sir robert clayton and his wife, martha, and their son Robert, who had died long before them in his infancy, some say on the very first day of his life

The Clayton Memorial, in the church at Bletchingly, was put up by Sir Robert Clayton very late in his own lifetime, in 1705, in honour of his wife. 

Sir Robert was Lord Mayor of London, Member of Parliament for Blechingley, and a benefactor of St Thomas's Hospital and Christ's Hospital. He lived at Pendell. It is by Richard Crutcher and is considered one of the best examples of the work of that period.  The fine wrought-iron railings are contemporary and were painted blue and gold.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Clayton

http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1660-1690/member/clayton-sir-robert-1629-1707

I've photographed the memorial before, but had another chance today when forced to take a "tacho break".

rules of reading ... ONE: always read the label before partaking

at my secret little bus stop in paradise

trucker's bargain of the week

i'm listening to a long rarther posh song about food whilst not listening to the archers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4dzP7gNO6w

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._4_(Mahler)

Das himmlische Leben (aus Des Knaben Wunderhorn) Wir genießen die himmlischen Freuden, D'rum tun wir das Irdische meiden. Kein weltlich' Getümmel Hört man nicht im Himmel! Lebt alles in sanftester Ruh'. Wir führen ein englisches Leben, Sind dennoch ganz lustig daneben; Wir tanzen und springen, Wir hüpfen und singen, Sankt Peter im Himmel sieht zu. Johannes das Lämmlein auslasset, Der Metzger Herodes d'rauf passet. Wir führen ein geduldig's, Unschuldig's, geduldig's, Ein liebliches Lämmlein zu Tod. Sankt Lucas den Ochsen tät schlachten Ohn' einig's Bedenken und Achten. Der Wein kost' kein Heller Im himmlischen Keller; Die Englein, die backen das Brot. Gut' Kräuter von allerhand Arten, Die wachsen im himmlischen Garten, Gut' Spargel, Fisolen Und was wir nur wollen. Ganze Schüsseln voll sind uns bereit! Gut' Äpfel, gut' Birn' und gut' Trauben; Die Gärtner, die alles erlauben. Willst Rehbock, willst Hasen, Auf offener Straßen Sie laufen herbei! Sollt' ein Fasttag etwa kommen, Alle Fische gleich mit Freuden angeschwommen! Dort läuft schon Sankt Peter Mit Netz und mit Köder Zum himmlischen Weiher hinein.[note 1] Sankt Martha die Köchin muß sein. Kein' Musik ist ja nicht auf Erden, Die unsrer verglichen kann werden. Elftausend Jungfrauen Zu tanzen sich trauen. Sankt Ursula selbst dazu lacht. Kein' Musik ist ja nicht auf Erden, Die unsrer verglichen kann werden. Cäcilia mit ihren Verwandten Sind treffliche Hofmusikanten! Die englischen Stimmen Ermuntern die Sinnen, Daß alles für Freuden erwacht.

The Heavenly Life (from Des Knaben Wunderhorn) We enjoy heavenly pleasures and therefore avoid earthly ones. No worldly tumult is to be heard in heaven. All live in greatest peace. We lead angelic lives, yet have a merry time of it besides. We dance and we spring, We skip and we sing. Saint Peter in heaven looks on. John lets the lambkin out, and Herod the Butcher lies in wait for it. We lead a patient, an innocent, patient, dear little lamb to its death. Saint Luke slaughters the ox without any thought or concern. Wine doesn't cost a penny in the heavenly cellars; The angels bake the bread. Good greens of every sort grow in the heavenly vegetable patch, good asparagus, string beans, and whatever we want. Whole dishfuls are set for us! Good apples, good pears and good grapes, and gardeners who allow everything! If you want roebuck or hare, on the public streets they come running right up. Should a fast day come along, all the fishes at once come swimming with joy. There goes Saint Peter running with his net and his bait to the heavenly pond. Saint Martha must be the cook. There is just no music on earth that can compare to ours. Even the eleven thousand virgins venture to dance, and Saint Ursula herself has to laugh. There is just no music on earth that can compare to ours. Cecilia and all her relations make excellent court musicians. The angelic voices gladden our senses, so that all awaken for joy.

