Month: February 2017

Local Matters

There have been Santander Cycles in my street for a few years but now they have been joined by something new.

Right or Wrong?

Do you have a moral compass? If so, who set it? Is it an innate wish to do the right thing or was it imbued in childhood? We know the answer.

Pretentious Post about French Film

It is quite unusual to see a film through fresh eyes, not knowing the plot or having read any reviews. That’s what I did at the Ciné Lumière in South Ken on Sunday afternoon.

All-Day Brekker

You cannot buy a MacDonald’s all-day breakfast in the UK – not yet. There are lots of London cafes that will oblige but let me point you in the direction of the best all-day brekker in the solar system, probably.

I Never Met Georg Solti

I never met Georg Solti. It would be tedious to list all the other famous people I have never met, so I won’t. I will tell you how I didn’t meet Sir Georg and that he insisted his first name be pronounced George.

Published
Categorised as Music

Barons Court Station

It’s easy to take something you see every day for granted. I have lived in Barons Court since 1976, continuously since 1984, and have taken the station for granted, but it has many special features making it one of the most distinctive stations on the underground.

I Did It Steinway

Last March in a post titled Wiggers you may remember that the Wigmore Hall was called the Bechstein Hall until it was seized under the 1916, Trading with the Enemy Amendment Act. However, the Steinway Hall that opened in 1875 is flourishing and I went there this week for a lunchtime recital.

Published
Categorised as Music

Admiral

For about seven years in the early 1990s I was a Name at Lloyd’s. It conferred privileges and obligations. Among the former, being able to use the Members’ Writing Room to sleep in at lunchtime. A tedious obligation was to write a cheque annually in my first few years to pay my losses.

Published
Categorised as Business

A Tale of Three Towers

The brutalist 1960s Economist tower is losing its eponymous tenant, The Economist, and being given an internal make-over. Externally it will look the same as it’s grade II* listed. It was a bold choice fifty years ago and attracted the opprobrium of many denizens of St James’s.