Some welcome June sunshine. We sat on a bench in the park with a cone each. Scoop of Walls vanilla and a flake, no fancy stuff, passing on a traditional British summer treat to the next generation. But the heat gave me yearnings for the Med or the Canaries and ... Read More...
Month: June 2013
Mahlerman guides you through the development of serious music in Spain... After a turbulent history of invasion and occupation by Romans, Visigoths and Moors (British pensioners don't count - yet) it is perhaps not surprising that by the time the nineteenth century rolled around, Spain was one of the most backward ... Read More...
I'm guessing that the gentleman described below probably wouldn't have had any problems with a British Rail sandwich... Charles Domery (c. 1778 – after 1800), was a Polish soldier noted for his unusually large appetite. Serving in the Prussian Army against France during the War of the First Coalition, he found that the ... Read More...
Nige reflects on one of Britain's most prolific cartoonists... Today is the 106th birthday of the illustrator and cartoonist Nicolas Bentley, son of the writer E.C. Bentley, who invented that pithy biographical verse form, the Clerihew (E.C's middle name, also Nicolas's). For example (one of the better ones): John Stuart Mill, By a mighty ... Read More...
The resident canine at Woolfson and Tay is a paragon among bookshop dogs... The first thing I look for in any bookshop is the resident dog. (Some bookshops do not have a dog, a very curious state of affairs as I'm sure you will agree, and one best not dwelt upon. ... Read More...
Jonathon Green celebrates the golden age of hardboiled, noir US sports journalism... It’s a funny thing about people. People will hate a guy all his life for what he is, but the minute he dies for it they make him out a hero and they go around saying that maybe he ... Read More...
Continuing our occasional series on shops and shopping, Brit takes us to a rather unusual 'garden centre'... The best shop in the Bristol area, and by extension the world, is Chief Trading Post, in Oldland Common. It is, I suppose, a Garden Centre; but Chief Trading Post is a ‘Garden Centre’ ... Read More...
Nige reflects on the enduring appeal of a high Victorian painting... 'Flaming June eh?' we sigh, and roll our eyes, as the rain siles down relentlessly, the cold wind blows, and temperatures struggle to stay in double figures (in the new money). And so, unwittingly, we keep alive the name of the ... Read More...
'Cake imagery in the writings of Sylvia Plath' is an underexplored literary topic, but if anyone can take it on, marginalia maestro Jonathan Law can... On a damp afternoon in May, enraged cake-obsessive ‘ianf’ posted a plea for more serious treatment of his favourite subject: You seem to be stuck forever in ... Read More...
What might Dave and Sam have been listening to as they chilled in the Balearics?... Whilst people have been listening to calming music forever, it's only in the last 20 years that 'chilling' has become an officially sanctioned activity. Many people don't even realise that the inoffensive 'chillout' music that has ... Read More...
