William Sansom

  I went to Maida Vale with Nicky and Nick on Saturday to deliver flyers for Zac Goldsmith. Nicky’s father is the subject of Man in Taxi. As we worked the letter boxes of NW8, Nick told me that he had been brought up in Hamilton Terrace and about his father.

The Duke of Wellington

Last month Ian Alexander-Sinclair recalled MacBeth in Introducing a Special Guest. He returns to reflect on Richard Holmes’s 2003 biography, Wellington: The Iron Duke.

A Serious Musical

Le Boeuf sur le toit is a jazzy, tango composition by Darius Milhaud. I like it hugely and think the best translation is “Beef on the roof”.

Great Balls of Fire

Jeremy Paxman wrote favourably in the Weekend FT about the Pepys exhibition in the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. I went on Thursday morning.

Walkies

There has been a lot of chat about PG Wodehouse here but, hitherto, Barbara Woodhouse has been given the cold shoulder. She was what we call in England a “national treasure”, you are free to call her barking mad which is appropriate as, like many Britons, she was bonkers about dogs.

Special Escort Group

I first came across the Metropolitan Police Special Escort Group (SO14) in Sherard Cowper-Coles’ 2011 account of his time as our ambassador and, later, special representative to Afghanistan: Cables from Kabul.

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Categorised as Politics

Special Guest

To make a change from London, I’d like to introduce Charles Woodruff, writing from Switzerland. The view from the chalet: Eiger, Monch and shoulder of the Schwarze Monck

Get Smart

You’re an occasional visitor to London and you’ve finally got smart. You have an Oyster card to pay for tube and bus journeys. Actually you probably have multiple Oyster cards accumulated when you have forgotten to take one with you.