stop press: my brother greg is setting out soon to walk from biarritz to santiago de compostela ... you'll need an 'at, bruv

... and so, even though little red riding hood had chosen the path "less traveled by", the pub was still shut

... actually, the idea of little red riding hood encountering the green man might enchant other fans of "the thinking man's lightly toasted teacake", ms marina walker

stuff between westminster and victoria

elementary, my dear watson ... the man we seek is a self-taught artist with an astigmatism ... who has just caught the night bus to kingston

dreaming

… dreamed I was cycling through Kent very early on a warm misty cuckoo morning & passed through a village of huge stone buildings festooned with ornament & coats of arms that might have looked more appropriate in Whitehall or Santiago. Perhaps I was thinking of the venerable public school we deliver cheese to in Tonbridge. The air was filled with birdsong, no human was to be seen or heard, there were masses of laburnum & ivy & virginia creeper everywhere, & families of deer tiptoed daintily on the tops of walls & on every ledge to tear off & feast noisily upon their juicy boughs …

garlic on toast

i used to share a kitchen with a lovely feller named robert stredder who ate garlic as if it were fruit ... there was uproar one sunday morning when i bit into my toast and realized he'd just used my shiny new breadknife to chop his little mountain of garlic

saturday ... time to practise my fruit cocktail makin'n'shakin skills

easily distracted

another flurry of snow coming down across the sugar loaf

Llanfihangel Tor y Mynydd

i've reached page 350 of moby dick

... and i'm enjoying it very much

melville is delightfully witty and he's such a lucid narrator

later: a moby dick web site via meta filter: http://www.powermobydick.com/

our easter dvd ... nacho libre ... i shouldn't laugh, but i did

easter is the ideal time for a quiet family gathering

self indulgent ? not really, because i only ate the one that was nearest to me

good job we left the christmas decorations up until easter ... it just started snowing

easter

yesterday i popped in to the national gallery and made an habitual bee-line for this painting by the master of the saint bartholomew altarpiece

know thine enemy

no need for you to ask which side of the creationist.v.scientist ding-dong i'm supporting ...

my sympathies are with the old man with the white beard so i enjoyed discovering this topical little anecdote today

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/03/expelled.php

as brigadier ritchie-hook used to say, "biff the enemy"

maximum potential ... my money is on this kid ... first spaniard to captain a world cup winning team and win a nobel prize

they also serve who only stand and wait

city of dreaming spires

the glorious memory of the all-conquering spanish synchronized swimming team's performance in eindhoven will never fade

the station at atocha

they've cleaned up the crystal palace in the retiro and made it in to a gallery

a full half of the national archaeological museum is currently closed to visitors ... but it is still worth the trip

the big hairdresser's

spain's national film theatre

the roman aqueduct at segovia ... logical, methodical, perspirational building, 2100 years old

palm sunday in segovia

a spanish swimmer imposes her will on a giant crayfish, as you do

segovian beggar

hedz will roll

rust and verdure

we're back

what should i wear when we go to madrid ? ... choosing the correct old pair of sunglasses

blue veils and golden sands

... is an interesting radio play by martin wade about the interesting but short career of the inspirational sound engineer and truly english eccentric delia derbyshire ... you can catch a repeat of it for just the next three or four days on the radio 4 web site

apropos de nuffinque