Clifford Witting’s Measure for Murder (1941) belongs to that strand of Golden Age crime fiction whose pleasures lie as much in social observation as in puzzle-solving. One of the enduring appeals of the genre is the glimpse it can provide into an England now almost unrecognisable, yet still just within living memory. Here that includes … Read more
The two-forty-five express — Paddington to Market Blandings, first stop Oxford—stood at its piatform with that air of well-bred reserve which is characteristic of Paddington trains, and Pongo Twistleton and Lord Ickenham stood beside it, waiting for Polly Pott. The clock over the bookstall pointed to thirty-eight minutes after the hour. Some train engines are … Read more
When I was in the emergency room last year having busted my elbow, a nurse asked whether I had ever broken anything else. I expect she was probing to see whether I had acquired that oldies’ habit of throwing yourself to available floors and sidewalks.. I had a ready and precise answer; “Yes. I broke … Read more
I received a book in the mail this week. Nothing unusual about that even though I do try to buy my books from my local shop. What is unusual is that this book lists my name in the back. I am among the scores of people who help crowd-source the costs. The book’s subject appealed … Read more
In 1913, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore “because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West” 1921 the Nobel Prize in Physics was … Read more
I like to learn and one of the things I have learned is that I really don’t like being taught. There’s been a few notable exceptions but generally being “taught” is not my cup of tea and brings out the worst in me. So – rather at cross grain – I enrolled in a short … Read more
It’s December and the full onslaught of the cultural waterboarding of commercial Christmas is about to roll out. Before it takes its full toll, here are a few vintage seasonal illustrations. First – to the right – Edith Holden from 1906. She has a full complement of British winter birds – blackbird, robin, hedge-sparrows and … Read more
Britain declared war on Germany just after U.A. Fanthorpe’s birthday in 1939. She was ten. Living in Kent she was familiar with the signs and sounds, fears and deprivations of wartime England. She knows the enemy – whom she calls by the popular put-down, the Hun – by “the nightly whines, searchlights, thuds, bomb-sites”. Her French … Read more
Traveler, there is no road Caminante, no hay camino Traveler, your footprints are the only road, nothing else. Traveler, there is no road; you make your own path as you walk. As you walk, you make your own road, and when you look back you see the path you will never travel again. Traveler, there … Read more
There’s a comfort in routines and familiar sounds. Some towns have a noon whistle. If you’ve lived near a school or a factory you’ll know a routine. If you’re close to a children’s playground you can tell the time of day as it fills up with voices when school gets out. My childhood had the Swindon … Read more