Thursday 28 April 2011
Tuesday 26 April 2011
Sunday 24 April 2011
Friday 22 April 2011
o temps, suspend ton vol
What is it that's going on? There's Andrew Marr delving into the middle distance past with a vision as coherent as his former daily political comments from the Houses of Parliament. There's Paxman lining up with a second mini-series on the Victorians, taking us to places we see with a different eye and pictures brought out of deep storage into the stimulating embrace of electronic media. And David Dimbleby (the elder of Richard's boys - Richard from the world of black and white merging into gentle shades of grey) ambling round the countryside while the ghost of Betjeman looks on. Approvingly. I could go on but I have no desire to inaugurate yet another catalogue of nostalgia. Blackwell's, blessed Blackwell's, leads me happily astray yet once again. I spoiled their display when I picked up a copy of "Romantic Moderns" by Alexandra Harris - but I had no extra sets of hands to help with the rebuilding. Alex Harris - for so she signs herself - was born in 1981. For me that's only the day before yesterday. But she writes of 1936 and what follows with an assurance and an entrancing felicity of style. 1936. I remember it well. In January the old King died and a vision of a new future was proclaimed by the Grace of God (and the voice of the Earl Marshall). In December we listened to the broadcast voice of the man who set aside the trappings of Kingship in order to marry the woman he loved. Meanwhile in Europe - for we hardly considered ourselves part of that heterogenous assemblage - the Fatherland was marching on to more and more Liebesraum ; and in Spain, my memory suggests, Generalissimo Francisco Franco's four divisions were closing in on Madrid, while a Fifth Column within the city was already preparing the way. And 1936 rings crystal bells for me. 1936 was the year Gerald Gardner came back to England and fell in love with a woman he met in circles where they put aside the world and wove a web of magical recoudescence. Together. Times present. Times past. Times to come. francis cameron, oxford, 22 april 2011
Tuesday 19 April 2011
Friday 15 April 2011
Tuesday 5 April 2011
Monday 4 April 2011
Sunday 3 April 2011
Julian Lloyd Webber - cellist
I once saw Julian in the flesh. He was still a schoolboy but already with some reputation as a cellist. He was demonstrating for us some of the technical requirements of the Associated Board's examinations. That must have been in 1965 when I was back from Canada. Today I see him on the Andrew Marr Show talking about his impending 60th birthday celebrations. Could that first encounter really have been so long ago? Carpe diem.
Friday 1 April 2011
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