Vile Bodies

Vile Bodies (1930) was, as Waugh says, “a totally unplanned novel.”

Published
Categorised as Literature

Osip Mandelshtam

When emails were at the cutting edge of technology a friend sent his son, at boarding school, the well known mnemonic Willy, Willy, Harry, Stee.

A Spot of Lunch

On Friday I had a perfect luncheon at Bellamy’s – smoked eel mousse sealed with a thin layer of aspic and served with melba toast, filets of Dover sole with mashed potato, and île flottante. I still have my teeth but I really enjoy food that doesn’t need mastication – nursery food for grown-ups, a… Continue reading A Spot of Lunch

Women on Doorsteps

The Photographers’ Gallery, only a step away from Oxford Circus, is worth keeping an eye on.

Published
Categorised as Photography

A Hero of the Baltic

Admiral Edwyn Alexander-Sinclair inherited the House of the Northern Gate from his uncle, Mr. Thomson-Sinclair. With its majestic views of the ocean and extensive coastline interspersed with inlets, bays, and sandy beaches, the estate must have appealed to the lifelong navy officer. Sinclair’s navy career spanned 1879 to 1930 and brought him across the world… Continue reading A Hero of the Baltic

Bronze Heads

Šoti Park is tucked in behind the Scottish Club in Tallinn. (Šoti means Scottish in Estonian.)

Published
Categorised as Sculpture

Vabamu

I hope I am not getting compassion fatigue. Shoes on the Danube, KGB cells and now suitcases, twenty-one of them in a piece called In Exile.

H is for Hawk

Unless you are David Attenborough you will find it convenient to see all the flora and fauna of Estonia without leaving Tallinn Old Town at the Museum of Natural History.

Broken Line

You may remember, I do, the ferry tragedy at Zeebruge in 1987 when Herald of Free Enterprise, a roll-on/roll-off car ferry, capsized killing 193 passengers.

1 Pangari Street

This Art Nouveau building was completed in 1912 as a residential house when Estonia was part of the Russian Empire under the last Czar, Nicholas II. After Estonia declared independence in 1918 the Provisional Government met here to direct the War of Independence. Later, in the 1920s and 30s, it was the Ministry of War.… Continue reading 1 Pangari Street