Paul Nash

If you’re an old hand here you won’t be surprised that I enjoyed the Paul Nash show at Tate Britain. Let me fess up, hitherto I knew nothing about him.

Published
Categorised as Art

A Place in the Country

People often talk of having “a place in the country” a splendidly non-specific expression that means anything from a castle set in 10,000 acres that has been in the family since the reign of Elizabeth I to a rented potting shed. My place in the country in the 1990s was the latter.

Taylor Wessing

What does Taylor Wessing have in common with Schweppes? I found out on Saturday when I went to the National Portrait Gallery.

Published
Categorised as Photography

Colet House

John Colet was Dean of St Paul’s and, in 1509, founded St Paul’s School. Colet House was built on what is now the Talgarth Road in the 1880s. It is adjacent to LAMDA and has been used by the LAMDA students while their new rehearsal rooms were being built.

Published
Categorised as Religion

Spam

I am singularly ill-qualified to write about electronic communication but that’s not going to stop me. Unbelievably, about twenty years ago my then employer, a major US and international insurance company that had diversified into financial services, did not provide its UK employees with e mail.

Published
Categorised as Technology

Waitrose

In France a house in a village with a boulangerie is worth more. In the UK good schools raise property prices but what about a Waitrose?

Under the Flyover

Don’t think that I rant about all modern architecture. There is a lot of good stuff on my doorstep. Hammersmith Broadway and the flyover are not a good setting for anything but there are three interesting buildings which overcome their awkward positions.

A Tale of Two Banks

Martin Vander Weyer writes in The Spectator about Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena. It comes close to the top of a few league tables: Italy’s third largest bank, Europe’s weakest bank, the world’s oldest bank.