Red Mansion Exhibition

The Red Mansion Foundation promotes artistic exchange between the UK and China, and its director is Nicolette Kwok. She held an exhibition at the Foundation's gallery at 46 Portland Place to show some new work, incuding some stunning video creations. Unfortunately, it's not so easy to show them, but a few photos are available if you click the heading

From The Study Window

There's a lot going on here....the squirrel has taken the bait of hazelnuts and has been pushing the cage about with his nose to get the last ones; but hasn't yet ventured in. A few minutes later he did and snap! He's now joined his brothers and sisters on Wandsworth Common and the roof is taking a rest. You can also see a very early daffodil and a morning cobweb on my study window, and behind the bush some snowdrops brought up from the Wettons' garden in Wiltshire

The Eden Project

I am amazed at the energy and enthusiasm which has created the huge Eden Project in an exhausted china clay quarry near St. Austell, Cornwall. The website says: "While restoring the Lost Gardens of Heligan in the early 90s, Tim Smit became fascinated with stories that connected plants to people and brought them alive. He enlisted the help of Philip McMillan Browse (former Director of RHS Wisley and Horticultural Director of the Lost Gardens of Heligan) and Peter Thoday (former President of the Institute of Horticulture), to put together a team of expert horticulturalists with a touch of green guerrilla in them".

Click the heading for more photos from the project - although it's practically impossible to take photos in the tropical zone as one's camera lens mists up as one enters.

Barbara Hepworth Studio Exhibition

St Ives is blessed with both the Tate and Barbara Hepworth's studio, the latter left intact with a number of works on show as a permanent exhibition. Click the heading for some more photos.

Hotels and B&Bs

As with restaurants and pubs, where I have come usually to prefer the latter, a good B&B is generally much to be preferred to an hotel for holiday breaks. There are some superb B&Bs to be found in Alastair Sawday's excellent guides, offering a style of country house life that is becoming a rarity, with charming hosts, dogs and gardens, sumptuous breakfasts and free wi-fi - all for about £70 a night.

Ben Nicholson at the Tate St Ives

An impressive exhibition of Ben Nicholson's work at the Tate St Ives. Unlike the Saatchi, the gallery for some reason doesn't allow photographs, so the photos come mainly from other sources. Click the heading for more photos - and here for some excellent work by Luke Frost as well.

Saatchi Gallery - New Art From the Middle East

A fascinating exhibition of new Middle Eastern art at the Saatchi Gallery. The Saatchi Gallery, newly renovated from the old Duke of York's barracks at the end of the King's Road, is worth visiting for itself. Click the heading for some more photos of the works of art

America Empire of Liberty

David Reynolds is Professor of History at Cambridge





David Reynolds's daily talks on BBC 4 on the making of the United States are riveting. Fortunately, if one misses them, you can catch up here

Edward Gorey

I have always loved the work of Edward Gorey, ever since being amused by 'The Beastly Baby' many years ago. This is in the same tradition: the dark deaths of (in these cases) 26 apparently undeserving children.

Note: This piece used to have a link to The Beastly Baby but sadly it's no longer possible to find it on line.

Terrifying Bushfires in Australia

The bushfires in Victoria of the last few days - and the death toll from them - are completely horrifying. A scene from hell itself.
If you are so minded, you can donate to the Australian Red Cross here

The English Weather

We may have had some good winter weather over the past two weeks, but nothing unusual (see the old Flanders & Swann song below) - and a great deal less fierce than in most other places viz Melbourne's 46c on Saturday 7th February.

A Song of the Weather

January brings the snow,
Makes your feet and fingers glow.

February's ice and sleet
Freeze the toes tight off your feet.

Welcome March with wintry wind
Would thou wert not so unkind!

April brings the sweet spring showers,
On and on for hours and hours.

Farmers fear unkindly May
Frost by night and hail by day.

June just rains and never stops
Thirty days and spoils the crops.

In July the sun is hot.
Is it shining? No, it's not.

August, cold and dank and wet,
Brings more rain than any yet.

Bleak September's mist and mud
Is enough to chill the blood.

Then October adds a gale,
Wind and slush and rain and hail.

Dark November brings the fog
Should not do it to a dog.

Freezing wet December, then
Bloody January again!

January brings the snow ...

Flanders & Swann - At the Drop of a Hat

The Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty has stood at the entrance to New York harbour since being gifted by the French in 1886. It has the most beautiful poem engraved on it, from which the contrast between America's attitude to immigrants in those not so far off days with the appalling treatment being given to many of them today could not be more stark.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Emma Lazarus, 1883

St Ronan's Reception

My old prep school, St Ronan's, held a reception at Brooks's in St James' on 5th February, the first old boys' gathering that the school had organised for some years. The purpose was both to reconnect with old boys and also to raise money for a sports hall, designed to take pressure off the use of the school's 'Great Space' - the vast ballroom that has been used for all manner of indoor events for decades.

