These Boots Are Made for Walking

“Don’t wear brown shoes if you want to walk into City job” was a headline in The Times this week. It manages to be both completely wrong and entirely right.

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Categorised as Fashion

Boodle’s

Take care of yourself if you’re a partridge; the season opened in the UK yesterday. Parliament reconvenes next week and those London clubs that take a summer holiday have re-opened. I was a guest at Boodle’s which has pretty much everything you could ask for.

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Categorised as History

Comfort Reading

In the autumn of 1972 I was invited to stay with Baron and Baroness von V-S on their estate in Germany. A Mercedes was at the station to meet me driven by a tweedy type who spoke no English. It dawned on me that this was not the Baron but his chauffeur. A parp on… Continue reading Comfort Reading

Sweet Afton

I bought some shares in an investment trust last week and yesterday was writing up the trade. Idly turning back the pages I took a look at my first entry.

Theorbo Time

You don’t see a theorbo for years and then two come along together. About ten years ago I went to a concert at St Paul’s School to raise money for Venice in Peril.

Dear Diary

I know that you are not interested in my diary but last week was rather testing. On Monday I was bobbing around on a trimaran on the Solent. On Tuesday I consulted my (Investec) broker over a leisurely spot of lunch outdoors in Chelsea. On Wednesday an old colleague took me to lunch in the… Continue reading Dear Diary

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Categorised as Art

Sailing on the Solent

Let me introduce you to Ischnura, a female dragonfly, and the name of this trimaran. She was designed and built in Denmark about ten years ago and now she scuds across coastal waters in the UK.

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Categorised as Sport, Travel

Leonard Rosoman

I’m the man on the Clapham omnibus – I don’t know much about art but I know what I like – and I have the cheek to share with you the, usually under-rated, artists that I admire.

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Categorised as Art

For Starters

There are two great American novels narrated through the eyes of children – both girls, as it happens. One is To Kill a Mockingbird and the other? Here’s how it starts.