A friend, who must be anonymous, went for his annual check-up in Harley Street.
His pulse rate was unusually low prompting the elderly but expensive doctor to remark – “you are almost a trained athlete”. He then went through all the other formalities and at the end, whoops nearly wrote his name, mentioned that he had lost a stone since his last visit. “Oh good, I will change your record from Obese to Overweight.”
This year I have received some thirty Christmas cards – a gratifyingly good bag as I send none. Two, coincidentally, from friends in Gloucestershire are very similar. They were painted in 1874 and 1878 by different artists – Pissarro and Sisley. Both are from the same source – Cards for Good Causes. CfGC spreads its net widely. It lists twenty-six including the Gardeners’ Royal Benevolent Society. Usually I’d have to go to an exhibition to see these juxtaposed.
Two other cards that stand out are a panel from the Silver Treasury of Santissima Annunziata by Guido di Pietro – 15th century, lest you need reminding – and “catching a deer”; a detail from the Macclesfield Psalter (14th century). The former supports Aid to the Church in Need, a Catholic charity supporting some 5,000 projects internationally and the latter the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.
My favourite this year is not at all Christmassy. It is in aid of The British Sporting Art Trust and so – natch – has an equestrian flavour. The artist is John Frederick Senior ( 19th century) and it’s called The Hunting Stud. I wasn’t really surprised not to have heard of John Senior – there are many deep, dark pools of ignorance in what passes for my brain – so I checked up. Actually the BSA Trust goofed meaning to caption him as John F Herring (Senior).
This isn’t Christmassy either – it’s choreography – now, where are my maracas?
Have you noticed a disturbing trend (influenced by America and/or the Royal Family?) People sending Christmas Cards decorated with photographs of their good looking Aryan children, the black lab and the expensive house(s)? Even worse is the use of a swanky Oxbridge College as a backdrop, even if sproglet number 1 happens to be there.
Happy Christmas!
Yes, I have noticed. Two families always send pictures of themselves. One uses a professional photographer and the other makes quirky compositions that are often very funny. I only got one round-robin letter this year.
Round Robins are extraordinary, aren’t they? A few years ago we had one from a realtively distant cousin which included an update on the health of their pet hamster.
Luke, the late Simon Hoggart wrote the definitive book on Round Robins – The Cat that could Open the Fridge. Failing reading that, his article puffing the book in The Guardian is pretty good.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/dec/11/society1
I need to get this. Thanks for the tip off.
Dear Christopher
We atempt to follow my fathers example and ensure that the card cost no more than the stamp! We crossed you off out list 2 years after it was clear that you had stopped and tend to concentrate on those we see less often. Thanks for all your creative and entertaining posts-keep it up.
Merry Christmas and love from us all.
Richard, I thought you were aware that I have only sent Christmas cards to our mutual grandmother, either to improve my pecuniary prospects or to please my mother – I forget which.
Happy Christmas to you cousins all, Christopher
Good to see the Ikettes again in their prime ( last seen by me at the Hammersmith Odeon c 1970). But we did see PP Arnold ( “the First Cut is the Deepest “), an ex- Ikette, still going strong and singing with Paul Jones and the Manfreds earlier this year. But those were the days….
Francis
Francis, you are River Deep in your cultural hinterland. I didn’t know anything about those girls in impossibly short skirts
In those days the wigs were longer than the skirts.
We saw Tina Turner herself a couple of years ago on a farewell tour – still in a short skirt ( but perhaps not quite so short) and very very high heels. She must have been my age ( i.e. 70+) and could still put it across. She did sit on a bar stool for a bit about an hour in, reasonably enough given her age and the amount of dancing she had already done.