The headmaster, William Trelawny-Vernon is a worthy successor to the Vassar-Smiths and Harris's who led the school since the early 1900s and intends to broaden contact with all alumni - which will now include girls, since the school became co-ed some years ago.

Click here for some photos of the event and here to join the Saint Ronan's Old Boy's Group on Facebook

My memories of the very happy time spent at St Ronan's in the 1950s can be found here

Yves St Laurent and Pierre Berge Collection at Christie's

A superb exhibition of Yves St Laurent and Pierre Berge's art collection was on display at a reception at Christie's given by Vintage Academe, a fashion store and blog specialising in vintage clothes.

Click the heading for some of the paintings on display and here for an article about the collection

The Joy of Cams

When planning a trip, or when friends are travelling, the best way (unless Freya Stark's been there first) to get a sense of place is by looking at photos that others have taken on Flickr or on a map like Panoramio. But even better are webcams and there are more of them around then ever. When friends went skiiing in the Haute Savoie this week, I could follow them via the webcams at the resort and on the slopes and get a good idea of what they were up to.

Now to get real time video via a 3g mobile!

Aristotle's Views on Money

Thinking about shopping and Ruskin's views on the use of money (see Westfield) Aristotle holds that "There are two sorts of wealth-getting.....; one is a part of household management, the other is retail trade: the former necessary and honorable, while that which consists in exchange is justly censured; for it is unnatural, and a mode by which men gain from one another. The most hated sort, and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of all modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural."

Speaking of exchange through money, Aristotle says "it is worthless, and because it is not useful as a means to any of the necessities of life, and, indeed, he who is rich in coin may often be in want of necessary food..." Aristotle says people become avaricious and pursue money for its own end because of a confusion between the instrument of money (in exchange) with things that can actually be used...
"in this art of wealth-getting there is no limit of the end, which is riches of the spurious kind, and the acquisition of wealth. But the art of wealth getting which consists in household management, on the other hand, has a limit..."

Thomas Jefferson was equally prescient

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
Thomas Jefferson 1802

Perhaps my own views on the bonus culture are not out of place here

Chopin Recital

A brilliant recital of Chopin and other works for the Chopin Society by Nicola Eimer in the lovely Inigo Jones church St Paul's Covent Garden - the 'Actor's Church'.

Click the heading to hear her playing Raindrop.

Westfield

Click the heading for more photos of Westfield
The Westfield Shopping Centre that opened last year at Shepherd's Bush is stunning. The largest urban shopping mall in Europe, it covers 43 acres and has 265 shops and 40 places to eat plus two supermarkets, a gym, a spa, a library and a 14 screen cinema (opening in March) plus 4500 parking spaces.

It's beautifully designed and feels light and airy and is very easy to get about. It also has lots of comfortable seating and of course is covered with wi-fi. Favourite shops include Desiguel, Amanda Wakeley, Apple, Donna Ira, Joseph, Links and M&S. Owing to the recession, amazing discounts are available. Donna Ira's superb selection of jeans were 75% off and an Amada Wakeley jacket was reduced by a similar amount, while a pair of Joseph boots was only £85. For those with a bit of money to spend, it's a paradise, but it's also a great place to go for a day out.

When shopping, it's wise to remember two pieces of advice:
Whatever you buy should be 'of good quality, well fitted for its purpose', and John Ruskin's aphorisms -
'A thing is worth what it can do for you, not what you choose to pay for it'.
' There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey.'

Favourite Poetry - Tintern Abbey

Tintern Abbey

Click the heading for the whole poem

And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey - 1798

Favourite Music

Handel famously composed the Messiah in 24 days. I was lucky enough to be taught to sing it at St Ronan's and still love to hear it. Click here to hear the Hallelujah Chorus from a recent Drapers' City Service and the heading for the first of a complete version on YouTube (it is recorded in seven parts)

Favourite Poetry

The Embankment

(The fantasia of a fallen gentleman on a cold, bitter night)

Once, in finesse of fiddles found I ecstasy,
In the flash of gold heels on the hard pavement.
Now see I
That warmth's the very stuff of poesy.
Oh, God, make small
The old star-eaten blanket of the sky,
That I may fold it round me and in comfort lie.

Thomas Ernest Hulme (1883 – 1917)

The Royal Hospital Chelsea

The Royal Hospital was founded by Charles II in 1682 for the 'succour and relief of veterans broken by age and war' - and continues to provide care and accomodation for retired servicemen today. A new building - the Margaret Thatcher Infirmary - has been erected next to the original Wren buildings and will be completed in 2009.

