Month: August 2016

Great Stones, Part Two

  This is Silbury Hill, not far from Avebury, that we passed on Monday after lunch.

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Categorised as Travel

Great Stones

After lounging around in France for a few days I’m working off the pastis and wine by walking from Swindon to Salisbury. It’s about thirty-six miles so splits nicely into a three day hike.

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Categorised as Travel

Barry Lyndon

Cast your mind back a few years – to 1844, when Thackeray’s The Luck of Barry Lyndon came out. I may have started it years ago but I’m pretty sure that I got bogged down and didn’t finish reading it. Stanley Kubrick read it all and his 1975 film eclipses the book to such an… Continue reading Barry Lyndon

French Resistance

Yesterday there was mention of activities by the French Resistance in Tarn in WW II. This morning let’s flesh this out. This picture works up a bit of atmosphere depicting the Resistance scooping up parachutes dropped by the RAF. Rather improbably it seems to be a full moon which was a no-no for discrete drops. 

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Categorised as History

Daydream Believer

Do you look at the Property section and fantasise about buying a second home? Do you want to live the dream: lunch by the pool, sundowners on the terrace, open fires in winter (hellish hangovers in the morning)? Somewhere that has more sunshine than the UK, a beautiful location, an old building with original features.… Continue reading Daydream Believer

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Lest We Forget

Yesterday I took a look at the largest private aquarium in Europe; 18,500 gallons of water and more than 1,000 fish from the Great Barrier Reef swimming around feeling homesick. It is on the ground floor of the Heron Tower which, conveniently, is across the road from St Botolph without Bishopsgate. The photograph is not… Continue reading Lest We Forget

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Categorised as History

A Memorial Cross

Is it a bit morbid harping on about graves and war memorials? I hope not. The first World War I memorial in London and perhaps the country was unveiled today, 4th August, a hundred years ago. The date was significant in 1916 because it was exactly two years since the outbreak of war. The memorial… Continue reading A Memorial Cross

The Sash

Yesterday’s post ended with an IRA marching song dating from the 1916 Easter Rising. For balance this morning I’d like to include an old melody that was adopted by Loyalists – The Sash.

A Pug Called Sherbet

When looking at shares to buy the focus here has been to a large extent on dividends, as many of us have to live on the divis. Today, let’s look at a company that yields only about 0.8% but aims to deliver capital growth.

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Categorised as Business

The Abbey Theatre

The Act of Union in 1800, whereby the Irish Parliament in Dublin was dissolved and Ireland became part of the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Ireland), ruled from London naturally diminished Dublin as a city. Politicians went to live in London and property prices fell.