Kiva

ˈkiːvə/ noun a chamber, built wholly or partly underground, used by male Pueblo Indians for religious rites.

And Now The Shipping Forecast

Peter Jefferson read the Shipping Forecast on the BBC for more than forty years so it’s likely that he has lulled you to sleep a few times.

Posh Salt

My youngest god-daughter, Dorelia, is fashion-forward. She came back from a trip to Paris with her father with two birthday presents for me.

Step Inside

I went to Wormwood Scrubs (above) on Saturday to see an exhibition of art by offenders laid on by the Koestler Trust. Here is what I bought.

G is for Goshawk

Helen Macdonald garnered praise and the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction in 2014 with H is for Hawk. A substantial strand of the book is about TH White (above) and his book The Goshawk, written shortly before World War II, but not published until 1951.

Peaky Bloomers

Peaky Blinders is a BBC crime drama series set in Birmingham immediately after World War I. It must be good – it’s on its third series. I’ve not seen it (maybe a good box set for the winter) but Dr Henry Sanford has.

In Memoriam

This is a verse from Tennyson’s In Memoriam A.H.H. Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation’s final law Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shriek’d against his creed I haven’t entirely unraveled what it means. Poetry can be tricky to interpret but perhaps it’s relevant to the recent installation of… Continue reading In Memoriam

Bomb Sight

I recently came across this website: www.bombsight.org. It maps where the bombs fell in the Blitz. My street had one hit. It also has accounts of those dark days in diaries, letters and memoirs.

Published
Categorised as History

Long Walks

I don’t have anything by Richard Long (above) but he often comes to mind. First because I was given a large well-illustrated catalogue for his exhibition at Tate Britain in 2009. Secondly, because I went to and was greatly impressed by the exhibition and thirdly because he works in a way unlike any other artist… Continue reading Long Walks

SRO

This is an LP I bought in the 1960s. SRO signifies Standing Room Only, a reference to Herb Alpert’s popularity. My taste in music has evolved since then. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-fifties that I began to enjoy Wagner.

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Categorised as Music