Favourite Places in Autumn

Two perfect glades in the woods. No prizes for knowing where....

The Principles of Anxiety

Kei's Watercolours



Complacency


Suspicion


Pain


Anger


Mock Derision and Calm

Suzanne Lloyd 1923-2007

Suzanne Lloyd 1923 - 2007 with Hamilton at home in the vicarage

Another Favourite Place

Do you know where this is?

Autumn

Trying hard to find the perfect image of a perfect autumn - but haven't found it yet!

Leave It Alone!

"In everything the wise man does not seek greater precision than the subject allows." - Aristotle

"A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone" - Thoreau

Old Age

"I advise you to go on living solely to enrage those who are paying your annuities. It is the only pleasure I have left."

Voltaire

‘God grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway; the good fortune to run into the ones I do - and the eyesight to tell the difference’

Kei's Painting

Kei's painting of James - 'Recreation and Dream'.

Glad that her talent hasn't succumbed to her legal studies...

China

This is the French-designed National Theatre in Beijing juxtaposed against the Great Hall of the People. Locals call it 'The Omlette'...

This is a new open-sided mall in Beijing called The Place. The 'roof' is made from the largest LCD screens in the world and is 250 yards long by 30 yards wide. Above you float blue wales and red planets to an awe-inspiring score. Take a seat in one of the cafes lining the mall and be astonished!

Try clicking the image to see it at a more lifelike size...

Favourite Places - Whitefield, Bangalore

Whitefield, Bangalore

Lexus

Sorry, guys. It's not cool to talk about cars, but my 12 year old Lexus is a classic and just goes on getting better. Here, it's just had the Supagard treatment and looks like new. Maybe one day its value will go up, and not down....

Sayings of Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Francois de la Rochefoucauld

Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example.

Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy those are who already possess it.

A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire.

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

Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman - Philip Stanhope, Lord Chesterfield

Philip Stanhope, Lord Chesterfield

“Choose your pleasures for yourself, and do not let them be imposed upon you. Follow nature and not fashion: weigh the present enjoyment of your pleasures against the necessary consequences of them, and then let your own common sense determine your choice.” 

“Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.” 

“There is time enough for everything, in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in they year, if you will do two things at a time.” 

“Listen to everything that is said, and see everything that is done. Observe the looks and countenances of those who speak, which is often a surer way of discovering the truth than from what they say. But then keep all those observations to yourself, for your own private use, and rarely communicate them to others. Observe, without being thought an observer, for otherwise people will be upon their guard before you.” 

“The world is a country which nobody ever yet knew by description; one must travel through it one’s self to be acquainted with it.” 

Philip, Stanhope, Lord Chesterfield 
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman'

Favourite Places - Bucklers' Hard

Do you know where this is? Or why it's special?

The Prius - An Amazing Car

Not everyone likes the Prius's looks, but it's actually an amazing car. It's well very built, comfortable and full of interesting touches - like the tiny gear lever on the dash and a single button to stop and park. It glides silently through the traffic and when it stops at the lights, you have to look at the dashboard to know that it's on at all. It's quick and responsive, with a tiny turning circle and a high driving position making it perfect for city driving. Altogether a most satisfying and relaxing car. And if you add its economic advantages - very low fuel consumption, no congestion charge, reduced cost parking permits, very low road tax and a high resale value, it's unbeatable. One of my friends bought one over a month ago - and he is still running it on its first tank of petrol!

See also: How To Become as Petrol-Saving Bore 

Favourite Places - Austria

Do you know where this is?

La Rondine

One of my favourite operatic arias - Kiri Te Kanawa in the famous aria from Puccini's La Rondine - Chi il bel sogno di Doretta. Click the heading to hear a rough recording made after lunch from Philip Wetton's DVD.

For comparison - and for a more professional video of the singer, see Angela Gheorghiu's version here

Love

Love, that is the first and last of all things made
The light that has the living world for shade
...
Love, that sounds loud or light in all men's ears,
Whence all men's eyes take fire from sparks of tears,
That binds on all men's feet or chains or wings;
Love, that is root and fruit of terrene things;
Love, that the whole world's waters shall not drown,
The whole world's fiery forces not burn down;
Love, that what time his own hands guard his head
The whole world's wrath and strength shall not strike dead;
Love, that if once his own hands make his grave
The whole world's pity and sorrow shall not save;
Love, that for very life shall not be sold,
Nor bought nor bound with iron nor with gold;
So strong that heaven, could love bid heaven farewell,
Would turn to fruitless and unflowering hell;
So sweet that hell, to hell could love be given,
Would turn to splendid and sonorous heaven;
Love that is fire within thee and light above,
And lives by grace of nothing but of love;
Through many and lovely thoughts and much desire
Led these twain to the life of tears and fire;
Through many and lovely days and much delight
Led these twain to the lifeless life of night.

