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POETRY: Stevie Smith

A salutary lesson - friends take note:

''People who are always praising the past
And especially the times of faith at best
Ought to go and live in the Middle Ages
And be burnt at the stake as witches and sages.''

Stevie Smith (1902-1971), British poet, novelist. The Past, Selected Poems (1962).

SHOPPING: David Linley & David Mellor

Xmas present from Linley?Smart cylinder contains matches to light a gladdening fire www.davidlinley.com

Firewood in basket ..multiple use... from a uniquely good shop: David Mellor.

www.davidmellordesign.com

ART I ADMIRE: The Drawings of Jasper Johns [1930 - ]

Jubilee

Untitled 1963

Flags

Souvenir 1964

CLEARING OUT OF POSTCARDS... with apologies to my friends

LIVING BY DESIGN / BOOKS: Jacques Grange

Un décor de Jacques ne s’explique pas, on y est sensible - Pierre Passebon

Grange epitomises the sophistication of a great designer adept at juggling, matching and mismatching different styles.  He is, in his very essence, a civilised and articulate man...with a Developed Eye.  He has a quintessentially French understanding of opulence, understatement and comfort.

ARCHITECTURE: St. George's Church, Bloomsbury

The portico is modelled on the Temple of Jupiter at Baalbek, the tower influenced by the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, with sculptures of lions and unicorns - the union of England & Scotland - a Hawskmoor (1661-1736) masterpiece.

Below: The Charles Grant Monument - Chairman of the East India Company [family famous for Grant's Whisky] - a friend of William Wilberforce, the abolitionist.

POETRY: Extract from Alexander Pushkin: TO NATALYA

So it's come to me at last ---

Cupid's such a flighty chap;

Fevered heart, has it fast --

In a trice I'm in his trap!

Vanished is the joyful day

When, not knowing love's dismay

I could live and blithely sing

At the theatre and fête,

Promenade and masquerade,

As a zephyr light of wing;

When I'd laugh at Cupid's spite,

Scoffing satires I would write

On the charming female kind;

But alas, I laughed in vain,

Felt at last his arrow's pain,

Fell myself out of my mind.

Freedom, mirth, wiped of the slate --- oh,

I must take a break from Cato

And assume a lover's part:

Saw the beauty of Natalya,

Lovely votaress of Thalia;

Now --- here's Cupid in my heart! 

LIVING BY DESIGN:

John Stefanidis 

 An Exercise in Luxury - Manhattan, NY

BOOKS: By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elisabeth Smart

Available from Amazon in paperback only

AWESOME - first published in 1945, it is three decades since I first read this extraordinary book and I was, once more, astonished.  A masterpiece of poetic prose.

To quote Brigid Brophy in her Foreword to the book 'Reading the book is like saying a tragic, pagan, erotic rosary'. 

LIVING BY DESIGN: Art Deco is still with us

Cecil Beaton, Loelia, Duchess of Westminster.
She is wearing a diamond tiara by Lacloche, [1930]

Still from Grand Hotel, directed by Edmund Goulding (1932)

Bernard Boutet de Monvel The Maharaja of Indore in Occidental Dress [1929)

Jean Dunand, pair of vases (1931)