there but for fortune go you or i ...

returning from last night's concert and crossing the thames reminded me of a famous verse ...

The Embankment

( The fantasia of a Fallen Gentleman on a Cold, Bitter Night)

Once, in finesse of fiddles found I ecstasy,

In a flash of gold heels on the hard pavement.

Now see I

That warmth`s the very stuff of poesy.

Oh, God, make small

The old star-eaten blanket of the sky,

That I may fold it round me and in comfort lie.

T. E. Hulme (1883 - 1917)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._E._Hulme

the picture is picture from ... http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap091001.html

waiting for the girls to play us a bit of corelli in the norfolk room

competition time

a double first question, indicative of the author's distasteful curiosity about the enigmatic gender:

about the lady who wore this dress ... might she have swayed ? or wriggled ?

and a question of taste for the aesthete:

which of these teapots from the same small room in the V&A might she have chosen for brewing the first cup of the day ?

giving fenchurch a drink at sheffield park

in the sidings at sheffield park

a good friend retires tomorrow ...

... so i've borrowed two of robert crumb's immortal images for this "cheapskate's card"

mens' talk ... instead of thinking about the dishes, he's thinking "lucky arsenal !"

1001 uses ... anti-tilt storage mechanism

1001 uses ... safe storage of little pointy scissorzez

3BT, well maybe 2not-quite-soBT at the V&A last night

A Dickensian/Gothick tableau in the darkened cafe ... an actor face-painted in red personifying Death, sits down at long straight table with an imposing retinue of sinister companions, some of the men with tall hats, the women plumed or tiara-d, each one strikingly elegant and sinister in black.

In the Japanese gallery, a treasure house of joyfully aspirational marvels and perfections, a row of very young people, too young to properly know the tragic passions and the deadly sins, sitting cross-legged in eager anticipation to watch an old black-and-white fillum of the visceral Japanese ghost tale, Onibaba.

The luminous and never ending life-stream of interesting bodies and faces and fashions and fancy-dress entering this great museum as if it were their second home.

shiny objects on the station at horsted keynes

light at the end of the tunnel

first class, non-smoking, yes please !

carriage restoration at horsted keynes ... its easy when you know how

oatmeal stout ... only two and six a dozen !

save yourself a lifetime of scholarship and bathe yourself in the reflected warmth of jenny uglow's brilliance

a little slice of ashdown forest

possibly the smartest doggie on the common

i wear my classical scholarship lightly

the child that books built

i felt myself drawn to the open door of a charity shop which usually fails to entice ... i spotted this book immediately and remembered the author's name being favourably reviewed elsewhere in recent years ... it is deeply engaging and occasionally challenging ... what's more ... the bbc have archived the author's reflections on the writing of it in five very short talks totalling about twenty minutes

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/speechanddrama/workinprogress/spufford.shtml