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A story about Charles Dickens for Christmas!!!!!
A news article, published today on the BBC website, describes how Charles Dicken’s lobbied for his own personal letter box to be installed in the brick wall that separated his garden and house at Gads...
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THE BOOK
James Daunt, the Chief Executive of Waterstones,I read an article in this Sunday’s, Observer, entitled Whisper it quietly, the book is back … and here’s the man leading the revivalThe man in question...
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A PILGRIM FATHER: WILLIAM MULLINS
Last week I was working in a school in Dorking. Dorking is a county town situated roughly in the centre of the county of Surrey. It nestles amongst the hills of the North Downs. Box Hill is to the...
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SHERLOCK HOLMES (The man who never lived and will never die.)
Entering the Museum of London to see the Sherlock Holmes exhibition.The first exhibition in London about Sherlock Holmes for over sixty years is at the Museum of London. It began last year on the 17th...
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JUST GOING FOR A RUN
Taken on a run along the Cornish coast at Holywell BayThe words, “Just going for a run,” are the words I invariably say when I leave the house to indulge in my form of fitness exercise, which is...
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FAIRPORT CONVENTION, UNHALFBRICKING (The album cover)
The picture on the Fairport Convention album cover UNHALFBRICKING (1969)The album cover to Fairport Convention’s second 1969 album UNHALFBRICKING shows a rather traditional, apparently timeless English...
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JOSEPHINE BUTLER
On my regular runs up to Wimbledon Common, I often go along North View which is situated on the south edge of the common. There are a number of tall elegant Victorian houses along this short stretch of...
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NAPOLEON BONAPARTE: WHAT WAS NAPOLEON LIKE?
Napoleon Bonaparte on the island of St Helena.On the 18th June 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated at The Battle of Waterloo by Arthur Wellesley, The Duke of Wellington and the Prussian General...
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THOMAS and WILLIAM DANIELL and THE ROYAL PAVILION BRIGHTON
The Royal Pavilion, Brighton.Thomas Daniell was born in 1749 in Kingston upon Thames in Surrey. His father was the landlord of the Swann pub in Chertsey, a few miles from Kingston. He was born in the...
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TOOTING FOLK AND BLUES FESTIVAL
The audience gathering at The Tooting Folk and Blues Festival.It seems that I have been hearing about the Tooting Folk and Blues Festival as long as I can remember. Gabriel, a good friend of mine, has...
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TEA CUP...maybe!!!!!
A definition of what good design is as difficult to come by as a definition for what the word, art, means and art is impossible to define really. Here are a few attempts.“Good design is not just what...
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A COAST TO COAST WALK or “The Agony and the Ecstasy.”
The official starting place.Alfred Wainwright, who is famous for his pictorial guides to the Lakeland Fells, married for the second time at the age of 63. Incidentally that is my age now. He married...
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COAST TO COAST PICTURES...a selection!
Standing on top of Grey Knotts looking out over The Lake District.At the top of Greenup Gill.A rainbow over Patterdale.Easedale Tarn.A lunch stop.We came across the skeletons of sheep, rabbits and...
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THE BARBARA HEPWORTH EXHIBITION at TATE BRITAIN (24.06.15 to 26.10.15)
The catalogue to go with the exhibition ticket. It contains photographs and quotations from Barbara Hepworth.I went to see the Barbara Hepworth exhibition at the Tate Britain recently. Over the years,...
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CELTS , art and identity, at THE BRITISH MUSEUM
The CELTS art and identity at The British Museum.There are a number of things that come to mind when I think about the term, Celts. Last year I was teaching in a school near Chertsey. In the class I...
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W is for Walk (after Helen Macdonald’s book. H is for Hawk.)
I went for a walk recently from my front door in Motspur Park into the centre of London. Ever since we returned from the Coast to Coast Walk, from St Bees on the Cumbrian Coast across England to Robin...
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H IS FOR HAWK by Helen Macdonald (A REVIEW)
Helen MacdonaldHelen Macdonald is an affiliated research scholar at Cambridge University working in the department of History and Philosophy of Science. Until 2007 she had been a research fellow at...
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A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE WITH SOME DANISH STUDENTS
We met on the steps of the statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus at the exact spot where 46 years earlier Skinheads and Hippies got close.What is life about when you are 16 years old and still at school?...
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GODS AND GODDESSES IN ROMAN BRITAIN at The British Museum
THE BRITISH MUSEUM in BloomsburyOn the 4th December I went up to London by train and got the underground, the northern line, to Tottenham Court Road. I got out there and walked to the British Museum in...
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A CHRISTMAS CAROL AND THE USE OF LANGUAGE.
The cast of A Christmas Carol at the Rose Theater Kingston upon Thames ( Picture:Rose Theater website)The sentence, “The pen is mightier than the sword,” was coined by English author Edward...
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