Friday 20 December 2013

An end to travelling - at least for today

Wild wind and rain outside: the anenomes from London have arrived safely enough. A present from Tessa at a party earlier in the week: from one celebration to another in a plastic bag on the luggage rack....
Others have suffered a bit more - white petals are more vulnerable.

My brother picks me up from the station: the nicest moment of Christmas so far.
Two interesting thoughts from the journey:
"Men truly manifest themselves in the long pattern of their acts, and not in any nutshell of self theory."
The Black Prince/Iris Murdoch
"You can recognise a lunatic by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars."
Foucault's Pendulum/Umberto Eco
March 2014 will be the 700th anniversary of Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Templars who was burned at the stake in Paris

Reading and watching

  • Foot by Foot to Santiago de Compostela/Judy Foot
  • The Testament of Mary with Fiona Shaw at the Barbican
  • The Testament of Mary/Colm Toibin
  • Schwanengesang/Schubert - Tony Spence
  • Journals/Robert Falcon Scott
  • Fugitive Pieces/Ann Michaels
  • Unless/Carol Shields
  • Faust/Royal Opera House
  • The Art of Travel/Alain de Botton
  • Mad Men Series 6
  • A Week at The Airport/Alain de Botton
  • The Railway Man/Eric Lomax
  • Bright Lights, Big City/Jay McInerney
  • Stones of Venice/John Ruskin
  • The Sea, the Sea/Iris Murdoch
  • Childe Harold/Lord Byron
  • All The Pretty Horses/Cormac McCarthy
  • Extreme Rambling/Mark Thomas
  • Story of my Life/Jay McInerney
  • Venice Observed/Mary McCarthy