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.

Kensington Gardens

I had a little rant about some modern architecture in July 2015 which I expect you’ve forgotten by now; I almost have, as Queen Elizabeth I said about something different. I refreshed my memory by re-reading Athens, 1931.

Ego

I mentioned at the beginning of last month diarist and theatre critic, James Agate (Men of Letters). I have the second volume of his diaries, Ego 2, but Lyttleton, Hart-Davis and Leigh Fermor have stopped me reading it.

Dashing for the Post

You may recall that I feel an especial affinity with Patrick O’Brian’s series of novels about Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin (A Spy in the Family) but nevertheless I have got but never read the last (twentieth) in the series – too sad-making I was told. Fiction doesn’t have to have a sad ending but… Continue reading Dashing for the Post

Published
Categorised as Literature

Où est le Garlic

“I’m going to cook you the best meal you’ve ever eaten.” That’s how Harry Palmer (Michael Caine) seduces Jean Courtney (Sue Lloyd) in The Ipcress File, the 1965 film version of Len Deighton’s 1962 novel.

Temple Time

Friends invited me today to the Hindu temple in Neasden, as they thought it would interest me and it did. The building, opened in 1995, has intricate carving in stone and wood and an elaborate archway, above.

Taking a Long View

Happy new year from a wet, windswept London. It’s a time of resolutions and prognostications for 2017 in the media but here at Blog Bellew HQ we take a longer perspective.

All about Aloysius

There are some unfathomable mysteries in life. One is why John Betjeman called his teddy bear Archibald Ormsby-Gore. He took Archie with him to Oxford and Archie appears in Brideshead Revisited as Sebastian Flyte’s teddy, Aloysius.

Fingers on the Button

If you live in a democracy it’s a good plan to have the casting vote (just in case). Votes cast for watching University Challenge at home are exactly 50% in favour but I don’t have that casting vote, so it’s a treat to be on my own for a few days and to indulge.