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

that's 64 years running i've missed the fallas in valencia ... maybe next year !

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

window shopping in pimlico

billy bennett ... my role model for 2014

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


... and here are the words for you to learn by heart before you go to the pub

SHE WAS POOR, BUT SHE WAS HONEST

(aka IT'S THE SAME THE WHOLE WORLD OVER)

(Traditional - English Music Hall)

Billy Bennett - 1930

She was poor, but she was honest

Though she came from 'umble stock

And an honest heart was beating

Underneath her tattered frock

'Eedless of 'er Mother's warning

Up to London she 'ad gone

Yearning for the bright lights gleaming

'Eedless of temp-ta-shy-on

But the rich man saw her beauty

She knew not his base design

And he took her to a hotel

And bought her a small port wine

Then the rich man took 'er ridin'

Wrecker of poor women's souls

But the Devil was the chauffeur

As she rode in his Royce Rolls

In the rich man's arms she fluttered

Like a bird with a broken wing

But he loved 'er and he left 'er

Now she hasn't got no ring

It's the same the whole world over

It's the poor what gets the blame

It's the rich what gets the pleasure

Ain't it all a bloomin' shame?

Time has flown, outcast and helpless

In the street she stands and says

While the snowflakes fall around 'er

"Won't you buy my bootlaces?"

See him riding in a carriage

Past the gutter where she stands

He has made a stylish marriage

While she wrings her ringless hands

See him there at the theatre

In the front row with the best

While the girl that he has ruined

Entertains a sordid guest

See 'er on the bridge at midnight

She says "Farewell, blighted love"

There's a scream, a splash......Good 'eavens!

What is she a-doing of?

So they dragged 'er from the river

Water from 'er clothes they wrung

They all thought that she was drownded

But the corpse got up and sung

It's the same the whole world over

It's the poor what gets the blame

It's the rich what gets the pleasure

Ain't it all a bloomin' shame?

and my favourite ...

DON'T SEND MY BOY TO PRISON  performed by Billy Bennett (Almost a Gentleman)

The snow was falling 'orrid, the 'earth and 'ome was cold

To save his starving family, the sticks 'ad all bin sold

And when his poor old mother, she was a-stricken ill

He yielded to temptation, and, he rifled of the till.

Chorus: Don't send my boy to prison

It's the first crime wot he's done

'Six months.' replied his Lordship

'Oh Gawd 'elp my h'erring son.'

It was a simple h'action, to sneak another's wealth

But then 'e only done it, to save his family's 'ealth

Oh shed the tear of pity or quell an angry word

'E never knowed no better, Nor, voice of conscience served.

Chorus:

They shoved the irons across 'im, a-coming through the door

Says he, "I only done it because I was so poor"

The h'officer all a-trembling, he wipes away a tear

Says he, "I knows my duty, And, no more I mustn't hear."

Chorus:

The judge looks on in h'anger, and the prisoner hung his head

And then his poor old mother wot was with him upped and said,

"Don't send my boy to prison, It's the first crime wot he's done."

"Six months." replied his Lordship, "Oh, Gawd 'elp my h'erring son."

Chorus:

They takes 'im from the dock then, and carts 'im from the court

Not caring how his mother her poor home can now support

Thank God there's them in Marylebone who'll comfort her poor heart

And see her through her troubles, till they needs no more to part.

Chorus:

Deus, qui nos in tantis periculis constitutos, pro humana scis fragilitate non posse subsistere: da nobis salutem mentis et corporis ut ea quae pro peccatis nostris patimur, te adjuvante, vincamus. Per Dominum ... O God, who knowest that through human frailty, we are not able to subsist amidst such great dangers, grant us health of soul and body, that whatsoever things we suffer because of our sins, we may overcome them by thine assistance

it has been one of those mind-numbing weeks when letters go unfinished ...

joe hyam has embarked on a pub crawl around the galaxy ... missing you already, joe !

http://compasses-lucyandjoe.blogspot.co.uk/