Last year they showed the documentary “Nothing Like a Dame” on telly with theatrical Dames Judi Dench, Eileen Atkins, Joan Plowright and Maggie Smith all filmed chatting together in Dame Joan’s garden and it was a complete delight. The only thing wrong with it from my point of view was that I realised I had never seen Dame Maggie on stage. I am ( Read more... )

As the rain pours down and the wind howls I think it’s probably fair to say that the summer is now over. Having not updated since June I’m not sure what to say about it really apart from the fact it was far too hot for me to be anything other than idle. Most of the time since my last update seems to have been taken up with having our central ( Read more... )

Happy Easter to those who celebrate, happy holidays to those who don't ( Read more... )

I thought I'd keep up with my record of always being late for the Book Meme, when I manage it at all.

What I've Just Finished Reading

A Nervous Splendour: Vienna 1888-89 by Frederic Morton. I bought this last year to read before we went to Vienna, so obviously I started reading it this year in Budapest! The author looks at this era of Viennese ( Read more... )

Sorry I’ve not been around for a bit. We’ve had a few up and down patches with my mother which are always rather draining. There have been good things going on though.

We actually managed to go to our local indie cinema (resurrected by volunteers after the council closed it) to see A United Kingdom. This was the story of Seretse Khama, first ( Read more... )

Sorry about the amazing lack of entries from me recently. My mother was in hospital for 5 weeks and only came out on Friday. The hospital have done an amazing job of curing her many infections but unfortunately they are all likely to come back again. In herself she is much better at the moment, which is the main thing, but I'm not sure how long ( Read more... )

No Book Meme this week as I'm still immersed in The Guns of August so have some BookBenches instead. To promote reading and literacy Books About Town have put a series of BookBenches celebrating authors in four trails around London. It's partly to entertain kids in the school holidays but it's fun for adults as well. I've only done the Riverside ( Read more... )

A melange of different things.

On Tuesday we went to the Menier Chocolate Factory to see Two Into One a Ray Clooney farce, which was a complete blast from the past in more ways than one. Not only was it a classic old style farce but it also starred Michael Praed, of Robin of Sherwood fame, as the womanising MP Richard Willey (yes, that was the ( Read more... )

We had a useful trip to Lincolnshire and actually made some progress in dealing with what's going to happen to Ma-in-Law's house. We'll probably have to make a few more trips before it's all sorted but at least something is happening at last. We have actually cleared a lot of stuff out of the house over the last few years, but it was still a bit ( Read more... )

We've been unusually busy recently. Over the past few days we have seen a semi-staged performance of Carmen by a Russian opera group (much better than we thought it would be); been on a tour of the Reform Club with my mother (far more interesting and relaxed than anticipated); gone to a family dinner (chaotic); and taken delivery of our new and ( Read more... )