Apologies to our old and valued client for prolonged neglect. Things have been a little complicated. We had an Unlamented Uncle to dispose of – the old party in question having outlived his friends, wife, wits, &c., was not any great source of grief; so condolences are quite otiose. The funeral was a perfectly […]
A delightful fact gathered in the course of the pursuit of my gainful employment as a scholar-Keeper: the Young Gentlemen at King’s Aberdeen in 1715, after the supression of the rising, burnt George I in effigy, causing the town crier of Old Aberdeen to summon the populace to the burning in effigy of the Duke […]
We have been unusually busy for the last few days: for complicated internal reasons our university suddenly needed someone to acquire some idea of what we hold in the way of satire (late 17th to early 19th century) and write a report on it in a very great hurry. This we did. There […]
We were having a very silly conversation over supper. What, we wondered, would be the top ranking national cuisines of the world seen from a canine perspective? Our first thought of course was Traditional British, shepherd’s pie, macaroni cheese and all that, but we had second thoughts. There is after all, Germany (wurst, innumerable pig […]
My adored godfather has taken a very stern line about the colds which we took to the Renaissance Society of America in Cambridge and which have remained with us despite visits to the chinese doctor and drinking decoctions of alder-cones and staying in bed a very great deal. My godfather’s diagnosis (which a moment’s reflection […]
We came back to find that the Apparitional Gamekeeper has split up with his girlfriend. A matter of some relief to the adult community, since the girlie in question is whiny, manipulative, negative and a pain in the neck. To the Apparitional One, however, she has seemed all that was charming, and he has consequently […]
We have been down South for a week: the Renaissance Society of America was convening at Cambridge, and we had business there. Cambridge was showing its snarliest face; hail, bitingly cold, damp winds and grey implacable skies. Big conferences are a rum go in any circumstances, and this one was bigger, and rummer, than most. […]
We’ve finally in the course of today come to understand a quiet tragedy which has been developing up in the back field: the beautiful and sweet-natured colt Magic, for all his blond mane, chestnut hide, big brown eyes, and general beauty, has turned in the last couple of months into a total disaster. […]
The Lady Novelist and I have spent the day (a glorious day, probably all the summer we’ll get) being indisposed and writing accounts of university collections and that sort of thing. And all the while Dr Biswell and the Apparitional Gamekeeper have been planting in the wood several silver birch trees and also some rowans […]