The Painted Hall, Greenwich

The Painted Hall at Greenwich - formerly in the Royal Naval College and now part of the National Maritime Museum - is such an impressive room; even more so than the Drapers' Hall It almost rivals the Palazzo Colonna in Rome. This was an RNLI dinner. Click here for some more photos

Favourite Places

No prizes for knowing where this is - but does anyone know of a finer setting for dinner/

Britain's Amazing Welfare System

A friend who hadn't worked for about twenty years and who was finding it hard to maintain herself recently applied for welfare. She now gets her housing paid for (she rents a modest room), plus £60 a week for food and necessaries. National Health Services - doctors, hospitals, medicines, dentists, glasses etc - are of course already free. Libraries, art galleries and museums are free. Tube and bus travel are free to over 60s. And one is allowed £15,000 of savings without affecting these benefits. Whatever anyone says about Britain, one has to be proud of the way its citizens are looked after when they get into difficulties.

Favourite Places - Novington Manor

A timeless scene - my parents at Novington Manor

Japan - Early Morning Chimes

Early morning chimes in a Japanese village. The chimes are played at 6.00, 12.00 and 17.00 each day. Click here to hear the evening chimes

Favourite Paintings

Kei is working in the arts at the moment and has found some lovely watercolours. Click the heading for more.

The Margaret Thatcher Infirmary

Margaret Thatcher poses with Chelsea Pensioners John Ley, David Poultney, John Walker and Charles McLaughlin 14th February 2008

The Margaret Thatcher Infirmary at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, was opened by Prince Charles earlier in the year, but on 25th June a dinner was held for the Friends of the Royal Hospital for Baroness Thatcher in whose honour it had been named. She was unfortunately unable to attend, having broken her arm in a fall. But she made a video which was shown and which brought warm applause from the Friends. Click here for some more photos from the evening.

Baseball by John Updike

I didn't appreciate baseball until I read this John Updike poem

Baseball

It looks easy from a distance,
easy and lazy, even,
until you stand up to the plate
and see the fastball sailing inside,
an inch from your chin,
or circle in the outfield
straining to get a bead
on a small black dot
a city block or more high,
a dark star that could fall
on your head like a leaden meteor.

The grass, the dirt, the deadly hops
between your feet and overeager glove:
football can be learned,
and basketball finessed, but
there is no hiding from baseball
the fact that some are chosen
and some are not--those whose mitts
feel too left-handed,
who are scared at third base
of the pulled line drive,
and at first base are scared
of the shortstop's wild throw
that stretches you out like a gutted deer.

There is nowhere to hide when the ball's spotlight swivels your way, and the chatter around you falls still, and the mothers on the sidelines, your own among them, hold their breaths, and you whiff on a terrible pitch or in the infield achieve something with the ball so ridiculous you blush for years.

It's easy to do. Baseball was invented in America, where beneath the good cheer and sly jazz the chance of failure is everybody's right, beginning with baseball.

John Updike (2009)

Favourite Books

An image from the BBC series Wallender

For relaxation, I tend to read detective novels like the Inspector Wallender series by Henning Mankell. In the past I have loved Margery Allingham, Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie and Nagio Marsh, (not to mention Mickey Spillane), and also Jeffrey Deaver. But a new favourite has recently appeared - another Swedish writer called Stieg Larsson (1954-2004). He only wrote three books, but his first novel, 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' is terrific. He wrote two more (making the three 'The Millennium Series') before he died. The others are being published in English this summer. Look out for 'The Girl Who Played With Fire' and 'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest'.

STOP PRESS: The English subtitled film of 'The Girl Who Played with Fire' is now in the cinemas. 'The Girl Who Played With Fire' is out soon

Favourite Places

The finest restaurant venue in London - Gaucho Riverside, Richmond