Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

(That’s the only French content in this post.) This is what the old Odeon in Kensington High Street will look like after it has been re-developed as flats with seven cinema screens in the basement. Looks good to me. The Art Deco facade has been preserved but the conservationists are still furious. 

Coal To Newcastle

The UK’s second biggest export market in August this year was Switzerland at £2.3 billion (the biggest was the US, £3.2 billion), according to the Barometer column in The Spectator this week. So what on earth are we selling so much of to the Swiss?

Three Artists

Alan Ellison and Ronnie Wood have an unusual connection. Both are in their sixties and both are artists. Alan lives in Wales and has featured in a previous post (The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore). Ronnie is making his first appearance in these pages. While you are mulling over their connection I will show you… Continue reading Three Artists

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Categorised as Art

Drinks By The Pool (Or Structured Products Made Simple)

I visited a large house in East Anglia a few years ago and the owner outlined his plans for landscaping and extending his already extensive grounds. More a project for a French King and more a blog topic for The Irish Aesthete you might think.

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Categorised as Business

Phoney

Kingsley Amis kicked it off with Colonel Sun in 1968. “It” is the craze for continuation novels and authors such as Agatha Christie, P G Wodehouse and Arthur Conan Doyle have all been victims of this literary mugging.

Garter

Thomas Woodcock, CVO, DL, Garter King of Arms, photographed by Hugo Rittson Thomas.

Snaffles

Snaffles, the early 20th century equestrian artist, unwittingly lent his name to a restaurant in a basement in Lower Leeson Street, Dublin, that opened in 1968. Four friends jointly owned it; a wine merchant called Fitzgerald, a flâneur called Cobby Knight and Rose and Nicholas Tinne. In those days small restaurants were unusual – people… Continue reading Snaffles

Hitch

He directed more than fifty films between 1925 and 1976. My mission this winter is to watch the lesser known ones that I have never seen or heard of. So last night I saw Alfred Hitchcock’s Topaz, released in 1969.

What Do Bloggers Read?

Where do chefs go to eat? What do wine-makers drink? What do bloggers read? I have had little luck in finding good blogs and then, like the buses, two come along at once. You might like them as well.