Month: February 2016

London House Prices

I’ll write those three most hated dinner party words again, “London house prices”.  Like Glenda Slagg in Private Eye, aren’tcha sick of ’em?

Lords and Ladies

An attempt is being made to slow the rate at which hereditary titles become extinct; no I don’t know why either. Lord Trefgarne has introduced a Succession to Peerages Bill in the House of Lords which, if it receives Royal Assent, will allow hereditary titles to be inherited by the eldest child of either sex.

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.