the long weekend

on yesterday's "something understood" i heard fiona shaw reading from virginia woolf's three guineas ... should you want to read the whole damned thing, then you can download the book free from the internet and use kindle's software to read it in a comfortably large format if your eyeballs have as short an attention span as mine

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b042cs5c

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91tg/

s'Oundle ! Ennit ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oundle

by the roadside at rectory farm in lower benefield ... 'twas obviously marie-antoinette's secret summer hideaway, ennit ? ... the curved wall is shelved so that the milk churns could be left there for collection

an ickle bit of poetry springs to mind ...

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rmhttp/schools/teachers/offbyheart/the_kings_breakfast_milne.pdf

May Day

By the pond which heads two valleys at Turners Hill … the first swallow.

By a quarry near Betchworth, momentarily quiet at lunchtime, only the sounds of falling rain and a skylark.

Just about everywhere … the scents of cow parsley, hawthorn, and freshly mown grass.

3BT

Emerging victorious from a winding race against imagined rivals, my truck flies up through the damp and shivery bluebelled woods on the western side of Ashdown Forest to encounter a cheering throng of about a zillion fluffy dandelion seed heads dewily bejewelled and backlit by the rising sun.

At breakfast time, four hours in to my working day, Barb the wise coffee woman at Waitrose in Crowborough is sliding my best coffee in town across the counter before I can open my mouth to order it.

Much later, as I wash the dishes after supper, a huge thundery cloud edged with silver darkens the western horizon where we look out across the Thames Valley from Putney Heath towards Kew and Northolt and the very distant Chalfonts.  By a trick of light and perspective, a solitary late sunbeam finds a gap and slopes up from left to right, and for a few minutes a succession of gleaming jets flying out of Heathrow seem to climb that beam as if it were a Freeway to Heaven.

art and politics ( part 99 ) thomas hobbes' leviathan ... first and second version frontispieces ... look at the little figures that "constitute" the big one

i'll be more than happy to sell you the franchise on alvi's artistic output for one million dollars ... cash !

you never told me your granny had been an artist's model ...

supper at emmaus ... veronese's version is just a little bit like hello magazine for the late 1550's, i'm assuming most of the figures are the unknown patron's family

titian ... 1530














tintoretto ... 1542

veronese ... 1559

caravaggio ... 1601

and caravaggio again ... 1605

and velasquez ... 1620

waiting for the veronese exhibition to open on saturday morning ... why? oh why didn't i bring my snorkel and flippers ?

I apologize ...

if you have received an inappropriate e-mail from me ... i appear to have been hacked ... i'll lay low for a few days and change my password, etc etc

20 years ago, or more ! sandi blake ran up three plain canvas panels to cover the lower part of a bay window in a basement flat in hove ... and asked me to decorate them ... NOW !!!, she said ... expediency led me to steal, shamelessly, from other people's ideas ... so, apologies to matisse and duncan grant are long overdue ... and then she moved out, so i took 'em back !

one of my favourite fillums ...

... and one of my favourite paintings

saturday morning bliss after a physically and mentally exhausting week ... sitting in a sunny window to write in peace, perfect peace !

i may have to travel some distance to get a decent game of polo ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSxHZK2pruA

feeding time in the primates' enclosure

... many thanx to janet for the lovely picture

in highgate cemetery

joe hyam, late of tunbridge wells ... i'll never meet a sweeter man

chancing on the derveni krater's very existence, i was so impressed by this writer that i went online & bought the book ... it was quite hard to find, and very easy for the shippers to lose, but i've just rescued it from the local sorting office ... battered but invitingly readable

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krater

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derveni_krater

i couldn't find or obtain the book in my local library and was interested in avoiding paying money to amazon ... i found a link that went via waterstones to a book store in pennsylvania, but when the book finally did arrive it had come from the great alibris warehouse, improbably situated in the remote town of Sparks in nevada

an aesthete rampages through the national portrait gallery

i cannot subdue my sporting instincts ... please, please, please will someone lend me an elephant ? or a pony ? on second thoughts ... it had better be the elephant