I spent a free Sunday morning in fascinated wandering through the city of Oxford.
Thankfully the sun came out too!
Category Archives: Culture
Spring at RHS Wisley
A walk round RHS Wisley has the unerring ability to fill me with the hope that spring is the season du jour.
A Day in the Bath
The High Mountains of Portugal
The High Mountains of Portugal is comprised of three stories whose connection become clear throughout the book: the first, and strongest in my opinion, features Tomás in 1904 who discovers a journal, untouched since it was written by a Father Ulisses in the mid-seventeenth century, which details an object that he has made. Tomás makes it his mission to find the object. It chronicles his journey (in one of the very first Renault cars) through the high mountains of Portugal.
‘Vogue 100’ at the National Portrait Gallery
Evelyn Waugh looks, frankly, like he’s just read a line from one of his own books in the silent section of the library, and is relying on his bracing hands on his knees to give him the strength necessary to resist the inevitable eruption of giggles from within. Waugh’s gaze seems past us, slightly over our shoulders, in Irving Penn’s square photograph from 1952. His thick wool suit is more creased than his forehead, near where the top of the photograph ends.
Snowdon’s verbose (can we use that word to describe an image?) photograph of Salman Rushdie in his London home shortly after he won the Booker Prize for Midnight’s Children shows Rushdie in a Windsor chair in the corner of the room, head turned towards us, chin in his hand, bathetic.
Continue reading ‘Vogue 100’ at the National Portrait Gallery
Painting the Modern Garden at the Royal Academy
It felt like Monet’s water lilies took my stare and enclosed it tightly in their gentle, pink, waxy clutches.
Continue reading Painting the Modern Garden at the Royal Academy
Catullus’ Bedspread Daisy Dunn Book Launch
There was an excitable buzz last night at the launch of Daisy Dunn’s debut books: Catullus’ Bedspread: The Life of Rome’s Most Erotic Poet and The Poems of Catullus, at Peter Harrington Rare Books in Dover Street, Mayfair.
Among the 200+ guests pounding the shop’s floor were Ian and Victoria Hislop, Sir Simon Jenkins, Hannah Kaye, Mike Grady, Hugo Williams, Giles Milton, Suzannah Lipscomb, Michael Cockerell, Gordon Corera, Thane Prince…
The Ingram Collection: Bodies! at The Lightbox
The human body has long been depicted in its unadorned state for thousands of years – from cave paintings to the present – and it remains a constant source of artistic stimulus today.
Continue reading The Ingram Collection: Bodies! at The Lightbox
‘We Knew You Were Coming’
This blog post took its genesis from a family friend who kindly lent me a fascinating booklet produced by The Maldens and Coombe Heritage Society that details the exceptional proportion of Victoria Cross medals that were awarded to military who hailed from this particular corner of Surrey. Interestingly, there were three Victoria Cross medal recipients from the New Malden area. To put that in perspective, there are only two other places in the world that share the same accolade and those are: Carluke in South Lanarkshire, Scotland and Euroa, near Melbourne, Australia. However, of the three, New Malden is the only town with no separate commemorative site, statue or memorial to visit.
Quentin Blake Exhibition at The Lightbox
I think I timed my visit to see the latest exhibition at The Lightbox in Woking rather well, as it coincided with Quentin Blake’s 83rd birthday today!