to greenwich in the rain ...

... and the fabulous national maritime museum

necessity is the mother of invention

ornaments of malmesbury society, sue and james castle loitering in the national portrait gallery

trafalgar square on a rainy night in january

captain james cook maintaining a sharp lookout in front of the admiralty

garrets

the old cabbies' cabin under hungerford bridge

thames, dogger, fisher, humber ... windy and wet

nine elms moon set

fellini satyricon

not a "nice" film ... but possibly a great film

after seeing it thirty something years ago i was troubled and haunted by it's violence and amorality

i wondered if it had been made with a subtext, such as ...

"fellow italians, we've been here before ! do you really want to go here again ?"

of course, i was fatuously wrong

i now know that life and art can't offer us an either/or scenario and fellini would certainly have known that !

people don't juxtapose the words sublime and ridiculous for nothing

bought at hartfield in ashdown forest, a gentle "your turn to make the toast" reminder for the loved one

to the tate britain on millbank ...

... to see a splendidly curated exhibition of works by holbein ...

... reproductions can't to justice to holbein's delicacy ...

... i can't think of a better portraitist than holbein ...

... and then the loved one ...

... and i dined in the rex whistler restaurant

the three cats who guard our slumbers

a rambling sort of verse that has criss-crossed my life, first as an errant schoolboy, then as wandering van driver

The Rolling English Road

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.

I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.

His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run
Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.
God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.

My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton