my brother greg ( lower left ) with his dad ... greg usually has a birthday about this time of the year

fun ! fun ! fun ! looks as if the drive to lyme regis on saturday morning might be a bit of an adventure

V&A ...

at the V&A ... incontrovertible evidence that rugby union football was invented in nazareth

blimey ! sheila evans has fashioned another rag rug ... for linda crabb ... i shouldn't be jealous, but i am !

lost in sussex ...

candlemas ... i still like the story of simeon, even if i amn't religious ... we used to sing a nice version of nunc dimittis in malmesbury abbey back in the 1950s ... by stanford, in C

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

this is the best version i can find on the internet ... closest to the way we sang it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6CEDIL0O7k

the painting is by giotto, in padua

saturday ... i'm off to the fish stall

.... should i walk, ride, or drive ?

for joe hyam, epicure ... you never told me you'd been an artist's model

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

don't interrupt me ... february is going to be classical scholarship month

charity shop trophy .... six asterix stories in one volume for eighty pence

waldemar, carry on up the rococo ... nuff said, do watch !

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03slvhy/Rococo_Travel_Pleasure_Madness_Pleasure/

nice observation on the benefit of piano practice during nine-minute interview with rusbridger for a german tv channel

http://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/weltspiegel-guardian100.html

we englischers can listen to the whole of the conversation in the second of the two fillums

waldemar ? and how do you spell januszczak ? that man is so totally unpardonably sans souci ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03sg830/Rococo_Travel_Pleasure_Madness_Travel/

saturday ... vexed by my inability to sleep late, i wake at five and read the introduction to japanese drawings by j.r.hillier, studio vista, 1965, chucked out by the library because it was too old ... and scan in some favourites

hillier, himself a collector, writes that artists such as these made a living from paintings and prints .... and surprisingly few of their actual drawings were kept