Thoroughly Modern Manon

Puccini’s Manon Lescaut was screened live from the Met in HD, as they frequently remind us, in cinemas on Saturday.

Today’s Post is for Monty

This is a cockapoo, bred from a cocker spaniel and a poodle. This breed has something to teach us, yes, really.

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Categorised as Business

Drying Greens

  This post is not about vegetables and their preparation, it’s about drying greens.

Retail Travail

As more people shop online the retail sector in the UK is having to adapt.  I wonder if this trend is reflected in the shops around Barons Court station?

A History Lesson

“History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history that we make today.” That’s what Henry Ford thought in 1916. Today Dr Michael Axworthy (above) disagrees.

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Categorised as History

Wiggers

On Sunday I went to a concert at the Wigmore Hall. Wiggers works its socks off: they put on about 400 performances annually and don’t just sit back and enjoy the million pounds they get in funding from the Arts Council; they both raise money and sell tickets – hoorah!

My Four Green Fields

This is by Hilda van Stockum, a Dutch writer of childrens books and an artist. She spent part of her life in Ireland where she met Evie Hone and painted this portrait, probably at Marley, in Rathfarnham, where Evie had a house and studio.

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Categorised as Art, Family

Fulham Opera

As English National Opera struggles to fill their £5 million annual deficit a new opera house is born. This is St. John’s church in Fulham, West London.

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Categorised as Music