The Fox’s Prophecy

  Charles Moore in his Spectator column this week recalls listening to Tristan Voorspuy recite The Fox’s Prophecy when he went on safari with him in Kenya. As you will have read, Tristan Voorspuy was murdered on his farm in Kenya and Charles Moore remembers him with affection.

Oil and Gas

I hold a few shares in an oil exploration and production company operating in Latin America. It puzzled me why the region is known as Latin America.

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Dum and Dee

If you went to Eton you know what beaks are – if you didn’t, it is what the teachers are called. In 1959, in Bud Hill’s house, there were two extra beaks.

Travesties

Do not fancy that an intermission of writing is a decay of kindness. No man is always in a disposition to write; nor has any man at all times something to say. (Johnson: Letter to Boswell)

All Change

Life throws up some strange juxtapositions or rather I have such an unfocused mind that I find myself doing different things at the same time.

The Crunch

The phoney war’s almost over, in a few days we will face the crunch. I am realistic about the complexity and pessimistic about the effect of the UK’s departure from the EU.

Scam Time

I hope you won’t mind if I share some scams with you. If you haven’t come across them it may save you embarrassment and dosh.

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Other Men’s Flowers

There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures.

Gozo Notes

Malta has two main indigenous grape varieties: Gellewza (red) and Ghirgentina (white). Not as catchy or easy to pronounce as chardonnay – remember that Oz ad campaign, “say g’day to a chardonnay” that implied Australians at the very least cleaned their teeth in the morning with the stuff. 

Men (and a Woman) Who Painted Malta

Churches on Gozo have ornate decoration but, so far as I have seen, no stand-out works of art. That cannot be said of the co-cathedral, St John’s, in Valletta.

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