Swinburne - Tristram and Iseult

The Quiet Reaches of the Thames Below Henley

Favourite Places

A new one - St Emilion. No wonder it's a World Heritage Site




And every lovely spot needs a lovely hotel - and this has one of the best - the Hostellerie de Plaisance, at the base of the tower on top of St Emilion

Luxmoore's Garden

My half-brother, Fuff, has some interesting ancestors including the Eton housemaster HE Luxmoore who created a lovely garden on Tangier island in the Thames just beside the Chapel. It's accessible only to masters and senior boys and retains its mystery and seclusion

England's Floods

Let's hope this thing still works.....

Favourite Places

Another favourite place. Any ideas?

Favourite Places - Old Winchester Hill

Kei running up Old Winchester Hill with Stocks cottages behind her - harvest time 1993. Click here for another photo taken of the cottages (in 1998) from a similar viewpoint

Memorials

Litchfield Churchyard

And while we are about memorials, this inscription by Thomas Carew
on Lady Mary Wentworth's tomb has always seemed to me to be an
admirable way to be remembered

Good to the poor, to kindred dear
To servants kind, to friendship clear
To nothing but herself severe

But click the heading for a short biography of Mary Wentworth and
wonder if she quite merited this epitaph

War Memorials

The War Cloister at Winchester College

A beautiful war poem, inscribed on the War Cloisters at Winchester College:

Polliciti Meliora

As one who, gazing on a vista
Of beauty, sees the clouds close in,
And turns his back in sorrow, hearing
The thunderclouds begin,

So we, whose life was all before us,
Our hearts with sunlight filled,
Left in the hills our books and flowers,
Descended, and were killed.

Write on the stone no words of sadness -
Only the gladness due,
That we, who asked the most of living,
Knew how to give it too.

Frank Thompson (Coll, 1933-1938)*
Click the heading for more photos from the War Cloisters

On a war memorial in a British cemetery on the island of Vis in the Adriatic

Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose,
But young men think it is, and we were young.

AE Houseman

Then Abraham bound the lad with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son -
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

Wilfred Owen

Only a man harrowing clods
In a slow silent walk
With an old horse that stumbles and nods
Half asleep as they stalk.

Only thin smoke without flame
From the heaps of couch-grass;
Yet this will go onward the same
Though dynasties pass.

Yonder a maid and her wight
Come whispering by:
War's annals will cloud into night
Ere their story die.

Thomas Hardy - At Time of 'The Breaking of Nations'

*Thompson volunteered although under age and was commissioned in the Royal Artillery in 1940, subsequently serving in the GHQ Liaison Regiment in Libya, Persia, Iran and Sicily. Parachuted into Yugoslavia, he was ambushed in May 1944 with a group of Bulgarian partisans near Sofia. Although he was wearing uniform when captured, he was treated as a spy. 'Tried' at Litakovo, he defended himself in fluent Bulgarian condemning Fascism. He was shot on 10 June 1944. Thompson had a working knowledge of nine European languages. This poem compares with the best of the First World War. The title is Latin, and means 'having promised better things'.

History of the Peloponnesian War

Pericles

For of the Gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a law of their nature, wherever they can rule they will. This law was not made by us, and we are not the first to have acted upon it; we did but inherit it and shall bequeath it to all time, and we know that you and all mankind, if you were as strong as we, would do as we do.

Thucydides - History of the Peloponnesian War - The Athenians to the Melians

Another favourite place - Bombay

Click the heading to link to an earlier post about the Taj

Kei's School Leavers' Ball

Kei and James attending the JAGS Leavers Ball at Club Eve in New Burlington St

Kei's School Leaving Ceremony 30th June 2007

The leaving ceremony at James Allen's (JAGS) at which Kei received the arts prize, the poetry prize, a Russian prize and the prize for the girl who had made an outstanding contribution to the whole school. Click the heading to see a video of the presentation

What Charity Dinners Should Be....

A charity dinner. It's easy to raise money for charities connected to the sea in Britain; some even have more than they need. It's actually volunteers they are short of...

Favourite Places

Another favourite place. Do you know it?

Edith Wharton

But I have sometimes thought that a woman's nature is like a great house full of rooms: there is the hall, through which everyone passes in going in and out; the drawing-room, where one receives formal visits; the sitting-room, where the members of the family come and go as they list; but beyond that, far beyond, are other rooms, the handles of whose doors perhaps are never turned; no one knows the way to them, no one knows whither they lead; and in the innermost room, the holy of holies, the soul sits alone and waits for a footstep that never comes.

The Fullness of Life

Favourite Places - Stowe

Another favourite place. Do you know this view?

Litchfield Church - St Cecilia's Prayer

The little church of St James the Less, Litchfield, on a summer's morning. My parents, Patrick and Annette, are buried here and I was christened here.

