colour

Joining the swimming pool at Charing Cross Sports Club seems a bargain; £31 a month for off-peak, over 60 membership. Only £1 a day.

Orlando

The sermon last Sunday at The Royal Hospital was about baptism. The Chaplain (I prefer padre) recounted that he had been to where John the Baptist baptised Christ in the Jordan.