BOOKS: Christopher Hitchens

The joys of the Internet – four clicks on Amazon and you get four books on your I:Pad...this I did for Christopher Hitchens.

Whilst not always agreeing – immediately - with all that he said, I will read anything by Hitch, he was the most honest and fearless writer I know, and the most articulate, and he makes you think and he makes you laugh.   

DRAMA: Well, He Would Wouldn't He?

Last chance to listen to BBC Radio 4 Saturday Drama on BBC I:player http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qspvq

ART I Admire: Workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio [1435-1488]

Tobias and the Angel [1470-80]

COMMENT: Financial Times

I was very interested by this chart from

 the Financial Times on Saturday February 23, 2013...

POETRY: Frederick Broadie

Frederick Broadie [1913-2009] - philosopher, poet, musician and novelist:

Recall
A word lay dead upon a tree.
She plucked it off and gave it to me
Alive again with all her love
Still walking in that orange grove.

I heard it in the burning noon,
Passing on this final day,
Would stop and beg her pluck me too
From the hearse on which I lay,
But the driver and the horse
Were deafer than the dead of course.

The Knight of Faith
All I can do to mind
Is being told,
Two thousand years gone by
That till the dawn grows old
And Satan kind,
I, outside there in the cold
Beside the iron door
Must wait.
But why,
Or what by that command
I wait here for,
I cannot call to mind,
Yet this I know,
it was two thousand years ago,
Before my brown locks bowed before
The fall of faultless snow. 

TRAVEL: India Part IV

The Jal Mahal, JAIPUR

A water palace built by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II some 300 years ago.  The Mansagar Lake is now clean and fresh, the pavilion beautifully restored, there are many wall paintings by local artists - tinglingly decorative!  

A stunning Moghul Jasmine Garden is built on the roof [note the lotus flowers made of marble in the water]. 

Samod Fort, Rajastan

BOOKS: PROUST

To have read Proust is a benchmark of a cultivated person – in the West at least.  Last summer I re-read all of ’A la Recherche du Temps Perdu’ on my I-Pad.

From Christopher Hitchins’ review of ‘Swann’s Way ‘by Marcel Proust, translated by Lydia Davis.
The Acutest Ear in Paris….if asked to summarise the achievement of Proust I reply as dauntlessly as I dared that his is the work ‘par excellence’ that exposes and clarifies the springs of human motivation…along with being “about” social climate and fashion, and the countryside versus the city, and sexual inversion and also Jewishness, with l’affaire Dreyfuss one of the binding and constitutive elements in its narrative, Proust’s novel…is all about time.

Also from this article – regarding English translations - Nancy Mitford wrote to Evelyn Waugh… “There is not one [joke] in all sixteen of S. Monerieff’s volumes.  In French one laughs from the stomach, as when reading you”. To use an old-fashioned expression ‘non swanks’ – I re-read it in French. 

For shirkers who need to practice the language there are some charming books of cartoons.

COMMENT: The British Museum

Room 1 - The Enlightenment Gallery - one of the best rooms in London.  Completed in 1828, it was designed by Robert Smirke to house the library of King George III.  It is now a cabinet of curiosities on a vast scale.  Discovering the world in the 18th Century...

On to a preview of Ice Age Art, the oldest figurative art that are staggeringly 10,000 to 40,000 years old.  A very moving collection of some 130 objects on loan from Germany, France, the Czech Republic and Siberia.

From February 7 - May 26, 2013. DO NOT MISS. 

http://www.britishmuseum.org/?gclid=CPyWk-i7sLUCFY3LtAodemwAoQ

JOHN STEFANIDIS FABRICS: Blues

JS 'Floral' in lilac used in a country house in England 

John Stefanidis Fabrics available from:

London, UK - Tissus d'Helene

Showroom: Chelsea Harbour, London, SW10 0XF

Phone: +44 (0) 20 7352 9977

Email: sales@tissusdhelene.co.uk 

Website: tissusdhelene.co.uk

Miami, USA - Monica James

Showroom: 40 NE 40th Street, Miami, FL 33137

Phone: + 1 305-576-6222

Email: sales@monicajames.com

Website: monicajames.com

Los Angeles, USA – Harbinger

Showroom: 752 North La Cienega Blvd,West Hollywood, CA 90069

Phone: +1 310 858 6884

Email: Info@HarbingerLA.com

Website: harbingerla.com

ARCHITECTURE WITHOUT ARCHITECTS Part II

VILLAGES IN THE SUN 

Mediterranean Community Architecture

 by Myron Goldfinger, published by Lund Humphries [1969]

Mykonos, Greece

Alberobello, Italy - each trullo exisits of a square or rectangular base topped by a conical dry stone roof with a chalk-coated finial. The domes' interiors are whitewashed for good light reflection.

      Post-Byzantine churches of the Aegean islands

Takrouna, Tunisia - built by the Berbers, the use of stone for both walls and vaulting is in response to the local scarcity of wood and for maximum protection against heat and cold: a thick coat of white stucco reflects sunlight and reduces wind infiltration.

DRAMA: The Judas Kiss by David Hare

Do what you can to see this excellent play at London's Duke of York's Theatre - if only not to miss Rupert Everett as Oscar Wilde - it is an extraordinary performance.
And more West End nudity!