Fortunately, the vicar, Hamilton Lloyd, is very much of the old school and uses the Book of Common Prayer and King James's Bible in his erudite and amusing services.

This poem deals gently with the pain caused to the older generation by the adoption of modern forms of service

St Cecilia's
They have brought you up to date, Lord, down at St Cecilia's
They have pensioned off the organ and they are praising with guitars
They have done it for the young ones, we want to draw them in
But I do wish they could worship without making such a din

For I am growing rather deaf, Lord, and when there's all that noise
It gets so very hard, Lord, to hear your loving voice
They have written brand new hymns, Lord, with tunes I do not know
So I hardly ever sing now, though I did love singing so

They are very go-ahead, Lord - they are doing Series 3
But the words are not so beautiful as the others used to be
They have modernised the Bible, the Lord's Prayer and the Creed
When the old ones were so perfect that they filled my every need

My mind's not quite so agile as it was some years ago
And I miss the age-old beauty of the words I used to know
It's very clear to me, Lord - I've overstayed my time
I don't take to change so kindly I did when in my prime

But it can't be very long before I'm called above
And I know I'll find you there Lord and glory in your love
Till then I'll stick it out here, though it's not the same for me
But while others call you 'You' Lord, do you mind if I say 'Thee'

Mavis Clark

A more recent song takes aim at evangelicals and 'The Peace' to good effect 

Summertime

Koko isn't sure that she likes bruschetta, but is keeping her eye on it in case she is invited to try some...

Dulwich Park

Where Koko often has her morning walk....

Chelsea Flower Show 2007

Chelsea was quieter than usual and the show gardens not particularly special, apart from the Japanese moss garden (seen with its water window) and several of the tiny gardens hidden beyond the picnic area (see Le Jardin de Van Gogh above). But it's been the most perfect spring this year that most people can remember and the country's gardens are blooming early and spectacularly

Peace

People talk of world peace. But how can you ensure peace in the world? Here is the formula for it.

“If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character. If there is beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the home. If there is harmony in the home, there will be order in the nation. If there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world.”

It may thus be seen that the first link in the chain leading to world peace is righteousness or dharma. Dharma is only another name for right action. But the prerequisite for right action is right thought. In other words, peace should start with the individual and gradually spread wider and wider right along the line - from the home or family to the village to the nation, etc., till finally, it encompasses the entire world.

Sathya Sai Baba

Kei's Art

One of my daughter Kei's textiles

What happens when our digital footprint suddenly disappears from the screen?

What happens when our digital footprint suddenly disappears?

I'm not sure that most people have thought of it - perhaps because they mainly communicate with people they have actually met and therefore have other links with. However, there are some practical things that we should be doing to help others deal with our affairs, now that almost all our business and much of our private lives are conducted on line. A note for your family giving them usernames and passwords for your computers, e-mail accounts, address books, (Plaxo is terribly useful here as you can access it from any computer from the web and it also copies address books and notes across different computers), bank accounts, PayPal, Flickr, Genes Reunited, websites like this blog, Facebook etc.

Send a copy to your executors as well so that they can rummage around easily if you don't make it down to breakfast one day.

Legally speaking, one should make a 'digital will' - to include things like your photos. You can even leave your iTunes collection to someone!

Happy days and pass the pinot!

Mother Teresa

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.
Attributed to Mother Teresa

And more wise advice here

Jane Austen

Jane Austen's house in Chawton


Chawton House, near Jane Austen's own house. Owned by the Knights for generations, Herry used to go to dances there

One of my favourite pieces of writing is Lord Grey's essay on Jane Austen:

Jane Austen is to me the greatest wonder among novel writers. I do not mean that she is the greatest novel writer, but she seems to me the greatest wonder. Imagine, if you were to instruct an author or an authoress to write a novel under the limitations within which Jane Austen writes!
Suppose you were to say, "Now you must write a novel, but you must have no heroes or heroines in the accepted sense of the word. You may have naval officers, but they must always be on leave or on land, never on active service. You must have no striking villans; you may have a mild rake, but keep him well in the background, and if you are really going to produce something detestable, it must be so because of its small meannesses, as, for instance, the detestable Aunt Norris in 'Mansfield Park'; you must have no very exciting plots; you must have no thrilling adventures; a sprained ankle on a country walk is allowable, but you must not go much beyond this. You must have no moving descriptions of scenery; you must work without the help of all these; and as to passion, there must be none of it. You may, of course, have love, but it must be so carefully handled that it very often seems to get little above the temperature of liking. With all these limitations you are to write, not only one novel, but several, which, not merely by popular appreciation, but by the common consent of the greatest critics shall be classed amongst the first rank of the novels written in your language in your country."
Lord Grey of Falloden - The Falloden Papers