Category Archives: life

Helen McCrory

17 Apr

Despite its being (a) preposterous, (b) amoral and (c) reactionary in more ways than I’ve time to spell out, I’m a huge fan of Peaky Blinders. Larger than life characterisations by actors at the top of their game, edge-of-seat melodrama, … Read More »

Magpies nesting

6 Apr

By middle of March a pair of magpies were nest building in a cherry tree at foot of our garden, two metres from a three-storey house whose east facing end wall overlooks the back of ours. That wall shelters the … Read More »

Sloe progress

10 Mar

Demand for a follow up to my sloe gin post of five months ago is now approaching denial of service attack levels. My public, insistent on a progress report, must be appeased. Just after nineteen hundred on the evening of … Read More »

Red Rosa

8 Mar

For International Women’s Day, here’s a plug for a wonderful graphic biography of Rosa Luxemburg. Reviewing it in late 2015, I wrote: if we’re talking womanhood celebrated, here’s a rare treat for feminist and socialist alike. Red Rosa by Kate … Read More »

Great tits of Attenborough

25 Feb

By far the commonest tit – in fact the commonest non water bird, period – in Attenborough is the blue tit. Here’s one snapped yesterday as I took advantage of the sunshine, and highest temperatures in many a month, to … Read More »