Click the heading for some more photos. Having become a Friend, we should be allowed inside soon!

The Drapers' New Year's Service

The Drapers' Livery Company holds an annual City New Year's service at their church, St Michael's, Cornhill every January, The Service was taken by the Rev Dr Peter Mullen and the sermon by The Right Reverend Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester

Hymns and anthems on this occasion included 'I Vow to Thee My Country' and 'Jerusalem'. This year the choir also sang the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah.

This was one of several beautiful services I have attended recently. Some others are here

The Book of Kells

The Book of Kells has been kept at the astonishing library at Trinity College, Dublin since 1661. It is a beautiful illuminated 9th Century manuscript of the four new testament gospels created either at Kells Abbey - or possibly on Iona and taken to Kells to avoid the repeated depradations of the Vikings.

Click the heading for some more photo of Trinity College, the library and the illuminated manuscripts kept there

Ireland

Click the photos for a better view and the heading for more photos of Lisheen Castle
A lovely week with the family over New Year at Lisheen Castle in Tipperary

Favourite Architecture

Click the heading to see more photos of the terraces
The most perfect architecture in London is found on the east side of Regent's Park where the Nash terraces run uninterrupted up the east side of the park from the Marylebone Rd to Primrose Hill

Camden Market

Camden Market is a mecca for young people looking for funky fashion, cheap food and artistic inspiration.Click the heading for some more photos

Litchfield at Christmas

There was standing room only at the little church of St John the Less at Litchfield for the service on Christmas morning.
Carols sung including 'In the Bleak Midwinter', 'Of the Father's Love Begotten' and 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing'.

Click the heading for some more photos of the Litchfield service

Christmas Poetry

Christmas 1963 (or 2008?)

Because we wanted much that year and had little.
Because the winter phone for days stayed silent
that would call our father back to work,
and he kept silent too with our mother,
fearfully proud before us.

Because I was young that morning in gray light untouched on the rug
and our gifts were so few, propped along the furniture, for a second
my heart fell, then saw how large they made the spaces between them
to take the place of less.

Because the curtained sun rose brightly on our discarded paper and the things
themselves, these forty years, have grown too small to see,
the emptiness measured out remains the gift,
fills the whole room now,
that whole year out across the snowy lawn.
Because a drop of shame burned quietly in the province of love.
Because we had little that year and were given much.

Joseph Enzweiler, from The Man Who Ordered Perch

Thomas Miller Carol Service 2008

Thomas Miller's annual carol service was held at St Katherine Cree Church in the City on 17th December.

This was the second of the carol services that Herry has been able to attend this year, the first being the Mission to Seafarers in St Michael Paternoster Royal. He would have loved to go to the service at Coventry Cathedral on Friday 19th when they sang Handel's Messiah but wasn't able to make it. Litchfield's was on Sunday 21st December, a jolly affair in which the vicar has us all singing different parts of 'The Twelve Days of Christmas"

Some favourite carols are on line here. The essential is for a good choir to sing the descants!

Once in Royal David's City
In the Bleak Midwinter
Silent Night (a beautiful Irish version)
Of the Father's Love Begotten
The Sussex Carol
The Coventry Carol
In Dulce Jubilo
Hark the Herald Angels Sing

Lincoln Seligman

One of Lincoln Seligman's larger paintings at Taikoo Square in Hong Kong. Click the image for a better view

The artist Lincoln Seligman is an old friend who recently held a private showing of some of his work at his studio.

Click the heading for some informal photos of his work and here for some paintings from an earlier exhibition

Fine Cell Work at the Drapers' Hall

Fine Cell Work is a charity that teaches needlework to prison inmates and sells their work. The prisoners do the work when they are locked in their cells, and their skill and earnings give them hope and greater independence.

The charity is supported by the Drapers' Livery Company among many others, and a Christmas sale was held at Drapers' Hall on 15th December 2008 which was very well attended. Lord Ramsbotham, one of the patrons of the charity, gave a moving speech on the value of Fine Cell's work, while bemoaning the fact that it was currently only sanctioned in 26 of the UK's 140 prisons.

Click the heading for more examples of their work and scenes from the evening

On 19th November 2009, Fine Cell held their 2009 Livery Company sale at the Leathersellers' Hall.

Favourite Films - Stardust

I was delighted to come across a film this week that I had never heard of and which matches my somewhat lowbrow tastes perfectly - 'Stardust' - starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert de Niro, Clare Danes and others. It's a romantic fantasy about the quest for a star that falls to earth (Clare Daines) and reminds me much of books like The Well At the World's End and The Night Land. It's produced and directed by Matthew Vaughan in Lord of the Rings tradition (it even has Ian McKellan as the narrator) and has the most stunning scenes and scenery. It was filmed in Scotland, Wales (my old haunt Pen-y-Fan) and Iceland. Click the heading for some stills from the TV showing of the film.

