Modern Logistics

Modern logistics never cease to amaze me. There has been quite a bit of eBay shopping going on in this house recently, and the results march in through the front gate only a couple of days later. But the big brands, especially those bought through Amazon, are even quicker. I finally succumbed to buying a digital SLR one afternoon this week, and it was delivered the next morning at 9am! The iPhone was the same; ordered on line from my Spanish hotel when my N95 packed up and delivered the morning after arriving home. And that's not to mention the music heard on iTunes one moment and bought and downloaded the next.

Favourite Gardens - the Orangery

All gardens betray their owners' quirks. That low brick wall is supposed to slow a flood after heavy rain so that the drains can cope! And the patch of grass in the flower bed is left for the dog to lie on (it has another patch under a fuschia bush should the sun be too strong)

It's a pity that Pont didn't spend any time on gardens and their owners.

The Incrdedible Art of HR Geiger

My daughter has introduced me the the incredible art of HR Geiger, who among other things, was the designer for Alien.
Click the heading for some more examples of his work

Watching the English

Pont - The Importance of Tea

'Watching the English" analyses the characteristics of the English through the eyes of an anthropologist, Kate Fox. It's a marvellously amusing and perceptive read. Particularly accurately, she finds the English 'the most socially inept race on earth', covering up their permanenent state of embarassment with attempted humour and mock-ironic observations.

"She puts the English national character under her anthropological microscope, and finds a strange and fascinating culture, governed by complex sets of unspoken rules and Byzantine codes of behaviour. Her minute observation of the way we talk, dress, eat, drink, work, play, shop, drive, flirt, fight, queue – and moan about it all – exposes the hidden rules that we all unconsciously obey.

The rules of weather-speak. The Importance of Not Being Earnest rule. The ironic-gnome rule. The reflex-apology rule. The paranoid-pantomime rule. Class indicators and class-anxiety tests. The money-talk taboo. Humour rules. Pub etiquette. Table manners. The rules of bogside reading. The dangers of excessive moderation. The eccentric-sheep rule. The English 'social dis-ease'.

Through a mixture of anthropological analysis and her own unorthodox experiments, using herself as a reluctant guinea-pig, Kate Fox discovers what these unwritten behaviour codes tell us about Englishness".

I have a feeling that Kate Fox would appreciate the accuracy of Pont's observations

Favourite Cartoons

My favourite cartoons are those of a gentle British cartoonist who called himself 'Pont' and who drew for Punch in the 1930s.
This is one is from a series called 'The British Character" and is typical.

Pont would no doubt have enjoyed Kate Fox's 'Watching the English"


Cartoons - particuarly Oliphant's cartoons in the New York Times - put current affairs marvellously into perspective and elegantly skewer some disseembling politico at the same time.

Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son

"You're going to meet a good many stray fools in the course of business every day without going out to hunt up the main herd after dark".

"You'll find that education's about the only thing lying around loose in this world, and that it's about the only thing a fellow can have as much of as he's willing to haul away. Everything else is screwed down tight and the screw-driver lost."

One of my favourite books: Letters from A Self-Made Merchant To His Son Being the Letters written by John Graham, Head of the House of Graham & Company, Pork-Packers in Chicago, to his Son, Pierrepont

See also, Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son on Becoming a Gentleman

Favourite Bedtime Books

A few favourite bedtime books for children - The Dog That Dug, Where the Wild things Are and The Hairy Book

Rosie Jenks 1943-2005

Lucie and Charlie Skipwith with Rosie Bryans (Jenks) and Ann Duke at The Fort, Roundstone in 1972

Rosie Jenks (Bryans) died in the autumn of 2005, leaving her husband Richard, who sadly followed her in 2007 and her sister Cilla, who died in 2006. Rosie was a very good friend who, when she was single, welcomed us almost daily to her house in Droxford in the late 60s and was always enormous fun.

Her memorial service was held in Sherborne Abbey, Dorset and was made the more special by the superb singing of Laudate Dominum by Elizabeth Denham and a moving eulogy. I wish I had a copy of it to post here.

Sherborne Abbey is one of the most beautiful churches in England. See here for a panorama

Rosie, Richard, Penny, Mike, Frances, Cilla, with Prue at the front - after Nick's wedding 1975

Granddaughter-on-Sea

This is a photo of Edward carrying Charlotte, No 1 granddaughter on the beach near Melbourne. Looking forward to seeing him with No 2, Millie as well!

Chelsea Flower Show 2008

This year's Chelsea Flower Show show was packed with happy-looking and well-dressed people and the sun shone all day. As last year, my favourite garden was by the Japanese designer Kazuyuki Ishihara, and this year his garden - called Green Door - won a Gold Medal in the Urban category.

If you want a surfeit of photos of this year's show, click the heading.
Photos of last year's show are here

Green Door