George Clooney’s 2014 film, The Monuments Men, didn’t get a big hooray this side of the Atlantic, mostly because British participation was underplayed. Oh, it was a bad script too.
The Oldie has an excellent column: Not Many Dead (Important Stories You May Have Missed). The December issue, beats me why it’s published in November unless it’s so subscribers in far-flung outposts receive a copy in a sweaty, cleft stick in time for Christmas, has two submissions.
It is April 2015, so pre-blog, I take a train to Berwick-on-Tweed to meet friends who have driven from East Anglia. So you are in the picture, as the army is fond of saying, we plan to walk down the coast to Alnwick.
I’m glad I still keep a hard copy of financial transactions that may eventually have tax implications. They are stored in this wonderfully retro ring-binder rescued by me as my grandfather was about to throw it on a bonfire. Now look inside.
Occasionally you may have heard tell of sumptuous luncheons enjoyed by me in a variety of European locations. In fact “lunch” comes up hundreds of times if you do a search. Some were quite expensive.
At this time of year I get out the heavy, orange Le Creuset pan given to me in 1984 and reach for the chopping board, the tin opener and a bottle of red wine.
“Gossip and politics, hock and seagulls’ eggs” writes Chips Channon and that encapsulates the tone of his dairies. Two entries though are worth quoting in the light of my recent reading about President Roosevelt.
You are looking at a spectacular tiara – natch, it belongs to the Royal Family. Was it plundered from a Maharajah, “borrowed” from a nabob? No it wasn’t.