I write these posts for fun. Only a few, but you are a cherished few, read them. When there are comments I’m delighted – they are usually much brainier than my post . So what could possibly go wrong?
It is 8.44 miles from my front door to The Water Poet near Liverpool Street. I don’t have a pedometer but Uber faithfully records the mileage and notes that I was picked up at 6.13 pm after a lunch that began at 12.30.
Charles Moore in his Spectator column this week recalls listening to Tristan Voorspuy recite The Fox’s Prophecy when he went on safari with him in Kenya. As you will have read, Tristan Voorspuy was murdered on his farm in Kenya and Charles Moore remembers him with affection.
If you went to Eton you know what beaks are – if you didn’t, it is what the teachers are called. In 1959, in Bud Hill’s house, there were two extra beaks.
Do not fancy that an intermission of writing is a decay of kindness. No man is always in a disposition to write; nor has any man at all times something to say. (Johnson: Letter to Boswell)
The phoney war’s almost over, in a few days we will face the crunch. I am realistic about the complexity and pessimistic about the effect of the UK’s departure from the EU.