Month: October 2015

Autumn in Umbria

It is distinctly autumnal in north Umbria. Mushrooms, truffles, gourds and pumpkins are on display in the shops; and chestnuts. The view across the valley from L’Ospidale to Monte Santa Maria Tiberina is beautiful. L’Ospidale was probably a hostel for pilgrims and was restored by its current owner about 25 years ago. Today we drove… Continue reading Autumn in Umbria

Toast

The announcements on trains in Italy are made first in Italian and then in English. The English version has been pre-recorded in the same way as the announcement of tube stops are on London Underground.

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Categorised as Travel

First World Problems

A hotel bedroom is really just, as E M Forster might have written, A Room with a Loo but people can be picky and that includes me.

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Categorised as Travel

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

(That’s the only French content in this post.) This is what the old Odeon in Kensington High Street will look like after it has been re-developed as flats with seven cinema screens in the basement. Looks good to me. The Art Deco facade has been preserved but the conservationists are still furious. 

Coal To Newcastle

The UK’s second biggest export market in August this year was Switzerland at £2.3 billion (the biggest was the US, £3.2 billion), according to the Barometer column in The Spectator this week. So what on earth are we selling so much of to the Swiss?

Three Artists

Alan Ellison and Ronnie Wood have an unusual connection. Both are in their sixties and both are artists. Alan lives in Wales and has featured in a previous post (The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore). Ronnie is making his first appearance in these pages. While you are mulling over their connection I will show you… Continue reading Three Artists

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Categorised as Art

Drinks By The Pool (Or Structured Products Made Simple)

I visited a large house in East Anglia a few years ago and the owner outlined his plans for landscaping and extending his already extensive grounds. More a project for a French King and more a blog topic for The Irish Aesthete you might think.

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Categorised as Business

Phoney

Kingsley Amis kicked it off with Colonel Sun in 1968. “It” is the craze for continuation novels and authors such as Agatha Christie, P G Wodehouse and Arthur Conan Doyle have all been victims of this literary mugging.