Mission to Seafarers' Carol Service 2008

The Mission to Seafarers held their annual Christmas concert at St Michael Paternoster Royal on 10th December. The Princess Royal attended as president and Robert Woods (an old friend from business and school) attended as chairman. It was the Rev Canon Bill Christianson's last carol service before his retirement as Secretary General. Laudamus Chamber Choir and Nigel-Evans Thompson led the carols and Richard Baker read several of the lessons including two very amusing pieces by Clare Bevan.

Inspector Wallander

Photo from BBC TV
Henning Mankell has written nine superb novels in which Inspector Wallander, a fallible, unfit and very human detective in a police force in Skane, southern Sweden is the main character. The BBC have now made films from three of the books, with Kenneth Branagh playing Wallander, but the Swedish versions are still better. No matter, Wallander is one of the most interesting and sympathetic characters in detective fiction.

Christmas Scenes 2008

One of my favourite shops - Joanna Wood, Pimlico

The Wellbeing of Women Christmas Fair at Drapers' Hall

The Lexus

The Lexus at Richmond

The Lexus Coupe (in Japan, the 'Soarer') is one of the finest cars ever made. I was lucky enough to get one secondhand in 1994 - and I still have it. It passed 100,000 miles this week and so deserves some accolade.

Designed in California and built between 1991 and 2000, it's a true four-seater coupe with lovely lines. It comes in two basic versions - the V8 automatic and the GT twin-turbo manual which turns out 330bhp. Mine is the latter type, and the garage which looks after it says it's one of only five in the country.

It has been completely trouble-free - apart from a clutch (from too much city driving) and the occasional flat battery, due it being left for weeks when I travelled. It's not even thirsty; but recently it has had to give way to the Prius for London driving, as it still attracts the congestion charge.

But for sheer well-mannered fun on the open roads of Hampshire and Wiltshire, there is no better car. I'm sure that one day it'll be recognised as a classic.

Click the heading for more photos of the Lexus

Terrorist Attacks in Bombay

Photo from BBC News

It's only too easy to imagine the dreadful situation in the Taj and the Oberoi today, as terrorists take hostages and kill indiscriminately at these two hotels, Victoria train station, Leopold's Cafe on Colaba Causeway and a Jewish Centre. The hotels and Leopold's are places I have visited for the last 40 years and I was there again six weeks ago. Fortunately my friends and business colleagues who visit and work in the area are all safe, despite one of them having been invited to have dinner in the Taj last night.

The southern tip of Bombay is a virtual island and simple to approach by boat. Both the Taj and the Oberoi have waterside frontages. There are many tens of pleasure boats sailing out to the Elephanta Caves and on tours of the harbour from the Gateway of India, 100 metres from the Taj. Although the Taj has had special security for the past few years, the Oberoi has not. In any event, neither was safe.

A couple of years ago I wrote about the Taj - my favourite hotel - for Lloyd's List, the shipping newspaper, here.

Emily Patrick Exhibition in Spitalfields 2008

An exhibition of Emily Patrick's prints (by Walter Curtain Cave) at Chris Dyson's Gallery at Eleven Spitalfields

Emily Patrick Self Portrait

For more photos, click here

And at the Air Gallery 2010 

Emily Patrick

A fine exhibition of prints by Emily Patrick at Chris Dyson's gallery in Spitalfields.

Click for a larger view and the heading to see more of her work

Sept 2010: A new exhibition of her work at the Air Gallery

Remembrance Sunday at Litchfield

THE EXHORTATION

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them

Traditionally, the hymn 'I Vow To Thee My Country' is sung at Rembrance Day services

A link here to some moving lines on war

Favourite Poetry

"And it was at that age...
Poetry arrived in search of me.
I don't know. I don't know where it came from,
from winter or a river.
I don't known how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way with names,
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering that fire,
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense, pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw the heavens
unfastened and open,
planets, palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry void,
likeness, image of mystery,
felt myself a pure part of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars, my heart broke loose on the wind.

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

Kind visitors have directed me to this site on Neruda

The City

The City is an amazing place. I went to an annual law lecture given an old friend and sponsored by my university in a livery company hall in Threadneedle St and was astonished as always at the number of eminent people who came, and of course the quality of the talk. But on the way there, I walked the familar streets in the early evening and felt the energy of the people flocking to the trains and tubes, and marvelled at the beauty of the buildings and the fresh vistas constantly opening up in the renewal of place and purpose in that small patch of London.

Click the heading for more photos of the City at night